Pre-scientific Psychology and Historical Foundations
Plato
Ancient idealism, dualism, tripartite soul (reason, spirit, appetite).
Aristotle
Monism, first treatise On the Soul, entelechy.
Hippocrates and Galen
Typology of temperament, 4 bodily humors (sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic).
Saint Augustine
Patristics, introduction of the introspection method, emphasis on free will.
Thomas Aquinas
Scholasticism, synthesis of faith and reason, emphasis on sensory knowledge.
René Descartes
Rationalism, Cogito ergo sum, nativism, interactionist dualism (pineal gland).
Baruch Spinoza
Rationalism, psychophysical parallelism (mind and body are one substance).
John Locke
Empiricism, Tabula rasa (blank slate), associationism.
G. W. Leibniz
Rationalism, monads, petites perceptions (unconscious).
Franz Joseph Gall
Pseudoscience of phrenology, stimulated research into the localization of brain functions.
G. B. della Porta
Pseudoscience of physiognomy (reading character from facial features).
Philippe Pinel
Humanization of psychiatry, symbolic unchaining of the mentally ill.
Charles Darwin
Evolutionary theory, natural selection, influence on comparative psychology.
William James
Functionalism, stream of consciousness, James-Lange theory of emotion.
E. G. Boring
Prominent historian of psychology.
The Birth of Scientific Psychology and Classical Psychoanalysis
Wilhelm Wundt
Founding of the first laboratory (1879 Leipzig), element psychology, introspection.
Edward B. Titchener
Structuralism, searching for the structure of consciousness (what the mind is made of).
Gustav T. Fechner
Psychophysics, Weber-Fechner law (relationship between stimulus and perception).
Hermann Ebbinghaus
Experimental research on memory, nonsense syllables, forgetting curve.
Paul Broca and Carl Wernicke
Neuropsychology, localization of centers for speech production (Broca) and comprehension (Wernicke).
Francis Galton
Psychometrics, individual differences, eugenics.
Alfred Binet
First practical intelligence test (Binet-Simon scale, mental age).
William Stern
Introduction of the concept of intelligence quotient (IQ = MA/CA * 100).
David Wechsler
Modern intelligence tests (WAIS, WISC), deviation IQ.
Sigmund Freud
Classical psychoanalysis, the unconscious, structural model (Id, Ego, Superego), Eros/Thanatos, dream interpretation.
Anna Freud
Systematization of Ego defense mechanisms (repression, projection, denial, rationalization).
Departure from Freud and Neopsychoanalysis
Carl Gustav Jung
Analytical psychology, collective unconscious, archetypes, individuation, libido as general energy.
Alfred Adler
Individual psychology, inferiority complex, sibling constellation, lifestyle.
Melanie Klein
School of object relations, child psychoanalysis, good/bad breast, projective identification.
Margaret Mahler
Developmental psychoanalysis, separation-individuation process.
Karen Horney
Cultural psychoanalysis, basic anxiety, 3 neurotic trends (toward, against, away from people).
Erich Fromm
Humanistic psychoanalysis, productive/non-productive characters (marketing), the art of loving.
Harry Stack Sullivan
Interpersonal theory (personality exists only in relationships).
Heinz Kohut
Self-psychology, healthy vs. pathological narcissism, empathic mirroring.
Behaviorism and Neobehaviorism
Ivan P. Pavlov
Classical conditioning, unconditioned and conditioned reflex.
Edward L. Thorndike
Instrumental conditioning, law of effect.
John B. Watson
Founder of behaviorism, mind as a black box, S-R paradigm, Little Albert.
Burrhus F. Skinner
Operant conditioning, Skinner box, positive/negative reinforcement, punishment.
John Garcia
Garcia effect (taste aversion), biological preparedness for learning (exception to conditioning).
Edward C. Tolman
Cognitive behaviorism, S-O-R paradigm, cognitive maps, latent learning.
Clark L. Hull
Neobehaviorism, drive-reduction theory.
Albert Bandura
Social-cognitive theory, observational learning (imitation), Bobo doll experiment.
Gestaltism, Humanism, and Logotherapy
Max Wertheimer
Founder of Gestaltism, phi phenomenon (illusion of motion), restructuring of the problem field.
Wolfgang Köhler
Gestaltism, insight learning (Aha-effect, experiments with chimpanzees).
Kurt Koffka
Developmental Gestalt psychology, sensorimotor learning, holistic perception in children.
Kurt Lewin
Field theory, life space, vectors and valence (psychological forces).
Bluma Zeigarnik
Zeigarnik effect (better memory for uncompleted tasks).
Abraham H. Maslow
Humanistic psychology, hierarchy of needs (D-needs, B-needs), self-actualization.
Carl R. Rogers
Client-centered approach, Real/Ideal Self, congruence, unconditional positive regard.
Viktor E. Frankl
Logotherapy (3rd Viennese school), will to meaning, existential vacuum, Sunday neurosis.
Medard Boss and Ludwig Binswanger
European Daseinsanalysis, exploring human being-in-the-world (Dasein).
Rollo May
American existential psychology, anxiety as an inevitable part of freedom.
Cognitive Psychology and Developmental Theories
Ulric Neisser and J. S. Bruner
Pioneers of cognitive psychology, computer metaphor of the mind.
Noam Chomsky
Cognitive linguistics, innate language acquisition device (LAD), critique of behaviorism.
George A. Kelly
Personal construct psychology (man as a scientist), REP test.
Karl H. Pribram
Holographic model of the brain, TOTE model.
Jean Piaget
Cognitive development, assimilation/accommodation, 4 stages (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete, formal).
Erik H. Erikson
Psychosocial development (8 crises), epigenetic principle, lifelong development.
John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth
Attachment theory, evolutionary importance of caregiving, Strange Situation.
Lawrence Kohlberg
Moral development, solving moral dilemmas (preconventional, conventional, postconventional level).
Lev S. Vygotsky
Sociocultural theory, zone of proximal development, internalization.
Stanislav Grof
Transpersonal psychology, holotropic breathwork, altered states of consciousness.
Martin Seligman
Positive psychology, learned helplessness.
Gordon W. Allport
Personality psychology, concept of the proprium (Self), The Nature of Prejudice.
Emil Kraepelin vs. Eugen Bleuler
Kraepelin (dementia praecox) vs. Bleuler (introduction of the term schizophrenia).
Thomas and Znaniecki
Social psychology, introduction of the concept of attitude.
Ludwig von Bertalanffy
General systems theory (foundation for family and systemic therapy).