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 fight-or-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