History of Psychology

The German physiologist Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) is now recognized worldwide as the founding figure of academic psychology. He founded the first Institute for Experimental Psychology in Leipzig in 1879 and gained recognition during his lifetime. The scientist's last home in the small village of Großbothen in East Germany, about 100 miles (160 km) south of Berlin, was left to decay after German reunification in 1989/1990. Wundt's other homes in Leipzig were destroyed during World War II. During the GDR period, when the house was owned by the public sector, an inscription in honor of Wundt was added...

Innovations in Language, Emotion, and Empathy Research is a digital exhibit which celebrates the forgotten contributions to psychology by Prof. Vincent V. Herr, S. J. (1901-1970) and his colleagues in the mid-20th century. It draws on the substantial unpublished material in the Herr Papers at the Loyola University Chicago Archives and Special Collections. The online exhibition showcases over 40 archival documents, images, and photographs. These are elaborated with detailed text presenting Herr's research achievements and impactful collaborations...

Michael was a historian by choice and calling, well-known for his Brief History of Psychology , which appeared in six editions. He also edited with Gregory Kimble a seven-volume series of Portraits of Pioneers in Psychology , an essential resource describing many of the illustrious ancestors of contemporary psychology. He was known for his long service to various professional associations, especially the APA. He was president of four APA divisions: 1 (General Psychology), 2 (Teaching of Psychology), 24 (Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology), and 26 (History of Psychology)...

In order to access gender-affirming care, transgender individuals were historically required by international guidelines to undergo mental health provider assessment (Coleman et al., 2012). This requirement for universal mental health provider involvement, initially formulated via professional expert opinion, has not been retained in the most recent World Professional Association for Transgender Health Standards of Care (WPATH SOC 8; Coleman et al., 2022). In the present analysis, I sought to examine the historical and cultural contexts of these expert opinions codified in the first version of the WPATH SOC released in 1979...

This study traces the long early history of the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (VAK) learning style typology. The VAK distinction and vocabulary originated with the psychology of mental imagery and word recall in the 1910s. It was further developed by researchers on remedial reading instruction for students with learning disabilities between the 1920s and 1950s, the teaching of urban youth in the 1960s, and culminated with the construction of formal learning style assessment instruments in the 1970s. By the 1980s, the VAK learning style typology began to get covered in the mainstream media, despite the objections of critics...

This article critically analyzes the concept of descriptive psychology, which was used by Blaustein as part of his struggles with the Brentanian heritage which shaped the Lvov-Warsaw School. It is argued that because of his studies under the Gestaltists and Husserl, Blaustein was able to redefine the basics of Brentano's and Twardowski's projects of empirical and descriptive psychology. To show the divergent motives present in Blaustein's psychology, the article presents a biography of Blaustein in the context of psychology in the Poland and Europe of his times...

This article explores the contribution of behavior therapy to the extension of psychotherapeutic notions and techniques into everyday life, focusing on the transatlantic trajectory of assertiveness training. It traces the history of this behavioral intervention into interindividual relations from its emergence as a treatment for anxiety in postwar United States to its importation into the French field of continuing professional training at the turn of the 1980s. To understand what traveled between countries and practical fields, I first consider the definition of assertiveness as a skill sitting halfway between passivity and aggressiveness, which developed in the United States along with its uses outside therapy...

Lists recent publications by Paul Croce. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Based on a symposium at the 2018 meeting of the Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI; E. K. Morris, 2018), the December 2022 issue of Perspectives on Behavior Science ( PoBS )-ABAI's house journal-published a special section on teaching the history of behavior analysis. It was inspired by George Miller's (1969) urging that psychologists promote human welfare by discovering how "to give psychology away" (p. 1074). The special section of PoBS urged readers to promote the history of behavior analysis by giving it away...

Margaret Floy Washburn was one of the leading psychologists of her generation, whose most important work was The Animal Mind (Goodman, 1980). As E. G. Boring noted, that text "reflected her own love of animals and her intense interest in their behavior" (1971, p. 547). What about the role of animals in Washburn's personal life? (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Jerome S. Bruner (1915-2016) is a legendary figure in psychology and one of the most influential psychologists and educators of this era. His research interests were diverse, and his achievements were impressive. Although Bruner's contributions are significant, no studies have been undertaken to investigate the value and impact of his theories outside the United States, to the detriment of scholarship. To fill this research gap, this article analyzes Chinese research on Bruner's work to determine the influence of such research in China...

In this article, we look into the development of the Helmholtz theory of perception in the light of Spanish biologist Ramón Turró's objectivist critique of the theory. In the first part, we explain the decisive role that Helmholtz's theory of perception played in the evolution of his own general philosophical stance. Through the work of Helmholtz, we show how the dialectic between philosophical surmises and models of perception was an ongoing, fundamental part of the period that saw the formation of scientific psychology...

Although Charlotte Bühler (1893-1974) was one of the most prominent female psychologists during the first half of the last century, she never received a full professorship in a psychology department. In this paper, we discuss possible reasons for this failure and focus on problems related to an offer from Fordham University in 1938 that never materialized. Our analysis based on unpublished documents indicates that Charlotte Bühler provided incorrect reasons for the failure in her autobiography. Moreover, we found no evidence that Karl Bühler ever received an offer from Fordham University...

In this article, the author offers his reflections on being elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association as an historian of psychology. The author didn't start out as an historian. His bachelor and doctorate are both in psychology. But he did also certainly choose to leave psychology, then to return with a different perspective. So this election feels like an affirmation of that decision, and an endorsement of the scholarship that resulted: his service to science by other means, after he was himself "revised and resubmitted...

At the height of the Depression, more psychologists in the U.S. were awarded degrees than could find jobs. Master's level graduates were particularly affected, holding positions that were tenuous, and they rejected second-class membership offered by the American Psychological Association. In response to this employment crisis, two Columbia University MA graduates created The Psychological Exchange , a journal that offered graduates and established colleagues a forum for news, job ads, and for discussing the expansion of psychology to address problems of the Depression...

One of the most important successes in the history of psychology in Chile was the foundation in 1908 of the first experimental psychology laboratory in Santiago by the German psychologist Wilhelm Mann (1974-1943). Four years later, Mann give a shift to his classical experimental psychology research to intervene in the discussions about German School Reform (1900-1920). Mann used Chile as a "testing ground" for explore the viability of student self-government published in three papers. The method used to verify the early impact of Mann's papers was the quantitative analysis of citations with Publish or Perish software using a Google Books database and Scripta Paedagogica...

When the Galton whistle was introduced in the 1870s, it was the first demonstration many had encountered of the phenomenon that nonhumans sometimes exceed humans in sensory range, for example perceiving ultraviolet light and ultrasonic signals. While some empirical research had explored this possibility beforehand, this area of perceptual research progressed slowly. A horror short story by Ambrose Bierce in 1893, "The Damned Thing," used the concept of superior nonhuman sensory range as a twist ending, seemingly anticipating scientific discoveries to come or at least understanding the implications of the early findings well in advance of the field...

Italian academic psychology found its first location in the Anthropological Museum of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Rome, where in 1890 a Laboratory of Experimental Psychology was established. In 1905, the first three Chairs of Experimental Psychology at the Universities of Turin, Rome, and Naples were created. These were followed in the subsequent years by others, until 1930, in other academic institutions. After many years and a long period of crisis linked to the fascist regime, only after the World War II (WWII), with the rebirth of the country, did psychology gradually rebuild its status as a scientific discipline...

On December 17, 2021, The Interamerican Society of Psychology (ISP) celebrated its 70th anniversary. This article briefly describes ISP's history, discussing its organizational structure, and the contributions of the working group history of psychology, to honor this important event. The history of psychology division within ISP remains committed to facilitating encounters of Ibero American psychologists who wish to further examine the history of psychology. Lastly, we analyzed the growth and the contemporary challenges in the field of history of psychology in Latin America...

This short research report focuses on psychologist Leon Kamin, who is best known for his research on what became known as the Kamin (blocking) effect. In the 1970s and 1980s he became prominent both inside and outside of psychology, not for laboratory research but for his writings on the heritability of intelligence. Kamin was no stranger to political activism. He joined the Communist Party U.S.A. at age 17, when he was a sophomore at Harvard. By 1949, he was writing for the Daily Worker (pen name: Leo Soft) and was employed as its New England editor in 1949-1950...