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William James
William James creates the World's first lab and the first American lab at Harvard. His lab was used for teaching demonstrations rather than experimentation and original research. -
William James
James publishes his classic textbook "The Principles of Psychology". Two years later, James published a shorter version of the work titled Psychology: "The Briefer Course". Both were widely used by students. -
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud first used the term "Psychoanalysis". This term emphasizes the unconscious mind and its behavior. Freud believed that the human mind was composed of three elements: the id, the ego, and the superego. Freud's theories changed how we think about the human mind and behavior and left a lasting mark on psychology and culture. -
Ivan Pavlov
Pavlov came up with the idea that there are some thing dogs don't need to learn because they know it already. Pavlov studied classical conditioning so that dog learned to associate an unconditioned stimulus to a particular response. -
Edward Thorndike
Edward Thorndike came up with the law of effect by observing animal behavior. His law states that a positive effect in a situation will be more likely to replicate again in the furue. On the other hand, negative responses become more weakly associate with the situation and will be less likely to replicate in the future. -
Carl Jung
Jung came up with the term Jungian psychology which recognizes the importance of a healthy life. It creates a healthy balance between the conscious and unconscious parts of our personality to find wholeness, not perfection. Our ego is strengthened by the unconscious parts of our personality and we establish a healthier relationship with our mind and body to develop a connection with ourself. -
John B. Watson
Watson presents the term "Behaviorist" and publishes an article called, "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It." He then also establishes The Psychology School of Behaviorism. -
John B. Watson
John B. Watson published the rsults of the "Little Albert" experitment to show that emotional reactions could be classically conditioned in people. -
Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive development (the ability to think and reason). His contributions include a theory of cognitive child development, detailed observational studies on children, and a series of tests to reveal different cognitive abilities. -
Gordon Allport
In 1937 Allport published his first major book "Personality: A Psychological Interpretation". He distinguished personality traits that are characteristic of an individual and those that are common to many people. He also identified how individuals develop self-awareness throughout childhood and adolescence. One of his early projects was to go through the dictionary and locate every term that he thought could describe a person. He developed a list of 4500 trait words to describe people. -
B.F Skinner
Skinner introduced the term Operant Conditioning which means the changing of behavior by the use of reinforcement which is given after the desired response. He identified three types of responses -
Neutral operants
Reinforcers
Punishers -
Raymond Cattell
Cattell developed a theory of 16 personality traits that can be used to describe the differences among people. According to his theory, every human has these 16 traits, but some are high in some traits as low in others. He also developed a personality questionnaire, still frequently used today, to identify people's personality traits. -
Abraham Maslow
Maslow lead research in the field of humanistic psychologyand he proposed that humans need their activities to fulfil in the form of a ladder. He stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs. When one need is fulfilled a person seeks to fullfil the next one, and so on. -
Clark L. Hull
Hull developed the Drive Theory of Behavior, he believed that behavior could be explained by conditioning principles. Accoring to his theory organisms are born with certain psychological needs and that a negative state,tension, or stress situation is created when these needs are not satisfied. When a need is satisfied, drive is reduced and the organism returns to a state of homeostasis and relaxation. -
B.F Skinner
Skinner studied operant conditioning by conducting experiments using animals which he placed in a 'Skinner Box'. This tool contributed to the study of animal behavior. -
Donald O. Hebb
In his book "The Organization of Behavior" Hebb introduced The Hebbian Theory which proposes an explanation for the adaptation of neurons in the brain during the learning process. He sought to understand how neurons in the brain contributed to psychological processes such as learning. -
Kurt Lewin
Lewin developed a theory that emphasized the importance of individual personalities his theory stated that our individual traits and the environment interact to cause behavior. In his studies he was also able to demonstrate that democratic leadership was superior to authoritarian and laissez-faire leadership. -
George A. Miller
Miller was one of the founders of the cognitive psychology field, he also contributed to the birth of psycholinguistics and cognitive science in general. Miller provided the theory that hort-term memory could only hold 5-9 chunks of information. The mind according to miller would later process and store the information. -
Leon Festinger
Festers came up with the cognitive dissonance theory which suggests that we have an inner drive to hold all our attitudes and beliefs in harmony and avoid disharmony. -
Carl Rogers
Carl Rogers was among the founders of the Humanisitc Approach. In 1951 he publish his major work, Client Centered Therapy, where he states his basic theory. Carl Rogers believed that humans had one basic motive to self-actualize and to fulfill their potential and high levels of accomplishment. -
Erik Erikson
Erikson studied human development across their life span and developed the Psychosocial development theory, which has 8 different stages where the human being develops fully. -
Walter Mischel
Walter Mischel study of impulse control began in the early 1960's. he tested pre-school kids on their self-control. It was simple: they could have one marshmallow immediately, or wait, alone in a room, for a given number of minutes, ring a bell and the researcher would give them two. The results oftheir impulse control wa a predictor of their success in different areas (academic) in the future. -
Albert Bandura
Conducted a famous experiment called the "Bobo Doll Experiment", With this experiment he demonstrated observational learning and deducted that poeple learn from watching others perfom an action. -
Neal Miller
Miller's work focused on the investigation of the Freudian theory and clinical phenomena using experimental analysis of behavior techniques. He concluded that fear is a learnable behavior and he began to investigate other behaviors to determine if they could be modified through instrumental conditioning. -
Davis McClelland
McClelland posted his work in his book "The Achieving Society." He identified three motivators that he believed we all have: a need for achievement, a need for affiliation, and a need for power. Poeple wil have a dominant motivator. -
Stanley Schachter
His most well know research is on emotion, and his most well known theory is the Two-Factored Theory. focuses on the interaction between physical arousal and how we cognitively label that arousal. -
Hans Eysenck
Eysenck studied the structure of personaity and came up with the personality theory, which states that everyone exhibits specific responses to both internal and external stimuli. These specific responses will vary according to the intensity of the stimuli, the situation, state of mind, and many other factors. -
Jerome Kagan
Kagan focused his study on temperament an infant's fear. He defined two types of temperament; inhibited and uninhibited. He also concluded that certain behaviors in infancy can predict other behavior patterns in adolescence.
