Timeline of Psychology

William James

1842 - 1910

• The first true psychologist
• Founded a psychology lab in Harvard
• Published the first psychology textbook, which is called "The Principles of Psychology".
• He considered psychology a natural science.
• Founder of functional psychology.
• Discovered Functionalism - How the structures in structuralism function in our lives.

G. Stanley Hall

1846 - 1924

• Established the first psychology research lab in the United States.
• He wanted to understand how images make up our consciousness to help us adapt to our environment.

Ivan Pavlov

1849 - 1936

• Won the Nobel peace price for the Physiology of Digestion
• The observations he made led to him working on classical conditioning.
• Created Behaviorism - when you only look at behavior and its causes instead of  the conscious.

Sigmund Freud

1856 - 1939

• He explored the unconscious and came to believe behavior is driven by psychological processes.
• Came up with Psychoanalytic Perspective - when you focus on the Unconscious mind - the part of our minds we do not have control over - which is build up due to years of repression, which is when you push down the feelings that cause anxiety that the mind cannot deal with.
• Created Psychoanalysis - Human behavior, experience, and cognition are driven by illogical reasoning.
• Invented Psychodynamic Theory - Explains personality when using unconscious and conscious force. Childhood experiences shape personality.

Mary Whiton Calkins

1863 - 1930

• The first woman psychologist to be president of the APA (American Psychological Association).
• When she created dream analysis, her work was admired by even Freud himself.

Margaret Floy Washburn

1871 - 1939

• First woman to get a PhD in psychology
• She argued that an animals mental state should be studied along with their behavior.
• Wrote a very popular book called The Animal Mind.

John B. Watson

1878 - 1958

• He thought we should ignore mental psychology and focus on what we can observe, like behavior.
• Declared that for psychology to be considered a science, it must limit itself to observable things.
• Launched the behavioral school of psychology.
• Created Behavioral Perspective - Acting through life as some form of motivation

Max Wertheimer

1880 - 1943

• Was a Gestalt psychologist - someone who examines a persons total experience and not pieces of it - who argued against Wundt's idea to break down the human consciousness into parts because he thought the whole consciousness wasn't the same as its parts.
• He wanted a psychology based on methods of observation and experiments.

Jean Piaget

1896 - 1980

• Swiss psychologist
• Came up with Cognitive Perspective - examine human thoughts and behavior in terms of how we remember, process, and interpret events.

Carl Rogers

1902 - 1987

• One of the founding fathers in humanistic psychology.

B. F. Skinner

1904 - 1990

• Behaviorist
• Expanded idea to use reinforcement, which is when environmental stimuli encourages/discourages certain responses.

Abraham Maslow

1908 - 1970

• Humanist
• Looked through Humanistic Perspectives - Approach person's positive qualities and look at their capacity for growth and freedom to choose their own destiny.