Evolution of Psychology

Wilhem Wundt

Wilhem Wundt

• Born 1832
• First person to be called a psychologist
• Known as the father of modern psychology
• Opened the very first psychology labrotory, Institure for Expirimental Psychology at the University of Leipzig in Germany in 1879
• Wrote the first psychology textbook, Principles of Physiological Psychology
• His approach is known as structuralism because he used experimental methods to find the basic building blocks of thought

Ivan Pavlov

• Born 1849
• Best known for his discovery of classical conditioning. He was studying the digestive system of dogs, and noted that they salivated in the prescense of food. This in turn showed him that dogs could also be conditioned to saliavte to tone as well.
• His interests were physiology and natural sciences, which he studied at St. Petersburg University

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

• Born 1856
• The founding father of psychoanalyisis
• Articulated the psychoanalytic theory of motivation
• Freudian motivation theory posits that unconscious psychological forces, such as hidden desires and motives, shape an individual's behavior, like their purchasing patterns
• Studied physiology and neurology at the University of Vienna

John Dewey

• Born 1859 in Burlington Vermont
• Founder of the philosophical movement known as pragmatism
• One of the first to study functional psychology.
• Leader of the progressive movement in education
• "John Dewey believed that a democratic society of informed and engaged inquirers was the best means of promoting human interests. To argue for this philosophy, Dewey taught at universities and wrote influential books

James Mckeen Cattell

• Born 1863
• Is known as the first professor of psychology, teaching at The University of Pennsylvania in 1888
• He was the first American to publish a dissertation, known as Psychometric Investigation
• One of Cattell's goals was to have psychology viewed as a science just as important as the physical and life sciences
• He was involved with the formation of many major publications

Mary Whiton Calkins

• Born 1863
• First female president of the American Psychological Association, and the 14th overall
• Earned her PhD at Havard under William James, but was refused the degree due to her gender
• She established one of the first psychological laboratories in the country
• She published four books and over a hundred papers in psychology and philosophy

Margaret Floy Washburn

• Born 1871
• First woman to earn a doctorate degree in American psychology
• Second women to serve as APA president
• Washburn developed a motor theory of consciousness, in which she integrated the experimental method of introspection with an emphasis on motor processes
• Washburn served as a professor at Vassar College

Edward Thorndike

• Born 1874
• Often reffered to as the founder of modern educational psychology
• Best known for his puzzle box experiments with cats which led to the development of his law of effect
• Thorndike's principle suggests that responses immediately followed by satisfaction will be more likely to recur, and behaviors followed by dissatisfaction or discomfort will become less likely to occur.

Melanie Klein

• Born 1882
• Invented play therapy, a significant impact on developmental psychology
• "Klein drew on her analysis of children’s play to formulate new concepts such as the paranoid-schizoid position and the depressive position"
• Influenced by many famous psychologists including: Sigmund Freud, Sándor Ferenczi, and Karl Abraham

Anna Frued

• Born 1895
• Daughter of famous psycholgist Sigmund Frued
• Founder of child psychoanalysis and one of its foremost practitioners.
• "made fundamental contributions to understanding how the ego, or consciousness, functions in averting painful ideas, impulses, and feelings."
• Anna Freud theorized that every child should be recognised as a person in his or her own right.

David Wechsler

• Born 1896
• He is most known for developing the Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale, which quickly became the most widely used adult intelligence test in the United States, along with many other intellgince tests like the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children
• Wechsler viewed intelligence as an effect rather than a cause, and asserted that non-intellective factors also contribute to the development of each person’s intelligence.

Isabelle Briggs Myers

• Born 1897
• Co-Founder along with her mother Katherine Briggs in creating the Myers-Briggs test.
• Discovered and adopted the ideas and framework expressed by C. G. Jung in his book, Psychological Types
• created a paper questionnaire to assess personality type which developed over the next three decades as research was collected from thousands of people.
• In 1975, The Myers-Briggs Company began publishing the MBTI instrument for practical applications

Gordon Allport

• Born 1897
• Known as the main founder of personality psychology
• the Gordon Allport Trait Theory states that central traits work together to shape a person's personality. Instead of having one dominant trait, a person will have multiple smaller traits
• Received a Bachelor's degree in economics and philosophy, and Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard

B. F. Skinner

• Born 1904
• Skinner is best known for developing the theory of behaviorism
• Created the Skinner box and conducted a famous experiment with rats where he observed how the rodents discovered and used to a level in the box, which dispensed food at varying intervals
• Skinner came to the conclusion that some form of reinforcement was crucial in learning new behaviors

Harry Harlow

• Born 1905
• Best-remembered for his series experiments with rhesus monkeys.
• Studied the effects of maternal seperation by placing monkeys in isolated chambers, or with surrogate mothers made of either wire or cloth to see which the young monkeys preferred
• Harlow's research contributed very much to understanding the importance of caregiving, affection, and social relationships early in life

John Money

• Born 1921
• Money theorized that all humans are neutral for the first two years of life, regardless of their genes and physical traits
• John Money encouraged the gender reassignment of David Reimer, who was born a biological male but suffered irreparable damage to his penis as an infant.
• Reimer later decided to indetify as male again, but ending up ending his life due to the challenges
• This event shows the importance of nature not just nuture

Aaron Beck

Aaron

Beck

• Born 1921
• Aaron Beck is globally recognized as the father of Cognitive Behavior Therapy
• One of the leading researchers in psychopathology
• Beck authored or co-authored 25 books and published over 600 articles in his lifetime
• Was an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania

Martin Sleigman

• Born 1942
• Best known for his contributions to learned helplessness and posotive psychology
• Seligman discovered that when people feel they have no control over their situation, they tend to give up rather than fight for control
• In 1996, Seligman was elected President of the APA by the largest vote in the organization's history

Susan Fiske

• Born 1952
• Fiske is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University
• Fiske's research addresses how stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination are encouraged or discouraged by social relationships
• She has written more than 250 articles and chapters, as well as editing many books and journal special issues

Dafne Almazan

• Born 2002
• Known as the worlds youngest psychologist
• Graduated from Mexico's Monterrey Institute of Technology at just 13 years old
• Forbes named her one of the 50 most powerful Mexican women this summer
• Was The First Minor In 100 Years To Be Accepted Into A Post-Graduate Program At Harvard