Rene Descartes
• French philosopher
and mathematician
who proposed
mind-body
interaction and the
doctrine of innate
ideas.
• 1637
John Locke
• British philosopher
who rejected
Descartes’ notion
of innate ideas and
insisted the mind at
birth is a “blank
slate” (tabula rasa).
• 1690
Philippe Pinel
• Released the first
mental patients
from their chains at
the Bicetre Asylum
in France and
advocated more
humane treatment
of mental patients.
• 1793
Ernst Weber
• Published The Sense
of Touch in which
he discussed the
just noticeable
difference (jnd) and
what we now call
Weber’s Law.
• 1834
Phineas Gage
• Suffered massive
brain damage when a
large iron rod
accidently pierces his
brain, leaving his
intellect and memory
intact but altering his
personality.
• 1848
Charles Darwin
• Published On the Origin of
Species by Means of Natural
Selection, synthesizing
much previous work on the
theory of evolution,
including that of Herbert
Spencer, who coined the
phrase “survival of the
fittest.”
• 1859
Wilhelm Wundt
• First laboratory
devoted specifically
to the study of
psychological
phenomenon in
Leipzig, Germany.
• 1879
Sigmund Freud
• Published
Interpretation of
Dreams to begin a
study of the
unconscious mind.
• 1900
Mary Whiton Calkins
• Became the first
woman president of
the American
Psychological
Association.
• 1905
Ivan Pavlov
• Began publishing
studies of
conditioning in
animals.
• 1905
Margaret Floy Washburn
• Became the first female
psychology Ph. D. awarded at
Cornell University in 1894.
• Her principal research
interests were animal
behavior and the basic
psychological processes of
sensation and perception.
The book she is best known
for was “The Animal Mind.”
• 1908
John B. Watson
• Outlined the tenets
of behaviorism in a
Psychological Review
article, “Psychology
as the Behaviorist
Views It.”
• 1913
Leta Stetter Hollingsworth
• Published The
Psychology of
Subnormal Children,
an early classic in
the study of varying
levels of
intelligence.
• 1920
Francis Cecil Sumner
• Received a Ph. D.
degree in psychology
from Clark University,
becoming the first
African-American to
earn a psychology
doctorate.
• 1920
Hermann Rorschach
• Swiss psychologist
who introduced the
Rorschach Inkblot
test.
• 1921
Mary Cover Jones
• Reported
reconditioning a fear
reaction in a child
(Peter), a forerunner
of systematic
desensitization
developed by Joseph
Wolpe.
• 1924
Walter Cannon
• Coined the term
“homeostasis,”
discussed the fightor-flight response and
identified hormonal
changes associated
with stress.
• 1932
Solomon Asch
• Published studies of
effects of
conformity on
judgment of line
length.
• 1950
Carl Rogers
• Published Client-Centered
Therapy
• Humanistic psychologist
who emphasized the
importance of current
environmental influences
on our growth potential.
• 1951
Abraham Maslow
• Proposed a
hierarchy of
motives ranging
from physiological
needs to self
actualization.
• 1954
George Miller
• In his Psychological Review
article, “The Magical
Number Seven, Plus or
Minus Two: Some Limits
on Our Capacity for
Processing Information,”
Miller coined the term
chunk for memory
researchers.
• 1956
Burrhus Frederick Skinner
• A leading behaviorist,
he rejected
introspection and
studied how
consequences shape
behavior.
• With Charles Ferster
publishes Schedules of
Reinforcement.
• 1957
Noam Chomsky
• Reasoned that we are
born with an innate
language acquisition
device.
• His critical review of
B. F. Skinner’s Verbal
Behavior appeared in
the journal Language.
• 1959
Harry Harlow
• Outlined “The
Nature of Love,”
his work on
attachment in
monkeys.
• 1959
Albert Ellis
• Reason and Emotion
in Psychotherapy
appeared; a
milestone in the
development of
rational-emotive
therapy (RET).
• 1962
Raymond Cattell
• Distinguished
between fluid and
crystallized
intelligence.
• 1963
Stanley Milgram
• “Behavioral Study
of Obedience”
appeared in the
Journal of Abnormal
and Social
Psychology.
• 1963
Beatrix and Allen Gardner
• Began training a
chimpanzee
(Washoe) in
American Sign
Language at the
University of
Nevada, Reno.
• 1966
Albert Bandura
• Published Social
Learning Theory.
• Bobo Doll studies.
• 1971
Elizabeth Loftus
• Published
Eyewitness
Testimony.
• 1979
Roger Sperry
• Received a Nobel
prize for research
on split-brain
patients.
• 1981
Martin Seligman
• Published Learned
Optimism, which
foreshadows the
“positive
psychology”
movement.
• 1991