Thorndike, Columbia University, describes his learning experiments with cats in “puzzle boxes.” In 1905, he proposes the “law of effect.”ġ900- Sigmund Freud publishes The Interpretation of Dreams, his major theoretical work on psychoanalysis.ġ933- Inez Beverly Prosser becomes the first African-American woman to receive a doctoral degree in psychology from a U.S. Harvard University denies Mary Whiton Calkins admission to doctoral candidacy because of her gender, despite Hugo Münsterberg’s claim that she was the best student he had ever had there.ġ896- John Dewey publishes “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology,” helping to formalize the school of psychology called functionalism.ġ898- In “Animal Intelligence,” Edward L.
degree in psychology (Cornell University). Stanley Hall spearheads the founding of the American Psychological Association (APA) and becomes its first president.ġ893- Mary Whiton Calkins (pictured) and Christine Ladd-Franklin are the first women elected to membership in the APA.ġ894- Margaret Floy Washburn is the first woman to receive a Ph.D. degree in psychology awarded by a Department of Psychology in the United States.ġ889- Alfred Binet and Henri Beaunis establish the first psychology laboratory in France at the Sorbonne, and the first International Congress of Psychology meets in Paris.ġ890- William James, Harvard University philosopher and psychologist, publishes The Principles of Psychology, describing psychology as “the science of mental life.”ġ891- James Mark Baldwin establishes the first psychology laboratory in the British Commonwealth at the University of Toronto.ġ892- G. psychology laboratory at Johns Hopkins University.ġ885- Hermann Ebbinghaus publishes On Memory, summarizing his extensive research on learning and memory, including the “forgetting curve.”ġ886- Joseph Jastrow receives from Johns Hopkins University the first Ph.D. Stanley Hall, student of Wilhelm Wundt, establishes the first formal U.S. degree based on psychological research.ġ879- Wilhelm Wundt establishes at the University of Leipzig, Germany, the first psychology laboratory, which becomes a Mecca for psychology students from all over the world.ġ883- G. Stanley Hall receives from Harvard University’s Department of Philosophy the first U.S. In 1876 he coins the expression “nature and nurture” to correspond with “heredity and environment.”ġ874- Carl Wernicke, a German neurologist and psychiatrist, shows that damage to a specific area in the left temporal lobe (now called Wernicke’s area) disrupts ability to comprehend or produce spoken or written language.ġ878- G.
1869- Francis Galton, Charles Darwin’s cousin, publishes Hereditary Genius, in which he claims that intelligence is inherited.