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Psychology timeline

Psychology timeline: Rodin the Thinker
The Thinker
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

See also articles on moral psychology and biological cognition.

Introduction – Psychology timeline

The rich and complex history of psychology as an academic discipline dates back to ancient civilizations, but it truly began to take shape as a scientific field in the late 19th century. Since then, psychology has evolved significantly, with contributions from countless researchers and thinkers. This account will explore the key developments and milestones in the psychology timeline, from its earliest origins to the modern-day.

The roots of psychology can be traced back to ancient civilizations such as ancient Egypt, Greece, China, and India, where philosophers and scholars explored the nature of the mind and behavior. These early thinkers laid the groundwork for the later development of psychology as a scientific discipline.

The scientific study of psychology began in the 19th century with the work of Wilhelm Wundt, a German physiologist and philosopher. In 1879, Wundt established the first experimental psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig, where he conducted experiments to study the human mind and behavior. Wundt’s work laid the foundation for the field of experimental psychology and marked the beginning of psychology as a distinct academic discipline.

Following Wundt’s pioneering work, a number of other influential figures emerged in the field of psychology. Sigmund Freud, often regarded as the father of modern psychology, developed psychoanalysis as a method for exploring the unconscious mind and treating mental disorders. His work revolutionized the field of psychology and laid the groundwork for the development of various psychotherapeutic approaches.

In the early 20th century, behaviorism emerged as a dominant school of thought in psychology, led by researchers such as John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner. Behaviorism focused on the study of observable behavior and rejected the importance of inner mental processes. This approach had a significant impact on the field of psychology and led to the development of techniques such as behavior modification and behavior therapy.

In the mid-20th century, the field of psychology underwent a major transformation with the emergence of the cognitive revolution. This movement emphasized the importance of mental processes such as thinking, memory, and perception in understanding human behavior. Cognitive psychology became a dominant school of thought in psychology and led to the development of new research methods and theories.

Over the years, psychology has continued to evolve and diversify, with the emergence of various subfields such as clinical psychology, developmental psychology, social psychology, and cognitive psychology. These subfields focus on different aspects of human behavior and mental processes, and each has its own methods, theories, and areas of research.

In recent years, psychology has become increasingly interdisciplinary, with researchers from various fields such as neuroscience, genetics, and computer science contributing to our understanding of the human mind and behavior. This interdisciplinary approach has led to significant advances in areas such as cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology, and evolutionary psychology.

Today, psychology is a diverse and vibrant field that continues to evolve and expand. Researchers are constantly pushing the boundaries of knowledge and exploring new frontiers in understanding the human mind and behavior. The field of psychology has made significant contributions to our understanding of mental health, cognitive processes, social behavior, and much more.

In conclusion, the history of psychology as an academic discipline is a rich and fascinating journey that spans centuries and encompasses a wide range of theories and approaches. From its ancient roots to the modern-day, psychology has evolved significantly, thanks to the contributions of countless researchers and thinkers. As we look to the future, it is clear that psychology will continue to play a vital role in advancing our understanding of the human mind and behavior (AI-GPT-4o).

Psychology timeline

 

pre 1830s – Many observations on the operations of the human mind going back to antiquity as the philosophy of mind.

1879 – Founding of Psychology as a Formal Science: Wilhelm Wundt establishes the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig, Germany.

1890s– Psychoanalysis – School founded by Sigmund Freud and in 1911 the International Psychoanalytic Association was formed with Carl Jung the first president. 

1900 – Psychoanalysis Emerges: Sigmund Freud develops the psychoanalytic theory, emphasizing the role of the unconscious mind.

1913 – Behaviorism Introduced: John B. Watson publishes “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It,” founding behaviorism.

1913 – Analytical psychology – a consequence of the separation of Carl Jung from the ideas of Sigmund Freud.

1920 – Freud’s “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”: Freud introduces the death instinct and the repetition compulsion.

1936 – Laws of Perceptual Organization: Gestalt psychologists propose principles of perception and organization.

1943 – McCulloch & Pitts’ Neural Network Model: Pioneering work on artificial neural networks.

1957 – Cognitive revolution – Noam Chomsky criticizes behaviorism. Connection of psychology to information theory, computer science, generative linguistics, and artificial intelligence. 

1961 – Milgram’s Obedience Study: Stanley Milgram’s experiment on obedience to authority shocks the world.

1967 – Positive Psychology: Martin Seligman pioneers the positive psychology movement.

1958-1974 – Behaviourism (radical behaviourism) promoted by Harvard Professor B.F. Skinner

1970 – Behavioural genetics – In 1951 Calvin S. Hall introduced the term “psychogenetics” which was replaced by “behaviour genetics” which gained recognition as a discipline in 1960 with the textbook Behavior Genetics by J.L. Fuller and W.R. Thompson. Nowadays it is widely accepted that most behaviours in animals and humans are under some degree of genetic influence. Theodosius Dobzhansky was elected the first president of the Behavior Genetics Association in 1972; the BGA bestows the Dobzhansky Award on researchers for their outstanding contributions to the field. In the early 1970s, Lee Ehrman, a doctoral student of Dobzhansky, wrote seminal papers describing the relationship between genotype frequency and mating success in Drosophila,[9][10][11] lending impetus to the pursuit of genetic studies of behaviour in other animals.

1971 – APA Removes Homosexuality from DSM: The American Psychiatric Association removes homosexuality as a mental disorder.

1973 – Cognitive science – term coined and the first journal and society formed although the subject dates back to cyberneticists in the 1930s and ‘40s, computation in the 1940s and ‘50s with a major attack on behaviourism by Noam Chomsky in 1959.

1983 – Developmental Psychology – “Zone of Proximal Development”: Lev Vygotsky introduces the ZPD concept.

1986 – Multiple Intelligences Theory: Howard Gardner proposes multiple intelligences beyond IQ.

1990 – Emotional Intelligence: Peter Salovey and John Mayer introduce the concept of emotional intelligence.

1992 – Evolutionary psychology – became mainstream with the book The Adapted Mind by Leda Cosmides and John Tooby although in the 1970s-‘80s evolutionary biology had arrived in universities but its history can be found in the ethology of Dutch biologist Nikolaas Tinbergen and Austrian biologists Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch and given major impetus by the book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis of Edward O. Wilson in 1975. Behavioral ecology placed less emphasis on social behavior by focusing on the ecological and evolutionary basis of both animal and human behavior.

2003 – Mapping the Human Genome: The Human Genome Project provides insights into genetic influences on behavior.

2005 – Positive Psychology Journal: The Journal of Positive Psychology is established, advancing the positive psychology field.

2013 – DSM-5 Published: The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is released.

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   Biological Revolution

Theoretical biology is currently experiencing a paradigm shift in its foundational ideas as the concepts of agency and cognition are extended beyond the human (sentient) domain to non-human organisms.

Biological agency is evident in the universal capacity of organisms to act on and respond to their conditions of existence in a unified, goal-directed, and flexible way - as the objective and ultimate capacity to survive, reproduce, adapt, and evolve (the biological axiom).

The observable behavior that establishes biological agency is generated by functionally integrated internal processing. This is a universal form of biological cognition as understood in a broad sense as the means by which organisms access, store, retrieve, process, prioritize, and communicate information as a prelude to goal-directed activity. These same universal characteristics are exhibited by functionally equivalent structures, processes, and behaviors of all organisms with human cognition one highly evolved form.

Human agency and human cognition are highly evolved and species-specific examples of universal biological agency and universal biological cognition. Our anthropocentrism and awareness of our own mental states have led us to describe functionally equivalent adaptations of other organisms using the language of human cognition and intentional psychology.  This misuse of language, which also implies evolutionary similarity, is therefore treated as cognitive metaphor. This ignores the fact that functionally equivalent adaptations (expressed in evolutionarily graded form) need not necessarily express direct evolutionary connection and, more importantly, they currently lack an appropriate functionally descriptive terminology.  Functional equivalence is a genuine feature of biological systems. Human physical mental faculties (many uniquely human), such as sentience, subjectivity, experience, perception, reason, value, knowledge, memory, learning, communication, etc. have functional equivalents in other organisms that do not, and need not, demonstrate physically direct evolutionary connection. We have a well-established biological language for structural comparison, but no equivalent language for functional comparison.

These philosophical changes are part of the framework of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) which expands on traditional evolutionary theory by incorporating new insights from developmental biology, epigenetics, and ecology, notably the acknowledgment of organisms as active participants in their own evolution, shaping their own developmental trajectories and those of their descendants.

This re-evaluation of the human relationship to other species represents a significant expansion of human knowledge. It opens new research fields, challenges the foundations of theoretical biology, and has ethical implications for the way we interact with other living beings.