History of psychology facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

Psychology is the scientific study of how people behave and think. It explores our minds and actions. People have been curious about the human mind for thousands of years. Ancient civilizations in places like Egypt, Greece, China, and India all wondered about it.

Modern psychology, as a science, began in Germany. In 1854, Gustav Fechner created a way to study how we judge what our senses tell us. Later, in 1879, Wilhelm Wundt opened the very first psychology lab in Leipzig, Germany. He was also the first person to call himself a psychologist. Other important early thinkers included Hermann Ebbinghaus, who studied memory, and Ivan Pavlov, famous for classical conditioning.

Soon, psychology started to be used in practical ways. G. Stanley Hall brought scientific teaching methods to the U.S. in the 1880s. Hugo Münsterberg wrote about using psychology in business and law. Lightner Witmer opened the first psychology clinic. In Vienna, Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis, a different way to study the mind.

In the 20th century, a new idea called behaviorism became popular. Led by John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner, behaviorists focused on studying actions that could be easily measured. They thought studying the "mind" was too hard. However, Skinner later studied thinking as a hidden behavior.

Later in the 20th century, cognitive science emerged. This field combines ideas from cognitive psychology, linguistics, computer science, and neurobiology. It looks at the "mind" again, using new tools. This helps us understand how our minds work and can even help with things like artificial intelligence.

Psychology has different "waves" or "forces" based on its ideas. The "third force" is Humanistic psychology, which focuses on human potential. Key figures include Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow. This approach is about personal growth and well-being. In cognitive behavioral therapy, there are also "waves." The "first wave" was about behavior, the "second" about thoughts, and the "third" focuses on accepting feelings and pursuing values. Some even talk about a "fourth" and "fifth" wave, trying to combine different ideas.

Ancient Ideas About the Mind

Many cultures throughout history have thought about the mind, soul, and brain.

Early Egyptian and Greek Views

In Ancient Egypt, the Edwin Smith Papyrus (an old medical text) described the brain and its functions. It was one of the first medical writings to focus on facts rather than magic.

Ancient Greek philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, explored the psuchẽ (which means "soul" or "mind"). This word is where "psychology" comes from. They believed that laws of nature, not just gods, shaped our world. For example, Alcmaeon of Croton thought the brain, not the heart, was the center of thought. He even linked mental illness to the brain.

Asian Contributions to Psychology

In China, people used ability tests as part of their education system thousands of years ago. Chinese texts also described mental illnesses like mania and psychosis. They believed these were caused by "imbalance." Around 2500 years ago, Confucius also had ideas about human development.

In the 6th century AD, Lin Xie did an early experiment. He asked people to draw a square with one hand and a circle with the other. This was possibly the first psychology experiment!

India also had deep thoughts about the "self." Patanjali, a founder of Yoga, wrote about how to achieve psychological resilience and balance through breathing and inner peace. He used yoga to help with anxiety and depression. Buddhist ideas also explored the mind, with concepts like mindfulness and self-actualization.

Islamic Thinkers and Mental Health

Medieval Muslim physicians also worked on treating "diseases of the mind." Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi was one of the first to discuss problems affecting both the body and the mind. He said that an imbalance of the soul could cause anger or anxiety.

Avicenna also studied mental illnesses. He described conditions like hallucination, mania, and epilepsy. These early thinkers helped lay the groundwork for understanding mental health.

How Psychology Grew Over Time

The Word "Psychology"

The word "psychology" first appeared in print around 1525. It was used by people like Rudolph Goclenius in Germany. However, it became truly popular when Christian Wolff used it in his books in the 1730s. He talked about "empirical psychology" (based on observation) and "rational psychology" (based on reason).

Enlightenment Ideas and the Mind

During the Enlightenment, thinkers like René Descartes greatly influenced early psychology. Descartes studied the human body and believed it was a complex machine that could move without a soul. This challenged older ideas. Thomas Willis also linked psychology to brain function in his detailed anatomical work.

British philosophers like John Locke and David Hume also had a big impact. They believed that knowledge comes from experience and that ideas are linked together. German thinkers like Carl Gustav Carus even proposed the idea of the unconscious mind, which was later explored by Sigmund Freud.

Moving Towards Modern Psychology

In the 18th and 19th centuries, psychology became more connected to psychiatry. Doctors started to treat mental illness more humanely and scientifically. French doctors like Philippe Pinel observed and classified mental conditions. German thinkers also contributed, with some focusing on empathy and others on brain anatomy. Emil Kraepelin was important for defining mental disorders based on their symptoms.

The Start of Experimental Psychology in Germany

Before the mid-1800s, psychology was mostly seen as part of philosophy. Some, like Immanuel Kant, doubted if it could ever be a "proper" science. But others disagreed.

Johann Friedrich Herbart tried to create a mathematical basis for psychology. This led scientists like Ernst Heinrich Weber and Gustav Theodor Fechner to measure how physical stimuli relate to our sensations. Fechner even coined the term psychophysics.

Scientists also started measuring reaction times, which was important in astronomy. Instruments like the chronoscope were used to time mental decisions.

The 19th century also saw major discoveries in physiology and neurophysiology. Scientists like Johannes Müller studied nerve energies, and Hermann von Helmholtz researched neural transmission, sound, and color.

In the 1860s, Wilhelm Wundt worked with Helmholtz. Wundt used physiological lab equipment to study complex psychological questions. He was interested in how perceptions become the focus of our conscious awareness. In 1879, Wundt opened the first lab specifically for experimental psychology in Leipzig. He attracted many students from around the world, including Americans like G. Stanley Hall and James McKeen Cattell.

Other German experimental psychologists included Carl Stumpf and Hermann Ebbinghaus, who studied memory.

Psychoanalysis: Exploring the Unconscious

Not all psychology in Germany was about experiments. In the 1890s, the Viennese doctor Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis. He used methods like hypnosis, free association, and dream interpretation. Freud believed these could reveal hidden unconscious beliefs and desires that caused his patients' problems.

Psychoanalysis has greatly influenced Western culture, especially the arts. Both Freud's and Jung's ideas showed that some thoughts and behaviors are hidden from our conscious mind. Things like hidden motives or guilt can affect us without us knowing it.

Freud founded the International Psychoanalytical Association in 1910. His daughter, Anna Freud, and Melanie Klein were important successors, especially in child psychoanalysis. Other thinkers like Alfred Adler and Carl Jung later developed their own ideas, differing from Freud's.

Carl Jung was a colleague of Freud's who later developed his own approach. He defined four mental functions that shape our conscious self:

Sensation: Tells us something is there.
Feelings: Help us judge and react to what we sense.
Intellect: Helps us understand situations by comparing them to what we know.
Intuition: Accesses deep patterns and suggests unexpected solutions.

Jung believed that psychological theories should be based on facts, not just a psychologist's own ideas.

Psychology in America

Around 1875, William James at Harvard opened a small lab for psychology demonstrations. While not for original research at first, it was an important step. James argued that consciousness must have an evolutionary purpose. In 1890, his book The Principles of Psychology became a very influential textbook. It shaped many questions American psychologists would study.

In 1885, William James helped found the American Society for Psychical Research, which looked into psychic phenomena. Later, the American Psychological Association (APA) was created in 1892.

Charles Sanders Peirce conducted some of the first American psychology experiments on color vision in 1877. In 1883, G. Stanley Hall opened the first American research lab for experimental psychology at Johns Hopkins University. He also founded the American Journal of Psychology in 1887.

Soon, many experimental psychology labs opened across the United States. Princeton University's Eno Hall, built in 1924, was the first university building dedicated entirely to psychology.

A group at the University of Chicago, including John Dewey and James Rowland Angell, started to rethink psychology. They focused more on how the social environment and mental activity influence behavior.

In 1892, G. Stanley Hall invited psychologists to form the American Psychological Association (APA). There was some disagreement between those who liked experiments and those who preferred philosophy. Eventually, separate philosophical associations were formed.

In 1894, James McKeen Cattell and James Mark Baldwin started a new journal, Psychological Review, which became very important for American researchers.

A major debate arose between Edward Bradford Titchener's "structural" approach and the Chicago group's "functional" approach. Structuralism tried to break down consciousness into basic elements, while functionalism focused on the purpose and function of the mind. Functionalism, with its practical focus, became more popular in America.

Psychology in France

France had a long history of psychological study. In 1847, Jules Baillarger founded one of the first psychological associations. Thinkers like Adolphe Garnier also published important books on psychology.

After a period of conservative rule, new ideas emerged in France. People became more interested in scientific and materialist approaches to psychology. Théodule Ribot founded Revue Philosophique in 1876, a key journal for the "new" psychology. Ribot's books on psychological heredity and German psychology were very influential. He also studied mental disorders like memory problems.

France's main strength in psychology was in psychopathology (the study of mental illness). Jean-Martin Charcot at the Salpêtrière Hospital used hypnosis to study hysterical symptoms. His students, Alfred Binet and Pierre Janet, expanded on this work.

In 1889, Binet and Henri Beaunis opened the first experimental psychology lab in France at the Sorbonne. They also started the first French journal for experimental psychology, L'Année Psychologique.

Binet is famous for developing the Binet-Simon Intelligence Test in 1905 with Théodore Simon. The French government asked him to create a way to identify students who needed extra help in school. This test later became very popular in the United States, revised by Lewis M. Terman into the Stanford-Binet IQ test.

Pierre Janet became a leading psychiatrist in France. He developed a scientific approach to mental disorders, believing they resulted from conflicts between conscious and unconscious parts of the mind.

Psychology in Britain

Britain had the first scholarly journal for psychology, Mind, founded in 1876. However, experimental psychology took a while to develop there. Most early experimental reports in Mind were by American psychologists.

Francis Galton opened his anthropometric laboratory in 1884. He tested people on physical and perceptual abilities. He used this data to support his ideas about eugenics and developed important statistical techniques like the product-moment correlation coefficient.

Later, Charles Spearman developed factor analysis to support his theory of intelligence. He believed people have a general intelligence (g) that can be applied to specific skills.

Experimental psychology labs were slow to appear in Britain. Cambridge University established a lab in 1897. The British Psychological Society was founded in 1901 (renamed in 1906), and the British Journal of Psychology started in 1904.

Psychology in Russia

In Russia, psychology was initially part of philosophy and theology. After the October Revolution, it became a separate discipline. By the late 19th century, psychology was influencing many fields, including medicine and education.

Ivan Sechenov, a physiologist, believed that physiology was the scientific basis for psychology. Other thinkers like Konstantin Kavelin and Alexander Potebnja explored national character and the link between mentality and language.

Medical schools were the first to introduce psychology labs. Vladimir Bekhterev created the first lab in Kazan' in 1885. In Moscow, psychiatrists like Sergey Korsakov and Ardalion Tokarskii also set up labs to teach new psychological techniques.

The Moscow Psychological Society was founded in 1884. In 1907, Georgy Chelpanov started a psychology course based on lab work. He later opened a well-equipped Psychological Institute in Moscow in 1914.

New Ideas in German Psychology

The Würzburg School

In 1896, Oswald Külpe, a former assistant of Wundt's, started a new lab in Würzburg. His group, the Würzburg School, developed a new way to do experiments. Wundt believed that complex thoughts couldn't be studied experimentally. But the Würzburgers designed experiments where people would think about a problem and then report everything that went through their minds.

They claimed to discover new elements of consciousness, often called "imageless thoughts." Wundt strongly criticized their methods. This debate helped lead to the rise of behaviorism in America, as it questioned the reliability of introspection.

Gestalt Psychology: The Whole Picture

Another German movement, called Gestalt, disagreed with breaking down consciousness into small parts. They argued that the psychological "whole" is more important than its "parts." The German word Gestalt means "form" or "configuration."

This school was led by Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka. Wertheimer's work on the phi-phenomenon (where two flashing lights appear to move) showed that we perceive the whole movement, not just individual flashes. They believed we see the melody first, then the notes.

Köhler's research with chimpanzees showed that animals can learn by "sudden insight" into a problem's structure. This was different from the step-by-step learning shown by Ivan Pavlov and Edward Lee Thorndike.

Gestalt psychologists emphasized "structure" and "organization." They believed that organisms respond to the overall structure of stimuli, not just individual parts. Koffka's book Principles of Gestalt Psychology (1935) explained that science should integrate facts about nature, life, and mind into one structure. He felt that understanding the meaning of experience was crucial.

By the mid-1930s, the main Gestalt psychologists were forced to leave Germany due to the Nazis and moved to the United States.

Behaviorism Becomes Popular in America

In the early 20th century, behaviorism became the leading idea in American psychology. Several things led to this:

First, many psychologists became doubtful about the idea of "consciousness." It was hard to study objectively, and the method of introspection seemed unreliable.

Second, the study of animal behavior grew. Edward Lee Thorndike studied cats in puzzle boxes, and Willard Small started research on rats in mazes. In 1909, Ivan Pavlov's work on conditioning dogs became known in English.

Third, John Broadus Watson became very influential. In 1913, he published an article called "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It." He argued that psychology should be a "purely objective experimental branch of natural science." He said that introspection was not needed and that there was no difference between studying humans and animals. His first textbook, Behavior, came out in 1914.

Early behaviorism focused only on observable behavior, rejecting internal mental states like beliefs. Watson himself left Johns Hopkins in 1920 but continued to publish.

Other behaviorists, like Edward C. Tolman and B. F. Skinner, debated how to best study behavior. Skinner's ideas became very popular. His approach, called Behavior Analysis, is still used today, especially in Applied Behavior Analysis, which helps people learn new behaviors.

Behaviorism was the main way to do psychological research for much of the 20th century. It successfully used conditioning theories to explain human behavior.

New French Psychology: The Genevan School

In 1918, Jean Piaget began studying psychoanalysis and later worked at the Binet-Simon Lab in Paris. He became interested in why children made certain mistakes. He started asking children "Why did you do that?" to understand their thinking. This led to his famous stage theory of child development.

In 1921, Piaget moved to Geneva and worked with Édouard Claparède. They formed what is known as the Genevan School. Piaget's work on how children's thinking develops was highly recognized. He received an honorary doctorate from Harvard in 1936 and an award from the American Psychological Association in 1969.

Cognitivism: Understanding the Mind's Processes

In the mid-20th century, new ideas challenged behaviorism. Noam Chomsky (1959) argued that language could not be learned just through conditioning. He said that people can create endless new sentences, which must mean there are internal mental structures. Similarly, Albert Bandura showed that children could learn by observing others, even without showing it immediately. This suggested that internal thoughts were at play.

The rise of computers also influenced psychology. The idea of the mind as an "information processing" system became popular. This, combined with a scientific approach to studying internal mental states, led to the rise of cognitivism.

Links between the brain and the nervous system also became clearer, thanks to scientists like Charles Sherrington and Donald Olding Hebb. Studies of people with brain injuries also helped. Today, neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience are very active fields, using technology to measure brain function.

With many fields like philosophy, computer science, and neuroscience working together to understand the mind, the broader field of cognitive science was created. It aims to combine these efforts to understand how our minds work.