History of Psychology Timeline

This timeline is meant to provide a good overview of the important pubilcations (and some events) in the history of psychology. Links are provided to more information on important psychologists and, in some cases, online versions of their work. The earliest events on the timeline indicate theological, philosophical, and physiological publications that are influential to modern-day psychologists.

427 - 322 B.C.	Lives of Greek philosphers: Plato, Socrates, Aristotle
426	Life of St. Augustine, a great thinker who wrote Confessions (406) and City of God (426) presenting his views of the human situation
1264	St. Thomas Aquinas publishes his famous Summa Theological, a prodigious work that affirmed the value of knowledge gained through sense and thought.
1605	Sir Francis Bacon publishes The Proficience and Advancement of Learning.
1649	Rene Discartes writes Passions of the Soul, which postulates the total separation of body and soul.
1651	Thomas Hobbes publishes the Leviathan.
1690	English philosopher John Locke publishes An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.
1709	Foundational philosophy: George Berkeley publishes An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision.
1859	Charles Darwin publishes the Origin of Species.
1869	Francis Galton publishes Hereditary Genius.
1875	William James teaches the course, "The relationships among the Physiology and the Psychology."
1876	Francis Galton first uses the method of twin comparisons.
1885	Herman Ebbinghaus publishes Memory: A contribution to Experimental Psychology.
1879	Wilhelm Wundt opens the first formal psychological laboratory at the University of Leipzig in Germany.
1883	G. Stanley Hall founds America's first psychological laboratory at Johns Hopkins University.
1888	James McKeen Cattell, former student of Wundt and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, became the first in the United States with the title "Professor of Psychology."
1890	William James publishes Principles of Psychology. J.M. Cattell publishes Mental tests and measurements.
1892	Edward Titchener, another student of Wundt, emigrates to the United States, where he would introduce the structuralism movement. G. Stanley Hall helps to found the American Psychological Association. E.L. Thorndike publishes Animal Intelligence.
1894	J.M. Cattell and Baldwin found Psychological Review, Psychological Index, and Psychological Monographs.
1898	Edward Thornkike publishes his classical monograph Animal Intelligence.
1900	Sigmund Freud presents his concepts of psychoanalysis in a publication entitled "The Interpretation of Dreams."
1906	Mary Whiton Calkins becomes the first president of the American Psychological Assocation.
1906	Ivan Pavlov publishes his findings regarding classical conditioning (aka Pavlovian conditioning).
1907	Alfred Adler publishes his main work: A Study of Organic Inferiority and Its Psychical Compensation.
1908	Alfred Binet and Theodor Simon develop tests for measurement children's intelligence.
1909	G. Stanley Hall invites Freud to give a series of lectures in America, which spread Freud's theory and his fame.
1912	Max Wertheimer launches the Gestalt movement with his work on the phi phenomenon.
1913	John B. Watson publishes Psychology as a Behaviorist Views It, launching the influential behaviorism movement George Herbert Mead publishes The Social Self.
1916	Lewis M. Terman publishes The Uses of Intelligence Tests.
1923	Sigmund Freud publishes The Ego and the Id.
1926	Jean Piaget publishes The language and thought of a child.
1927	Charles E. Spearman publishes Abilities of Man on general and specific factors of intelligence.
1935	Kurt Lewin publishes A Dynamic Theory of Personality. Kurt Koffka publishes Principles of Gestalt Psychology.
1936	Anna Freud publishes The ego and the mechanisms of defence, which include her account of defense mechanisms.
1937	Gordon W. Allport publishes Personality: A psychological interpretation, one of the books responsible for the acceptance of personality as a field of academic study.
1938	B.F. Skinner publishes Behavior of Organisms, introducing operant conditioning. Henry A. Murry and Christiana Morgan devise the Thematic Apperception Test.
1939	Neal Miller and John Dollard published their famous study Frustration and Aggression.
1946	Raymond B. Cattell published his factor-analytical Description and measurement of personality.
1950	Konrad Lorenz wrote The Comparative Method in Studying Innate Behaviour Patterns, in which he used the evolutionary perspective to analyze aspects of behavior and made the controversial assertion that humans are inherently aggressive.
1951	Solomon Asch presents his classical study on conformity in making line length judgments Carl Rogers publishes Client-Centered Therapy, presenting his influential techniques in client-centered therapy.
1953	Eugene Aserinsky and Nathaniel Kleitman discover REM sleep.
1954	Abraham Maslow publishes Motivation and Personality, a significant work for the humanism movement.
1959	Leon Festinger and Carlsmith publish their study, Cognitive consequences of forced compliance.
1971	George Miller publishes The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two with important ideas on short-term memory.
1971	B.F. Skinner publishes Beyond Freedom and Dignity.
1974	Stanley Milgram publishes Obedience to Authority, discussing his famous electric shock experiment
1990	Noam Chomsky publishes On Nature, Use and Acquisition of Language.

References

House, William J. (date unknown). "The History of Psychology." [online] Available: http://www.usca.sc.edu/psychology/histor~1.html (August, 2000)

Likely, David G. (2000, July). "HistPsyc Headlines Pages." [online] Available: http://www.unb.ca/web/units/psych/likely/headlines/ (August, 2000)

Pereira, Marcos E. (date unknown). "TimeLine of psychological ideas." [online] Available: http://share.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/6061/en_linha.htm (August, 2000)

Note: Many of the psychologist links are to Muskingham College's History of Psychology Archives page, an excellent resource for biographical sketches, and many of the publications links are to Classics in the History of Psychology, an excellent resource of online papers.