| Voluntarism | Wilhelm Wundt | Beginning of Wundt’s laboratory in 1879 |
| Structuralism | Edward Titchener | Titchener earns his Ph.D. with Wundt in 1892 |
| Functionalism | John Dewey | Dewey’s publication of “The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology” in 1896 |
| Behaviorism | John Watson | Watson’s publication of “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It” in 1913 |
| Gestalt Psychology | Max Wertheimer | Wertheimer’s publication of “Experimental Studies on the Seeing of Motion” in 1912 |
| Psychoanalysis | Sigmund Freud | Freud’s publication of The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900 |
“As you can see from the chart, functionalism was the next system to develop. Although a paper by John Dewey is traditionally considered the beginning of the system, functionalism really began with Titchener’s critique of Dewey’s paper a couple of years later. The main point of functionalism, by the way, was that psychology should study the functions or purpose of consciousness—what consciousness is used for rather than what it is.
“Next time, we’ll pay a visit to one of my favorite characters in the history of psychology,” Watson said, “William James. James is considered one of the American anticipators of functionalism and also the founder of American psychology with his monumental book, The Principles of Psychology.”
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