History of Psychology, Benjamin T. Ludy, Major Figures and Contributions

Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920)

Era: Founding of Scientific Psychology

• Established the first experimental psychology lab at the University of Leipzig in 1879.

• Authored Principles of Physiological Psychology (1874), asserting that psychology could be a science grounded in experimental methods.

• Promoted introspection as a methodology for studying conscious experience.

• Introduced the idea of Völkerpsychologie (cultural psychology), emphasizing that some mental processes could not be studied experimentally and required historical and comparative methods​.

  

William James (1842–1910)

Era: American Psychology Foundations

• Wrote The Principles of Psychology (1890), influential in defining psychology in America.

• Developed the stream of consciousness concept, emphasizing fluidity and continuity of mental life.

• Proposed the James-Lange theory of emotion, arguing that bodily responses precede emotional experiences.

• Advocated the role of habit as central to personal behavior and societal stability.

• Promoted functionalism, focusing on the purpose of mental processes rather than their structure​​.

  

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)

Era: Psychoanalysis

• Founded psychoanalysis, offering a model of the mind structured around the id, ego, and superego.

• Introduced concepts such as repression, defense mechanisms, and the Oedipus complex.

• Emphasized unconscious motivation and early childhood experiences in the formation of neuroses.

• Introduced psychoanalytic therapy based on making the unconscious conscious through techniques like free association and dream interpretation​​.

  

John B. Watson (1878–1958)

Era: Behaviorist Revolution

• Authored the “behaviorist manifesto” (1913), rejecting introspection and consciousness as unscientific.

• Argued for a psychology focused solely on observable behavior.

• Conducted the Little Albert experiment, demonstrating that fear could be conditioned in humans.

• Advocated the idea that behavior could be shaped entirely by environmental factors, rejecting innate mental structures​​​.

  

B.F. Skinner (1904–1990)

Era: Behaviorist Era

• Developed operant conditioning, showing that behavior is shaped and maintained by its consequences (reinforcement and punishment).

• Distinguished between positive and negative reinforcement and explored schedules of reinforcement (e.g., fixed vs. variable).

• Invented the Skinner box for experimental research and created programmed instruction and teaching machines.

• Authored Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971), arguing that behavior is largely controlled by external variables and challenging the notion of free will​​​​.

• Materialist – believed consciousness as a non-physical entity does not exist

  

Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930)

Era: American Psychology Foundations

• Developed the paired-associates technique, a method where items are presented in pairs and later one item cues recall of the other—still widely used in memory research today.

• Investigated primacy and recency effects and retroactive interference in memory.

• Founded the first psychology lab established by a woman (Wellesley College, 1891).

• Advocated for self psychology, emphasizing the study of the conscious self rather than behavior or mental elements​​.

• First woman president of the American Psychological Association (1905).

  

G. Stanley Hall (1844–1924)

Era: Founding of American Psychology

• Founded the first U.S. psychology lab at Johns Hopkins (1883), and the American Journal of Psychology (1887).

• First president of the American Psychological Association (1892).

• Initiated the Child Study Movement, aiming to apply psychology to education.

• Authored Adolescence (1904), which defined adolescence as a unique developmental stage and popularized genetic psychology, which emphasized evolutionary perspectives on development​​​.

• Brought Sigmund Freud to the U.S. in 1909.

  

Edward B. Titchener (1867–1927)

Era: Structuralist Era

• Introduced structuralism to the U.S., focusing on analyzing the elements of conscious experience.

• Promoted systematic introspection—a highly trained observational method to study mental processes.

• Distinguished between mind (total lifetime experiences) and consciousness (current mental activity).

• Sought to answer what the elements of consciousness are, how they are arranged, and why they appear in certain configurations​​​​​.

  

James McKeen Cattell (1860–1944)

Era: Early Applied Psychology

• One of the first American psychologists to emphasize mental testing, influenced by Francis Galton.

• Established psychology labs at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.

• Focused on psychological measurements like reaction time, grip strength, and sensory acuity.

• Editor of Science and influential in the professionalization and public visibility of psychology​​. Founded Psychological Review.

• Supervised Thorndike and Woodworth

  

Lightner Witmer (1867–1956)

Era: Applied Psychology

• Founded the first psychological clinic (1896) at the University of Pennsylvania, initiating clinical psychology.

• Treated children with learning and behavioral issues using what he called the clinical method, which involved interdisciplinary assessment and individualized treatment.

• Founded The Psychological Clinic journal (1907) to share case studies and promote practical applications of psychology.

• Advocated for specialized training for psychologists to become mental health experts​​​.

• PhD with Wundt, studied with Cattell

  

Alfred Binet (1857–1911)

Era: Intelligence Testing

• Developed the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale (1905), the first test designed to identify children who needed special education.

• Introduced the concept of mental age, a metric for intellectual development relative to age norms.

• Focused on cognitive abilities such as memory, attention, and problem-solving, not sensory-motor skills.

• His approach to intelligence emphasized adaptability and learning, rejecting fixed intelligence as purely hereditary​.

  

Lewis Terman (1877–1956)

Era: Applied Psychology & Testing

• Adapted and revised Binet’s test into the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test (1916), which became the dominant IQ test in the U.S. for decades.

• Coined and popularized the intelligence quotient (IQ) formula: mental age divided by chronological age × 100.

• Conducted one of the first large-scale longitudinal studies on gifted children, following them from childhood to adulthood.

• Participated in designing the Army Alpha and Beta tests for military recruits during WWI, helping establish intelligence testing in institutional contexts​​.

  

Carl Jung (1875–1961)

Era: Psychoanalysis (Neo-Freudian)

• Founded analytical psychology, which introduced the concept of the collective unconscious, containing archetypes like the self, anima, and shadow.

• Distinguished between introversion and extraversion, foundational for later personality theories.

• Developed the idea of individuation, the psychological process of integrating the unconscious with the conscious self.

• Popularized the word association test, and his ideas influenced the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator​​​.

  

Alfred Adler (1870–1937)

Era: Psychoanalysis (Neo-Freudian)

• Created individual psychology, emphasizing social motives and striving for superiority rather than Freud's biological drives.

• Introduced key concepts such as the inferiority complex, style of life, and social interest.

• Believed personality was shaped in childhood and centered on goals rather than being dominated by past traumas.

• Advocated educational reform and founded the first child guidance clinic in Vienna​​.

  

Karen Horney (1885–1952)

Era: Psychoanalysis (Feminist/Neo-Freudian)

• Criticized Freud’s theory of penis envy, proposing instead womb envy—the idea that men envy women's reproductive capacity.

• Emphasized social and cultural factors in psychological development, especially anxiety and neurosis.

• Developed concepts of basic anxiety, basic hostility, and neurotic needs as reactions to interpersonal problems.

• Authored The Neurotic Personality of Our Time (1937) and New Ways in Psychoanalysis (1939), presenting a socially-grounded view of psychological conflict​​.

  

Max Wertheimer (1880–1943)

Era: Gestalt Psychology

• Founder of Gestalt psychology.

• Discovered the phi phenomenon, an illusion of motion created by successive images (like in film).

• Argued that perception and experience must be understood as wholes, not reducible to their parts.

• Believed that mental functions are determined by the intrinsic nature of structured wholes, not isolated stimuli​​.

  

Kurt Koffka (1886–1941)

Era: Gestalt Psychology

• Emphasized perception, publishing the article “Perception: An Introduction to Gestalt-Theorie” in 1922 and the influential book Principles of Gestalt Psychology (1935).

• Outlined Gestalt principles of perceptual organization, such as figure-ground, proximity, similarity, and closure.

• Helped introduce Gestalt psychology to an American audience and argued for innate organizing tendencies in perception​​.

  

Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967)

Era: Gestalt Psychology

• Studied insight learning in chimpanzees—problem-solving involved perceiving relationships among parts, not trial-and-error.

• Showed animals could reorganize elements of a task to produce novel solutions (e.g., using boxes to reach bananas).

• Opposed the behaviorist model, arguing that perception and learning depend on holistic understanding rather than conditioned responses​​.

  

Ulric Neisser (1928–2012)

Era: Cognitive Revolution

• Published Cognitive Psychology (1967), credited with naming and launching the field of cognitive psychology.

• Defined cognition broadly as the mental processes involved in acquiring, storing, transforming, and using information.

• Advocated for studying memory, perception, problem solving, imagery, and attention through scientific experimentation.

• Championed ecological validity, promoting research on real-world tasks and environments​​.

  

George A. Miller (1920–2012)

Era: Cognitive Revolution

• Authored the classic paper “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two” (1956), defining limits of short-term memory (5–9 items).

• Coined the idea of chunking—grouping information into meaningful units to increase memory efficiency.

• Co-founded the Center for Cognitive Science at Harvard with Jerome Bruner.

• Advocated for a shift from behaviorism to a language- and hypothesis-testing-based model of cognition​​.

  

Carl Rogers (1902–1987)

Era: Humanistic Psychology

• Founded client-centered (person-centered) therapy, emphasizing unconditional positive regard, empathy, and genuineness.

• Introduced the practice of active listening, enabling clients to gain insight and direct their own growth.

• Believed in self-actualization and the intrinsic goodness of humans, contrasting with Freudian determinism.

• His work laid the groundwork for modern counseling psychology and greatly influenced education and human potential movements​​.

  

Abraham Maslow (1908–1970)

Era: Humanistic Psychology

• Created the Hierarchy of Needs, culminating in self-actualization—a state of achieving one's full potential.

• Rejected behaviorism and psychoanalysis for being too deterministic and mechanistic.

• Emphasized studying healthy, self-fulfilled individuals rather than those with psychological disorders.

• Contributed to the growth of positive psychology and is considered a co-founder of humanistic psychology with Rogers​.

  

Kenneth Clark (1914–2005) & Mamie Phipps Clark (1917–1983)

Era: Psychology of Social Action

• Conducted the “doll experiments”, showing that Black children often preferred white dolls, indicating internalized racism and low self-esteem due to segregation.

• Their work was instrumental in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), where the U.S. Supreme Court used psychological evidence to declare school segregation unconstitutional.

• Their Northside Center for Child Development provided services to Harlem communities.

• Their research highlighted psychology’s role in civil rights and education reform​​​​.

  

Albert Bandura (1925–2021)

Era: Social-Cognitive Psychology

• Developed Social Learning Theory, later renamed Social Cognitive Theory.

• Demonstrated that learning can occur through observation (vicarious learning), not just direct reinforcement, via his Bobo doll experiments.

• Introduced concepts of self-efficacy—belief in one’s ability to succeed—which became central in education, therapy, and behavior change models.

• Bridged behaviorism and cognitive psychology by integrating internal cognitive processes​.

  

Philip Zimbardo (b. 1933)

Era: Social Psychology

• Conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment (1971), revealing how social roles and situational pressures can foster cruel behavior.

• Demonstrated the power of the situation in shaping behavior, echoing earlier ideas by Kurt Lewin.

• Work emphasized ethical concerns in psychological research and contributed to understanding authority, power, and identity transformation in institutions​.

  

Franz Gall (1758–1828)

Field: Phrenology

• Proposed that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that different mental faculties are localized in different parts of the cerebral cortex.

• Believed that over- or under-development of these regions would cause bumps or depressions on the skull, which could be "read" to determine personality and ability.

• Developed a map of the skull with 27–35 areas corresponding to traits like destructiveness or benevolence.

• Although widely discredited by the 1860s, his ideas sparked early interest in localization of brain function, foundational to neuroscience​​.

  

Franz Mesmer (1734–1815)

Field: Mesmerism (Animal Magnetism)

• Claimed illness was caused by imbalances in magnetic fluids in the body.

• Developed therapeutic techniques involving magnets and later only his hands to realign these fluids.

• His procedures often induced trances resembling hypnosis, laying groundwork for future study in hypnosis and psychotherapy.

• Despite scientific rejection, mesmerism was a major public phenomenon and is considered a precursor to secular psychotherapy in America​​.

  

John Locke (1632–1704)

Field: British Empiricism

• Argued in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) that the mind is a tabula rasa (blank slate).

• All knowledge comes from experience, either through sensation or reflection.

• Rejected the notion of innate ideas, including knowledge of God.

• His ideas laid the philosophical foundation for later empirical and experimental psychology​​.

  

Thomas Reid (1710–1796)

Field: Scottish Realism (Common Sense Philosophy)

• Asserted that humans have a direct awareness of reality through common sense and perception.

• Rejected British empiricism’s skepticism of sensory knowledge.

• His faculty psychology (mind has distinct faculties like memory, judgment) influenced early North American psychology and phrenology​.

  

Johannes Müller (1801–1858)

Field: Sensory Physiology

• Proposed the Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies (1827): each sensory nerve carries only one type of sensation (e.g., visual, auditory).

• Laid groundwork for understanding that perception is determined by the type of sensory nerve stimulated, not the stimulus itself​.

  

Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894)

Field: Neurophysiology and Sensory Psychology

• Measured speed of nerve conduction, disproving belief it was instantaneous (82–141 ft/sec).

• Created the ophthalmoscope, studied vision, and developed influential theories on color vision and auditory pitch.

• His work enabled the measurement of reaction time, essential in experimental psychology labs​​​.

  

Ernst Weber (1795–1878)

Field: Psychophysics

• Discovered the Weber Fraction, a formula describing the just noticeable difference (JND)—the smallest change in stimulus detectable.

• Laid the foundation for quantitative experimental methods in sensory perception.

  

Gustav Fechner (1801–1887)

Field: Founder of Psychophysics

• Published Elements of Psychophysics (1860), formalizing the field that studies relationships between physical stimuli and subjective sensation.

• Introduced Fechner’s Law—a mathematical relationship between stimulus intensity and perceived sensation.

• Combined philosophical and experimental approaches, bridging subjective experience with objective measurement.

  

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909)

Contribution: Pioneered experimental study of memory.

• Invented nonsense syllables to study memory formation devoid of prior associations.

• Discovered the forgetting curve, showing that memory loss is steepest shortly after learning.

• Developed the savings method—measuring how much faster material is relearned.

• Published Über das Gedächtnis (1885), regarded as one of the most brilliant solo research contributions in psychology​​​.

  

Franz Brentano (1838–1917)

Contribution: Founder of Act Psychology.

• Emphasized the intentionality of consciousness, that mental acts are always directed toward objects.

• Opposed Wundt’s introspection and elementalism, favoring a molar, purpose-oriented view of consciousness.

• Wrote Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874), influencing Gestalt psychology and functionalism​​.

  

Carl Stumpf (1848–1936)

Contribution: Pioneer in psychology of music and comparative musicology.

• Studied pitch perception, tonal fusion, and consonance.

• Founded the Institute of Experimental Psychology in Berlin; mentored Köhler and Koffka.

• Helped debunk the Clever Hans phenomenon using experimental controls​​.

  

Oswald Külpe (1862–1915)

Contribution: Developed systematic experimental introspection and imageless thought.

• Broke from Wundt by studying higher mental processes like reasoning and thinking.

• Identified the concept of mental set—preparedness for action without conscious intent.

• Demonstrated that not all thought involves sensory or imaginal components​​.

  

John Dewey (1859–1952)

Contribution: Father of Functionalism in psychology.

• Reframed the reflex arc as a continuous circuit rather than discrete parts, emphasizing adaptation.

• Advocated for a psychology focused on practical consequences and utility.

• Advocated learning by doing for kids​.

• Theorized Stream of behaviour

  

James Rowland Angell (1869–1949)

Contribution: Key proponent of functional psychology.

• Defined functionalism through three tenets: studying mental operations, utility of consciousness, and the mind-body relationship.

• Attacked structuralism in his 1906 APA address; emphasized flexibility in theory​.

  

Robert S. Woodworth (1869–1962)

Contribution: Introduced dynamic psychology.

• Focused on motivation and the “why” behind behavior.

• Developed the S–O–R model (stimulus–organism–response), adding the organism’s state as a key factor in response.

• His textbook Psychology (1921) was widely influential.

  

Walter Dill Scott (1869–1955)

Field: Business and Advertising Psychology

• Often credited as the founder of industrial-organizational psychology in the U.S.

• Applied psychological principles to advertising, emphasizing the role of suggestion and the effectiveness of direct commands and return coupons.

• Promoted the use of mental imagery in advertising to engage consumer senses.

• Founded the Scott Company, an early psychological consulting firm aiding large corporations in hiring and labor issues​​.

  

Hugo Münsterberg (1863–1916)

Field: Applied Psychology

• Applied psychology to law (forensic psychology) and industrial efficiency.

• Authored Psychology and Industrial Efficiency (1913), emphasizing job matching—aligning worker skills with job requirements.

• Advocated for psychological assessments in selecting competent employees, such as ship captains and trolley operators.

• Promoted psychology as essential to justice and safety, foreshadowing modern forensic and occupational psychology​​.

• Studied validity of eyewitnesses, false confessions, lie detection, and decision processes of jurors

  

Edward Thorndike (1874–1949)

Field: Learning and Educational Psychology

• Pioneered instrumental learning through puzzle box experiments with cats.

• Formulated the Law of Effect: behaviors followed by satisfying outcomes are more likely to recur.

• This principle became the foundation for reinforcement theory, later refined by Skinner in operant conditioning​​.

  

Clark Hull (1884–1952)

Field: Neobehaviorism

• Developed a quantitative, mathematical model of learning using the hypothetico-deductive method.

• Proposed drive reduction theory: behavior is driven by biological needs that create drives; behaviors that reduce drives are reinforced.

• Key constructs included habit strength, reaction potential, and reinforcement as mathematical functions​​​​.

• All learning requires reinforcement

  

John Dollard & Neal Miller

Field: Learning Theory and Psychoanalysis

• Integrated psychoanalytic concepts with behaviorist learning theory.

• Their book Frustration and Aggression (1939) introduced the frustration-aggression hypothesis.

• Developed theories around drive cues, responses, and rewards—providing a bridge between behaviorism and psychoanalytic theory.

• Instrumental in social learning theory, prefiguring Bandura's work.

  

Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909)

Field: Physiognomy & Criminology

• Promoted the idea of the “born criminal”, claiming criminals could be identified by facial features like large jaws or receding chins.

• Applied physiognomy to criminology, popularizing the belief in a "criminal type."

• Though discredited, his ideas influenced early forensics and criminal profiling​.

  

Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802–1866)

Field: Mental Healing / Mind Cure

• Originator of the mind cure movement, believing illness was caused by negative or irrational thinking.

• Promoted spiritual healing through “right thinking,” not medical treatments.

• His ideas influenced the founding of Christian Science by Mary Baker Eddy​​.

  

Thomas Upham (1799–1872)

Field: Mental Philosophy

• Author of Elements of Mental Philosophy (1831), one of the first American psychology textbooks.

• Divided psychology into three parts: intellect, sensibilities, and will—a precursor to modern psychology’s subdivisions.

• His texts influenced psychology curricula for decades​​.

  

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519)

Field: Renaissance Brain Science

• Dissected over 300 cadavers and produced more than 1,500 anatomical drawings, including accurate depictions of the brain.

• Cast wax models of ventricles, advancing early brain anatomy despite not publishing his findings​​.

  

Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723)

Field: Microscopy

• Invented a microscope powerful enough to see neurons and photoreceptors.

• Likely the first to observe rods and cones in the retina.

• Revolutionized neuroanatomy by revealing microscopic structures​​.

  

Pierre Flourens (1794–1867)

Field: Experimental Neuroanatomy

• Used brain lesion experiments in animals to refute phrenology.

• Showed that specific brain regions control vital functions, but opposed strict localization, supporting holism in brain function​.

  

Paul Broca (1824–1880)

Field: Brain Localization

• Identified Broca’s area, a region linked to speech production, through study of patient “Tan.”

• Provided early, compelling evidence for cortical localization of function​.

  

Hitzig & Fritsch (1870)

Field: Cortical Stimulation

• Demonstrated motor cortex localization by electrically stimulating dog brains, eliciting specific muscle movements.

• Their work confirmed that specific brain areas control specific voluntary movements​.

  

Bell & Magendie (early 1800s)

Field: Spinal Nerve Function

• Established the Bell-Magendie Law: sensory nerves enter the spinal cord dorsally, motor nerves exit ventrally.

• Provided a foundational understanding of nerve specialization, essential to neurophysiology and reflex theory​.

  

Ewald Hering (1834–1918)

Field: Visual Perception

• Developed the opponent-process theory of color vision, proposing that color perception is controlled by opposing pairs (e.g., red–green, blue–yellow).

• His work complemented and challenged Helmholtz’s trichromatic theory, leading to modern models of color processing.

  

Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)

Field: Linguistics & Cognitive Psychology

• Launched a devastating critique of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior (1959), arguing that behaviorism could not account for the complexity of language acquisition.

  • Errors are overgeneralizations, children generate unique sentences, and parents don’t teach by reinforcement and punishment but kids still learn

• Proposed the concept of a Language Acquisition Device (LAD)—an innate biological mechanism enabling humans to learn language.

• Distinguished between surface structure (word order) and deep structure (underlying meaning) of sentences, introducing transformational grammar.

• Widely credited with catalyzing the cognitive revolution, especially in psycholinguistics​​​.

  

Francis Cecil Sumner (1895–1954)

Field: Educational Psychology / Social Justice

• First African American to earn a PhD in psychology (Clark University, 1920, under G. Stanley Hall).

• His dissertation compared Freud and Adler.

• Founded and chaired the psychology department at Howard University, mentoring future leaders like Kenneth Clark.

Pioneered academic opportunities and representation for African American psychologists

Henry H. Goddard (1866–1957)

Field: Intelligence Testing & Eugenics

• Translated and popularized the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale in the U.S.

• Introduced terms like "moron" to classify levels of intellectual disability.

• Major promoter of eugenics, advocating for the sterilization and institutionalization of the “feebleminded.”

• Administered intelligence tests at Ellis Island, influencing immigration policy and exclusion based on perceived intellect​.

  

G. E. Müller (1850–1934)

Field: Experimental Psychology

• Expanded Ebbinghaus’s memory research; introduced the memory drum for standardized stimulus presentation.

• Pioneered interference theory, examining proactive and retroactive inhibition in memory.

His work laid foundations for understanding cognitive memory strategies and chunking

Dorothea Lynde Dix (1802–1887)

Field: Mental Health Reform

• Led a national campaign to establish humane mental asylums in the U.S.

• Investigated conditions for the mentally ill and lobbied state legislatures to fund public institutions, shifting care away from jails and poorhouses​.

  

Emil Kraepelin (1856–1926)

Field: Psychiatric Classification

• Developed the first systematic classification of mental disorders, distinguishing dementia praecox (now schizophrenia) from manic-depressive illness.

• Laid the foundation for modern psychiatric diagnosis systems like the DSM​.

  

Francis Galton (1822–1911)

Field: Differential Psychology & Eugenics

• Coined the term "eugenics", advocating for selective human breeding to improve hereditary traits.

• Studied individual differences, pioneered twin studies, and invented techniques like correlation and regression.

• First to use the phrase “nature versus nurture.”

• Though controversial, he influenced psychometrics and the idea of intelligence testing​.

  

George I. Sánchez (1906–1972)

Field: Educational Psychology & Social Justice

• Criticized cultural bias in intelligence tests, especially those used against Mexican American children.

• Argued that low scores were due to language and cultural mismatch, not intellectual inferiority.

• Advocated for fairer educational opportunities and assessments​.

  

Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936)

Field: Behaviourism

• Won the Nobel Prize for work on digestion but is best known for classical (Pavlovian) conditioning.

• Discovered that dogs would salivate to stimuli (like a bell) that had been paired with food.

• Developed core concepts: unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus, extinction, spontaneous recovery, etc.

• Laid the groundwork for behaviorism in America​.

  

Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893)

Field: Neurology and Hypnosis

• Known for work on hysteria and hypnosis, especially at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris.

• Greatly influenced Freud, who studied with him in 1885.

• Believed hysteria was a neurological disorder, not just psychological, and was the first to link it with trauma​.

Bertha Pappenheim (Anna O.)

Field: Psychoanalysis (Historical case)

• Treated by Josef Breuer; her case became the basis for the cathartic method and Freud’s early theories.

• Known by the pseudonym “Anna O.”, her case launched psychoanalysis.

• Later became a pioneering feminist and social worker in Germany​.

  

Margaret Floy Washburn (1871–1939)

Field: Comparative Psychology

• First woman to earn a PhD in psychology (1894).

• Wrote The Animal Mind (1908), a foundational text in comparative psychology.

• Served as APA President in 1921.

• Advocated for mental states in animals, using introspection by analogy​​.

  

Edward Tolman (1886–1959)

Field: Cognitive Behaviorism

• Developed Purposive Behaviorism, blending behavioral methods with cognitive variables.

• Introduced the concept of cognitive maps through maze experiments with rats.

• Showed that behavior can be goal-directed and latent, challenging strict stimulus-response views.

  

Marian & Keller Breland

Field: Applied Behaviorism

• Students of B.F. Skinner who pioneered animal training using operant conditioning.

• Founded Animal Behavior Enterprises, training animals for commercials and exhibits.

• Documented instinctive drift, showing limitations of conditioning due to innate behaviors.

  

Helen Thompson Woolley (1874–1947)

Field: Psychology of Sex Differences

• One of the first to empirically study gender differences in mental traits.

• Found no support for the belief that women were intellectually inferior to men.

• Her dissertation was one of the earliest contributions to feminist psychology.

  

Leta Stetter Hollingworth (1886–1939)

Field: Giftedness and Women’s Psychology

• Refuted myths about female intellectual inferiority and the “variability hypothesis.”

• Pioneered studies of gifted children and education.

• Advocated for psychology’s role in supporting women's intellectual potential.

  

Evelyn Hooker (1907–1996)

Field: Psychology of Sexuality

• Conducted groundbreaking studies in the 1950s showing that homosexuality was not a mental disorder.

• Her research helped lead to the declassification of homosexuality as a pathology by the APA in 1973.

  

Kurt Lewin (1890–1947)

Field: Social Psychology

• PhD with Stumpf

• Importance of the situation

• A person’s life space: the totality of the psychological facts that exist in one’s awareness at any given moment

• Developed field theory: behavior is a function of the person and their environment (B = f(P, E)).

• Pioneered group dynamics (action research), and applied psychology to social change.

  

Beatrice Wright (1917–2005)

Field: Rehabilitation Psychology

• Advocated for psychosocial adaptation to disability.

• Helped found the field of rehabilitation psychology, emphasizing strengths over limitations.

• Her work influence the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990.

  

Donald Hebb (1904–1985)

Field: Neuropsychology

• Proposed Hebb’s rule: "cells that fire together wire together."

• Explained learning through neural networks called cell assemblies.

• Wrote The Organization of Behavior (1949), foundational in biological psychology.v

  

Howard K. Nixon

Field: Professionalization of Psychology

• Nixon was instrumental in organizing efforts to professionalize psychology during the early 20th century.

• Eye tracking to test print ads

• Played a key role in the Association of Consulting Psychologists (ACP) and later the American Association for Applied Psychology (AAAP).

• These organizations paved the way for the modern APA divisional structure after WWII.

• His work helped establish certification standards, ethics codes, and applied psychology journals—important steps toward the professional identity of psychology​.

  

Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1878–1972)

Field: Industrial & Engineering Psychology

• Earned a PhD in psychology from Brown University in 1915.

• Co-authored The Psychology of Management (1914), emphasizing human factors and individual differences in industrial settings.

• With her husband Frank, pioneered time-motion studies, using film to improve workplace efficiency.

• Continued her consulting business solo after Frank’s death, contributing innovations in kitchen ergonomics, tools for the physically disabled, and engineering psychology.

• First woman in the National Academy of Engineering and appeared on a U.S. postage stamp​​​.

  

Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov (1829–1905)

Field: Russian Physiology & Psychology

• Considered the father of Russian physiology and psychology.

• Introduced the concept of inhibition of reflexes, arguing that all behavior—including voluntary action—has a reflexive basis.

• Laid the groundwork for a materialist psychology, emphasizing observable behavior over introspection.

• Precursor to both Pavlov’s work and Soviet objective psychology.

• His influential work Reflexes of the Brain (1863) emphasized the physiological basis of mental processes​.