The Story of Psychology: A Timeline

1949 – In The Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory, Canadian psychologist Donald O. Hebb outlines a new and influential conceptualization of how the nervous system functions.

1950 – Solomon Asch publishes studies of effects of conformity on judgments of line length.

– In Childhood and Society, Erik Erikson outlines his stages of psychosocial development.

1951 – Carl Rogers publishes Client-Centered Therapy.

1952 – The American Psychiatric Association publishes the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, an influential book that will be updated periodically.

1953 – Eugene Aserinski and Nathaniel Kleitman describe rapid eye movements (REM) that occur during sleep.

– Janet Taylor’s Manifest Anxiety Scale appears in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

1954 – In Motivation and Personality, Abraham Maslow proposes a hierarchy of motives ranging from physiological needs to self-actualization. (Maslow later updates the hierarchy to include self-transcendence needs.)

– James Olds and Peter Milner, McGill University neuropsychologists, describe the rewarding effects of electrical stimulation of the hypothalamus in rats.

– Gordon Allport publishes The Nature of Prejudice.

1956 – In his Psychological Review article titled “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information,” George Miller coins the term chunk for memory researchers.

1957 – Robert Sears, Eleanor Maccoby, and Harry Levin publish Patterns of Child Rearing.

– Charles Ferster and B. F. Skinner publish Schedules of Reinforcement.

1958 – Harry Harlow outlines “The Nature of Love,” his work on attachment in monkeys.

1959 – Noam Chomsky’s critical review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior appears in the journal Language.

– Eleanor Gibson and Richard Walk report their research on infants’ depth perception in “The Visual Cliff.”

– Lloyd Peterson and Margaret Peterson in the Journal of Experimental Psychology article, “Short-Term Retention of Individual Verbal Items,” highlight the importance of rehearsal in memory.

– John Thibaut and Harold Kelley publish The Social Psychology of Groups.

1960 – George Sperling publishes “The Information Available in Brief Visual Presentations.”

1961 – Georg von Békésy receives a Nobel Prize for research on the physiology of hearing.

– David McClelland publishes The Achieving Society.

1962 – Jerome Kagan and Howard Moss publish Birth to Maturity.

– Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer publish findings that support the two-factor theory of emotion.

– Albert Ellis’ Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy appears; it is a milestone in the development of rational-emotive therapy (RET).

1963 – Raymond B. Cattell distinguishes between fluid and crystallized intelligence.

– Stanley Milgram’s “Behavioral Study of Obedience” appears in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology.

1965 – Canadian researcher Ronald Melzack and British researcher Patrick Wall propose the gate-control theory of pain.

– Robert Zajonc’s “Social Facilitation” is published in Science.

– The Archives of the History of American Psychology is founded at the University of Akron.

1966 – Nancy Bayley becomes the first woman to receive the APA’s Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award.

– Jerome Bruner and colleagues at Harvard University’s Center for Cognitive Studies publish Studies in Cognitive Growth.

– William Masters and Virginia Johnson publish results of their research in Human Sexual Responses.

– Allen Gardner and Beatrix Gardner begin training a chimpanzee (Washoe) in American Sign Language at the University of Nevada, Reno. Washoe dies in 2007.

– John Garcia and Robert Koelling publish a study on taste aversion in rats.

– David M. Green and John A. Swets publish Signal Detection Theory and Psychophysics.

– Julian Rotter publishes research on locus of control.

1967 – Ulric Neisser’s Cognitive Psychology helps to steer psychology away from behaviorism and toward cognitive processes.

– Martin Seligman and Steven Maier publish the results of their research with “learned helplessness” in dogs.

1968 – Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin’s influential three-stage memory model appears in The Psychology of Learning and Motivation.

– Neal E. Miller’s article in Science, describing instrumental conditioning of autonomic responses, stimulates research on biofeedback.

1969 – Albert Bandura publishes Principles of Behavior Modification.

– In his APA presidential address, “Psychology as a Means of Promoting Human Welfare,” George Miller emphasizes the importance of “giving psychology away.”

1971 – Kenneth B. Clark becomes the first African-American president of the American Psychological Association.

– Albert Bandura publishes Social Learning Theory.

– Allan Paivio publishes Imagery and Verbal Processes.

– B. F. Skinner publishes Beyond Freedom and Dignity.

1972 – Elliot Aronson publishes The Social Animal.

– Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart’s “Levels of Processing: A Framework for Memory Research” appears in the Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior.

– Robert Rescorla and Allan Wagner publish their associative model of Pavlovian conditioning.

– Under the leadership of Derald Sue and Stanley Sue, the Asian American Psychological Association is founded.

1973 – Ethologists Karl von Frisch, Konrad Lorenz, and Nikolaas Tinbergen receive the Nobel Prize for their research on animal behavior.

1974 – APA’s Division 2 first publishes its journal, Teaching of Psychology, with Robert S. Daniel as editor.

– Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin publish The Psychology of Sex Differences.

1975 – Biologist Edward O. Wilson’s Sociobiology appears; it will be a controversial precursor to evolutionary psychology.

1976 – Sandra Wood Scarr and Richard A. Weinberg publish “IQ Test Performance of Black Children Adopted by White Families” in American Psychologist.

– Psychologist Robert V. Guthrie publishes Even the Rat Was White, the first history of African-American psychologists in America.

1978 – Psychologist Herbert A. Simon, Carnegie-Mellon University, wins a Nobel Prize for pioneering research on computer simulations of human thinking and problem solving.

1979 – James J. Gibson publishes The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception.

– Elizabeth Loftus publishes Eyewitness Testimony.

1981 – David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel receive a Nobel Prize for research on single-cell recordings that identified feature detector cells in the visual cortex.

– Roger Sperry receives a Nobel Prize for research on split-brain patients.

– Paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould publishes The Mismeasure of Man, highlighting the debate concerning biological determination of intelligence.

1983 – In his Frames of Mind, Howard Gardner outlines his theory of multiple intelligences.

1984 – The American Psychological Association creates Division 44 (Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian and Gay Issues).

– Robert Sternberg proposes the triarchic theory of human intelligence in Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

1987 – Elizabeth Scarborough and Laurel Furumoto publish Untold Lives: The First Generation of American Women Psychologists.

– Fluoxetine (Prozac) is introduced as a treatment for depression.

– Wilbert J. McKeachie, University of Michigan, receives the first APA Award for Distinguished Career Contributions to Education and Training in Psychology.

1988 – The American Psychological Society is founded. It changes its name to Association for Psychological Science in 2006.

1990 – Psychiatrist Aaron Beck receives the Distinguished Scientific Award for the Applications of Psychology for advancing understanding and treatment of psychopathology, including pivotal contributions to the development of cognitive therapy.

– B. F. Skinner receives APA’s first Citation for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Psychology and presents his last public address, “Can Psychology Be a Science of Mind?” (He died a few days later at age 86.)

1991 – Martin Seligman publishes Learned Optimism, which foreshadows the “positive psychology” movement.

1992 – Teachers of Psychology in Secondary Schools (TOPSS) is established as part of the APA.

– About 3,000 U.S. secondary school students take the first Advanced Placement (AP) Examination in Psychology, hoping to earn exemption from an introductory psychology course at the postsecondary level.

1993 – Psychologist Judith Rodin is elected president of the University of Pennsylvania, becoming the first female president of an Ivy League school.

1996 – Dorothy Cantor becomes the first president of the APA with a Psy.D. degree.

2002 – New Mexico becomes the first U.S. state to allow qualified clinical psychologists to prescribe certain drugs.

– Psychologist Daniel Kahneman, Princeton University, receives a Nobel Prize for research on decision making.

2011 – Proposed by participants at the 2008 national conference at the University of Puget Sound, the document, “Principles for Quality Undergraduate Education in Psychology,” is approved as official APA policy.

2013 – U.S. President Barack Obama announces $100 million in funding for an interdisciplinary project to advance understanding of the human brain.

2015 – The Independent Review Relating to APA Ethics Guidelines, National Security Interrogations, and Torture is presented to the American Psychological Association.