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400 BCE
Dualism
The view that our souls and minds are distinct from the physical world and the objects within it. -
Period: 400 BCE to
Psychology Timeline
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384 BCE
Aristotle
Student of Plato, believed that we gain knowledge from experience and using logic and reasoning to make sense of what we observe. He did not believe in an innate knowledge like Socrates and Plato did. He focused on careful observation and reasoning about facts; which was a precursor for the modern, scientific study of behavior. -
300 BCE
Socrates
He believed that we were born with knowledge and that if we reason correctly we can access that information. -
Scientific Method
The scientific method really began to be applied to questions philosophers had been asking for years in the 1800s! This was when psychology became a formal, scientific study apart from philosophy. -
Darwin
He saw that the mind was, in a way, unobservable. But that one's behavior could be observed. -
The Birth of Psychology
Wilhelm Wundt founded the first psychological laboratory at the University of Leipzig in Germany. This was not a popular attraction at first, but soon enough his classes were overflowing with students eager and interested to learn. He moved psychology out of the realm of philosophy and into the world of science. -
Free Association Technique
Sigmund Freud’s technique where patient’s lie on a couch, recount dreams, and say whatever comes to their minds. In an attempt to uncover the unconscious and hidden awareness part of their mind. -
J.M. Cattell
First professor American to be called a “professor of psychology." -
Structuralism
An approach in psychology that identifies three basic elements: physical sensations (what we see), feelings (such as liking or disliking), and images (memories). Then showing how those three elements can be combined and integrated. While Structuralism itself didn’t last, it opened up interest for further studies on perception and sensation. -
Gestalt Psychology
A school of psychology in Germany that studied how people perceive and experience objects as whole patterns. -
Behaviorism
John B. Watson argued that the idea of mental life was just superstition, but that psychology was the scientific study of measurable, observable behavior. His study of psychology was known as behaviorism. -
Humanistic Psychology
A school of psychology that emphasizes on the nonverbal experience and altered states of consciousness as a means of realizing one’s full human potential. A lot of people, even its own members, see this school as more of a cultural and spiritual movement than a branch of science. -
1960s
Behaviorism dominated the psychology world in the United States and unintentionally developed an environmental bias. That was, virtually every aspect of human behavior was attributed to learning and experience. -
Cognitive Psychology
A school of psychology that studies our mental process in the broadest sense, looking at things such as feeling, thinking, learning, and remembering.
