A History of Modern Psychology

A History of Modern Psychology provides students with an engaging, comprehensive, and global history of psychological science, from the birth of the field to the present. It examines the attempts to establish psychology as a science in several countries and epochs. The text expertly draws on a vast knowledge of the field in the United States, England, Germany, France, Russia, and Scandinavia, as well as on author Per Saugstad's keen study of neighboring sciences, including physiology, evolutionary biology, psychiatry, and neurology. Offering a unique global perspective on the development of psychology as an empirical science, this text is an ideal introduction to the field for students and other readers interested in the history of modern psychology.

1. Introduction; 2. The scientific and intellectual environment of the mid-1800s; 3. The early physiological study of perception; 4. Expansion of German experimental psychology; 5. Phenomenology and Gestalt psychology; 6. Early British psychology; 7. British comparative psychology; 8. Russian reflexology; 9. The study of clinical psychology and unusual mental states in France; 10. Psychodynamic psychology; 11. Early American psychology (1890–1920); 12. Behaviorism; 13. Neobehaviorism; 14. Social psychology; 15. The psychology of personality in the United States; 16. The study of cognition in Europe and the United States, 1920–60; 17. Physiological psychology; 18. Revolt against traditions; 19. Important trends in the psychology of the 21st century.

Per Saugstad was a Norwegian psychologist. He served as professor of psychology at the Universitetet i Oslo from 1967 until 1990, when he retired.