Schools & Founders of Psychology

structuralism

structuralism

a way of thinking that uses self-reflection to reveal truths and thought structures of the mind (introspection)

functionalism

a way of thinking that is focused on how a person's mental and behavioral actions work and its correlation to helping them adapt and survive in their surroundings

psychodynamic/psychoanalytic

explores the connection between unconscious desires and feelings and how it can influence someone's outward behavior to something or someone

behaviorism

the idea that a person's behaviors are learned based on their interactions with the environment/stimuli around them

humanistic psychology

a perspective of psychology that focuses on human growth and its potential to be continuable

cognitive psychology

an approach to psychology that emphasizes internal mental processes and decision-making

biological psychology

explores topics such as human temperament and connects it between the overall relation of biological factors and psychological factors

evolutionary psychology

how the natural selection of traits has promoted the survival of genes

social-cultural psychology

studies how societal and cultural structures and situations influence someone's thoughts and behaviors

Wilhelm Wundt

He is known as the "father of modern psychology" because he created a distinction between psychology ad philosophy. He conducted experimental psychology experiments based on structure, measurement, and control. Famously, he and two other men created a machine that measured how long it took someone to press a telegraph key after hearing a ball hit a hard surface.

William James

He was a philosopher-psychologist that promoted functionalism and believed smelling and thinking evolved to what it is because it is adaptive. He also created the textbook entitled "Principles of Psychology" which he wrote to educate people on various psychological topics. Throughout his career he mostly focused on a person's emotions, memories, decision-making, habits, and consciousness.

Edward Titchener

He was one of Wundt's students and he introduced the idea of structuralism. He tried to understand the various parts of the mind and he did this through introspection of various subjects, meaning he asked them to verbally describe different parts of an experience to him. However, these results became known as unreliable because the answers he received varied from person to person.

Mary W. Calkins

She was mentored by William James in 1890 which was against the wishes of Harvard's president. She went on to meet all of the requirements to get her PhD, but Harvard denied her the degree despite all her hard work. However, she became a memory and researcher and was the first female president of the American Psychological Association (APA).

Margaret F. Washburn

She was the first woman to officially obtain a psychology PhD and she became the second APA female president in 1921. She also wrote and published an influential book called "The Animal Mind" where she dissected animal behaviors and habits.

John Watson and B.F. Skinner

Both men believed that psychology was "the scientific study of observable human behavior" and that if something can't be observed or studied, then it is no longer scientific. This resulted in the creation of behaviorism.

Sigmund Freud

He created the idea of psychoanalytic psychology which stressed the idea that a person's unconscious thoughts and early experiences as a child shape their behavior. This became a major influential force in psychology in the 1960s.

Carl Rodgers and Abraham Maslow

These men were humanistic psychologists who believed behaviorism and freud's theories were too limiting. Instead, they believed the focus should be on a person's potential for future personal growth.

Ivan Pavlov

He was a Russian psychologist that was most known for discovering the conditioned reflex, otherwise known as "classical conditioning". Most notably, Pavlov trained a dog to drool at the sound of a bell by getting it to associate that sound with food.

Jean Piaget

He was a Swiss biologist that was most famously known for his observations of children. Throughout his career, he developed the theory that a child's intelligence grows over the course of its life, otherwise known as "cognitive development". His theories showed that the origins of psychology are complex and varied.

Dorothea Dix

She fiercely advocated for the reinforcement of therapy units for the mentally ill. She protested that they should be treated in more humane ways instead of continually being treated as less than a person. She completely revolutionized how people care for the mentally ill today.

Stanley Hall

he was a psychologist that laid the foundation of psychology in the united states by founding the American Psychological Association (APA) and he became its first president. Throughout his psychological work, he mainly focused on childhood development and how important that time is in one's life because it can help define the rest of it.