History of Psychology: Home

Tracing the history of psychology is a daunting task. As a formal discipline, it spans only about a century and a half. In its breadth, however, it encompasses domains ranging from the biological to the cross-cultural. Documenting this history necessarily requires some omissions simply due to the volume of work that psychologists and historians of psychology have generated—the largest professional organization in psychology, the American Psychological Association, consists of fifty-four divisions, each one with its own focus and its own history. The discussion here will serve as a starting point to understand how psychology emerged from its narrow physiological beginnings.

Part of the narrative will discuss some of the psychologists who exerted significant influence on the discipline in its early years. As their various biographies show, psychology was not predestined to follow the path it did. Rather, this early community squabbled often, and while some psychologists’ ideas became ascendant, others fell into the dustbin of history. These histories are both fascinating and complex.

Bernard C. Beins is emeritus professor of psychology at Ithaca College. He currently serves as president of the Society for the History of Psychology (2024).