Timeline of Modern Psychology

1878 --Stanley Hall becomes the first American to earn a Ph.D. in psychology. Hall eventually founds the American Psychological Association.

1879 –Wilhelm Wundt founds the first psychology lab in Leipzig, Germany. The event is considered the starting point of psychology as a separate science.

1881 --Wundt forms the professional journal Philosophische Studien (Philosophical Studies)

1886 –Sigmund Freud begins providing therapy to patients in Vienna, Austria.

1888--J. McKeen Cattell becomes the first professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.

1890 --J. M. Cattell publishes Mental Tests and Measurements, the beginning of the practice of psychological assessment.

--William James publishes Principles of Psychology.

--Sir Francis Galton creates correlation technique to better understand relationships between variable in intelligence studies.

1892 --G. Stanley Hall forms the American Psychological Association (APA), which initially has just 42 members.

--Wundt’s student Edward B. Titchener moves to America.

1894 --Margaret Floy Washburn completes her training under Tichener.

1895 --Alfred Binet forms the first psychology lab devoted to psychodiagnosis.

1898 --Edward Thorndike develops the Law of Effect.

1900 –Sigmund Freud publishes Interpretation of Dreams.

1901 --The British Psychological Society is formed.

1905 --Mary Whiton Calkins is elected the first woman president of the American Psychological Association.

--Alfred Binet publishes the intelligence test New Methods for the Diagnosis of the Intellectual Level of Subnormals.

1906 --Ivan Pavlov publishes his findings on classical conditioning.

--Morton Prince founds the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

1907 –Carl Jung publishes The Psychology of Dementia Praecox.

1909 --Calkins publishes A First Book in Psychology.

1912 --Edward Thorndike publishes Animal Intelligence. The article leads to the development of the theory of operant conditioning.

--Max Wertheimer publishes Experimental Studies of the Perception of Movement, leading to the devolpment of Gestalt Psychology.

1913 –Carl Jung begins to depart from Freudian views and develops his own theories, which are eventually known as analytical psychology.

--John B. Watson publishes Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It. The work helped establish behaviorism, which viewed human behavior arising from conditioned responses.

1915 –Sigmund Freud publishes work on repression.

1917 -- Then president of the APA, Robert Yerkes writes the Alpha and Beta Tests for the Army to test intelligence.

1919 -- John B. Watson publishes Psychology, From the Standpoint of a Behaviorist.

1920 --John Watson and Rosalie Rayner publish research the classical conditioning of fear with their subject, Little Albert.

1925 --Gestal Psychology is brought to America with the publication of Wolfgang Kohler’s Perception: An Introduction to the Gestalt Theory.

1932 --Jean Piaget becomes the foremost cognitive theorist with the publication of his work The Moral Judgment of Children.

1935 --Henry Murray publishes the Thematic Appreception Test (TAT).

1942 --Carl Rogers developed client-centered therapy and publishes Counseling and Psychotherapy. His approach encourages respect and positive regard for patients.

1952 --The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is published.

1954 --Abraham Maslow publishes Motivation and Personality, describing his theory of a hierarchy of needs. He also helps found humanistic psychology.

1963 --Albert Bandura first describes the concept of observational learning to explain personality development.

1974 --Stanley Milgram publishes Obedience to Authority.

1980 --The DSM-III is published.

1990 --Noam Chomsky publishes On Nature, Use and Acquisition of Language.

1994 --The DSM-IV is published.

2000 --Genetic researchers finish mapping human genes. Scientists hope to one day isolate the individual genes responsible for diseases.