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By the end of the 19th century, research and theory in psychology were advancing rapidly.

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In Germany in the 1880s, Hermann Ebbinghaus conducted an exhaustive series of studies

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on memory using himself as his primary participant.

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Day after day, he memorized short strings of nonsense letters and tried to recall them under various conditions.

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His careful experiments revealed many of the principles of memory.

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Two different approaches to psychology emerged.

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The first, called “structuralism,” emphasized the study of mental processes

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focusing on inner sensations, feelings, and thoughts.

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This approach is best illustrated by the practice of introspection

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used by Edward Titchener (a student of Wilhelm Wundt) in the late 19th century.

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Introspection means literally “looking inwards”

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and required people to report the contents of their conscious experiences.

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Titchener is also credited with coining the word empathy in 1906

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the same year that Alois Alzheimer described the form of dementia soon to be called Alzheimer's disease.

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The second approach, called “functionalism,” emphasized the purpose of each type of behavior

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focusing on the adaptive functions that behavior played in helping our ancestors survive.

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A leader in this approach was William James

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who also wrote the first comprehensive textbook of psychology in English.

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Mary Whiton Calkins was a pioneer in the study of memory, dreams and personality.

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One of her important contributions was the invention

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of the paired-associate test for studying memory in 1894.

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Even though she completed all the work for a Ph.D. at Harvard University

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she was denied the degree by Harvard’s president.

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Nevertheless, she went on to become the first woman to serve

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as President of the American Psychological Association in 1905

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fifteen years before women had the right to vote in the United States.

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Sigmund Freud, one of the most well-known individuals in psychology, was not actually a psychologist.

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Freud was an Austrian physician who specialized in the study of disturbed behavior.

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He put his ideas about personality, dreams, and the unconscious mind into practice

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through his method of psychotherapy called psychoanalysis.

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Because Freud was Jewish and his ideas were highly controversial

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he and his family fled Nazi-occupied Austria just before World War II

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settling in England where he spent the last year of his life.