By the end of the 19th century, research and theory in psychology were advancing rapidly.
In Germany in the 1880s, Hermann Ebbinghaus conducted an exhaustive series of studies
on memory using himself as his primary participant.
Day after day, he memorized short strings of nonsense letters and tried to recall them under various conditions.
His careful experiments revealed many of the principles of memory.
Two different approaches to psychology emerged.
The first, called “structuralism,” emphasized the study of mental processes
focusing on inner sensations, feelings, and thoughts.
This approach is best illustrated by the practice of introspection
used by Edward Titchener (a student of Wilhelm Wundt) in the late 19th century.
Introspection means literally “looking inwards”
and required people to report the contents of their conscious experiences.
Titchener is also credited with coining the word empathy in 1906
the same year that Alois Alzheimer described the form of dementia soon to be called Alzheimer's disease.
The second approach, called “functionalism,” emphasized the purpose of each type of behavior
focusing on the adaptive functions that behavior played in helping our ancestors survive.
A leader in this approach was William James
who also wrote the first comprehensive textbook of psychology in English.
Mary Whiton Calkins was a pioneer in the study of memory, dreams and personality.
One of her important contributions was the invention
of the paired-associate test for studying memory in 1894.
Even though she completed all the work for a Ph.D. at Harvard University
she was denied the degree by Harvard’s president.
Nevertheless, she went on to become the first woman to serve
as President of the American Psychological Association in 1905
fifteen years before women had the right to vote in the United States.
Sigmund Freud, one of the most well-known individuals in psychology, was not actually a psychologist.
Freud was an Austrian physician who specialized in the study of disturbed behavior.
He put his ideas about personality, dreams, and the unconscious mind into practice
through his method of psychotherapy called psychoanalysis.
Because Freud was Jewish and his ideas were highly controversial
he and his family fled Nazi-occupied Austria just before World War II
settling in England where he spent the last year of his life.