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600 BCE
Greeks
In 5th and 6th centuries B.C., Greeks began to study human behavior. It was decided people’s actions/decisions were made by their choice, and not the gods. Greek philosophers didn’t rely on systematic study, but did help in the layout of sciences like psychology. -
Period: 600 BCE to
Psychology Timeline
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1500
Experiment Through Observation
Experiment Through Observation became a concept because of Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei.
Nicolaus Copernicus, in mid-1500s (1473-1543), published the idea that the sun is the center of the universe. Before it was thought that the earth was the center.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), confirmed predictions that star position and movement, all based on Copernicus’s work. -
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Rene was a french philosopher who disagreed with dualism concept, proposing that mind and body are linked. Assumed that the mind and body influence each other to create a person’s experiences. -
Dualism
Is the idea that the mind and body are not actioned together but separately and distinctly.
Seventeenth century philosophers popularized idea. -
Phrenology
The practice of examining bumps on a person’s skull to determine that person’s intellect and character traits.
It became practice in the United States in the mid-1800’s. -
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
He was a Russian psychologist who charted new course for psychological investigation with his famous experiment... Every time Pavlov would give a dog some meat powder he’d ring a tuning fork. The dog would salivate when the powder reached its mouth. He did this several times and after a while the dog would begin to salivate at the ring of the fork, even with no food. It was conditioned to associate the sound with food. -
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Interested in the unconscious mind. He believed the conscious mind was just the beginning, but that the unconscious mind was responsible for most human behavior and medically unexplainable physical symptoms that trouble his patients. He believed that the unconscious mind was full of primitive biological urges that conflict with society and morality. He believed that dreams are expressions of the most primitive unconscious urges. He used dream association, extension of free association. -
Mary Whiton Calkins (1863-1930)
A female pioneer in psychology, who contributed to the field, despite numerous obstacles.
In the 1800s, North American universities barred women from Ph. D. programs. Despite this Calkins and Harvards refusal, she took Harvard's informal examination and Calkins out preformed all her male counterparts.
She served as a full professor of psychology at Wellesley College and became the first female president of both the American Psychological Association and the American Philosophical Association -
William James "Father of Psychology" (1842-1910)
He taught his first psychology class at Harvard University in 1875.
Wrote 1st textbook on psychology, "The Principles of Psychology," that took 12 years to write and published in 1890. Speculated that thinking, feeling, learning and remembering were activities of the mind conducted to help us survive as a species. -
John B. Watson (1878-1958)
He formulated that psychology should concern itself only with the observable facts of behavior. -
Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911)
He theorized that genius is a hereditary trait. Scientists from all over later recognized that Galton’s theory was flawed, and it is now recognized that heredity, along with environment, influences intelligence. Invented procedures for testing characteristics of a wide range of people. Ancestor to modern personality and intelligence tests. 1883 he published Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development, its considered the first study of individual differences. -
Science of Psychology Was Born
In 19th century, biologists announced cells as the building blocks of life, and chemists later created the periodic table of elements. Natural scientists studied complex phenomena by reducing them to simpler parts. It was in this way that the science of psychology was born. -
Functionalist
The study of how animals and people adapt to their environments.
Emile Durkheim is a founder of sociology and is largely credited with developing the functionalist perspective. -
German Psychologists
Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967), and Kurt Koffka (1886-1941), disagreed with the principles of structuralism and behaviorism. They argued that perception is more than the sum of its parts, but involves a “whole pattern”.
Gestalt psychologists studied how sensations are assembled into perceptual experiences. The approach became the forerunner for cognitive approaches to the study of psychology. -
Free Association
a patient says whatever comes to mind without attempting to make logical or meaningful statements. -
Behaviorist
A psychologist who analyzes how organisms learn or modify their behavior based on their response to events in the environment. -
B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)
He popularized the concept of changing behaviors through repeated rewards or punishments. He attempted to show how his laboratory techniques might be applied to society as a whole.In his novel, "Walden Two," he tries to portray Utopia. -
Cognitivists
Since 1950, cognitive psychology has benefited from the contributions of people such as Jean Piaget, Noam Chomsky, and Leon Festinger.
Cognitivists focus on how we process, store, retrieve, and use info and how this info influences thinking, language, problem - solving, and creativity.
They believe behavior is more than a response to a stimulus. -
Humanists
A psychologist who believes that each person has freedom in directing his or her future and achieving personal growth.
It's first appearance was in 1827.
Humanist psychology developed as a reaction to behavioral psychology. In the 1960's humanists such as Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Rollo May described human nature as evolving and self-directed.
