Time Period
Major Historic
Event
Medical/scientific
advances
1895-1915
1898-USS Maine
explodes and sinks in
Havana Habor
1899-Philippine
American War
1910- Idaho Big
Burn, 1912-Titanic
sinks, 1914-Start
WWI (WWI
Christmas Truce)
Continuation of
WWI, 1915 Suffrage
movement, 1918Influenza Epidemic,
1919-treaty of
Versailles, 1919- 19th
Amendment grants
women the right to
vote, 1926- Ford
Company 40hr week,
1928- Amelia Earhart
flies across the
Atlantic, 1929- Great
Depression
Continuation of
WWII, 1942- U.S.
interns Japanese
Americans, 1945Atomic bomb, 1946Nuremburg Trials,
1948-Israel founded,
1948- Racial
segregation ends,
1950- Korean War,
1954- Brown V
Board ed, 1956Hungarian uprising,
1956- Suez crisis,
1957- Little Rock 9,
Cold War continues,
Civil Rights
Movement continues
1899- Creation of
Aspirin by Felix
Hoffman
1916-1936
1937-1957
Personality
theories/models
developed
1895-Freud Study of
Hysteria.
1896- Freud
Seduction Theory
1920- creation of the 1923- Freud’s Id and
Band-Aid, 1928the Ego model
Creation of
Penicillin, 1928- First
Iron Lung
1932- Beginning of
Tuskegee
Experiments (not a
medical advancement
but significant),
1953-DNA double
Helix discovered,
1954-Polio Vaccine,
1937-Allports
psychology of the
individual, 1940Cattekk’s
developmental factor
analysis,1947- Hans
Eysenck two
pertinent dimensions
of personality
(extroversion and
Neuroticism),1950Adorno Authoritarian
Personality, 1950Erik Erikson first
published his eightstage theory of
human development
in ‘Childhood and
Society’, 1954-
1958-1978
1958- Sputnik
launched, 1961
Berlin wall erected,
1962-Cuban Missile
Crisis, 1965Vietnam war, 1967Israeli/Arab 6 day
war, 1969- stonewall
riots, 1973watergate hearings,
1973- Roe V Wade,
1979-1999
1979- USSR invades
AFG, 1979-3mil
island Nuclear
accident, 1980Iran/Iraq war, 1986Chenobyl nuclear
accident, 1986Challenger explodes,
1989-Exxon Valdez
rupture, 1989-Berlin
wall falls, 1990-Gulf
War, 1994- Rwanda
Genocide, 1995Oklahoma City
bombing
2001- September 11th
Terrorist attacks,
2001- Anthrax scare,
2003- Invasion of
Iraq, 2005 Hurricane
Katrina, 2010- Wiki
leaks, 2012-Syrian
civil war, 2014-Ebola
Virus, 2015- Black
Lives Matter
movement, 2015Supreme Court
legalizes gay
marriage, 2016- Zika
Virus, 2019-present
Corona Virus
2000-Present
1960- Birth Control
approved for
contraception,1963Measles vaccine,
1964- Surgeon
General confirms
cigarette smoke
causes cancer, 1965first space walks,
1969- Apollo lands
on moon, 1978- first
test tube baby
1981- AIDs
identified, 1982- first
artificial heart, 1988Global Warming
Warning, 1995medical lasers,1996Dolly first cloned
sheep
2001- Stem cell
research, 2003Genome Project,
2006- Pluto
reclassified as dwarf
planet, 2012- Higgs
Boson discovered,
20150 restoring sight
to the blind, 2020COVID vaccine,
Maslow’s Hierarchy
of Needs
1961- Ernest Tupes
and Christal 5 factors,
1963- Albert Bandura
Observational
Learning Theory,
1970-Psychological
Profiling, 1976Shields twin studies
(extrovert/introvert),
1977-social learning
theory
1981- Lewis
Goldberg Big Five,
1981-Sandra Bem
gender schema
theory, 1987- Socioanalytic theory,
2001- William
Fleeson (how traits
vary across context
and time)
Reviewing historical timelines, current events, medical advancements, and psychological
theories of personality, depict a steady correlation between current events, psychological
advancement, and scientific interest. Murphy (1932) suggestion that cultural context influences
characteristic adaptions to trait and individual uniqueness, holds true almost a decade later.
Corresponding events such as WWII and its influence on equipment development in preparation
for war, the Milgram study that followed to decipher authoritarian influence on action and
behavior and medical advancements such as Sulfa drugs, Penicillin, and metal joints portray a
correlation of co-dependency in culture and advancement (Tobey,2018). The study of twins by
Nazi Germany, during WWII also lent to the studies of twin behavior in 1977 (Tobey, 2018). In
America specifically, it is evident that there is a relationship between large scale current events
(typically a war or conflict of sorts) with its push for scientific and psychological developments.
Another example can be depicted during the civil rights timeframe, which relate to Tuskegee
experiments, the use of Penicillin to treat Syphilis, and the illegal/ unethical use of blind studies.
In examining historical events and its simultaneous or corresponding, theories of personality
and/or medical/scientific advancement, it is evident that the times certainly influence the
characteristics of the knowledge sought.
To understand the relationship between theories of personality with its relevant historical and
scientific basis, we must first look at the definition and dissect its relationship with culture.
According to (Bynum, 2002), an individual’s personality is conjured by combining traits and
patterns that influence their responding behavior. The traits and patterns, according to the nature
vs nurture arguments, consist of both innate and genetic dispositions, to include environment or
culture (Bynum, 2002). These factors consume thoughts and lend to motivation and curiosity.
After some time, the patterns influence perceptions, values attitudes, and expectations
(Murphy,1932). Although it may be concluded that culture, events, advancements and
personalities correlate, there is no specific order to its correspondence. According to Baumeister
and Trice (1996), the greatest successes of personality psychology made themselves prevalent
during the 20th century, influencing and leading other major disciplinary work in the fields of
social sciences, humanities and biology. The nature versus nurture arguments (coined by Francis
Galton in 1869) lent to biological inquiry and advancements in twin studies and a series of other
instances in which personality psychology led the way. In other instances, such as the previously
mentioned wars, scientific and medical advancements were made to win the war or minimize
casualties and the psychological advancements were made on the latter end to understand the
atrocities committed or psychological endeavors experienced. Other times, human rights and
civil rights movements or equality movements influenced the study of gender or medical
advancement such as the steady progress made in women rights, the creation of birth control as a
contraceptive and the study of the gender schema theory by Sandra Bem (Bynum, 2002).
Although each event correlate, causes and patterns change to reflect the cultural dynamic. In
reviewing the timelines depicted in figure 1, it is astonishing to figuratively see the changes in
cultural pattern and the rise of a new concept.