Timeline of Behavioral Psychology

Wundt establishes the first psychological laboratory and establishes what he would coin as physiological psychology. A branch of psychology that would be interested in reactive time experiments and "introspection." This would establish what we be called voluntarism.

Titchener establishes a psychology at Cornell that would be labeled "Structuralism." Suggested that subjects could "observe" the mental by looking inward to examine their mental processes.

Functionalism begins to make an appearance after concerns arise around structuralism. While the concepts are similar, functionalists moved beyond looking at the 'what' like the functionalists and began to look at the 'why' and 'how.'

Ivan Pavlov begins his studies on organisms with an intact nervous system and completes experiments showing that a nervous system is susceptible to scientific treatment.

John Watson launches the behavioral revolution and begins what is termed classical S-R behaviorism. S-R behaviorism argued that the subject matter of psychology should be behavior rather than mental or subjective experiences.

S-R behaviorism becomes S-O-R behaviorism. The "O" was inserted to accommodate a wide variety of states including motives, response tendencies, and purposes. These states were presumed to determine the effects of environmental stimuli.

Skinner argues that behavior is more than activity of the nervous system and simultaneously moves away from S-R psychology by developing analysis of the operant.

Clark L. Hull writes the Principles of Behavior five years after Skinner's The Behavior of Organisms. In his book Hull sets out to establish a mathematical system based in postulate-deductive method. Simply stated Hull sets the stage for data and behavior.

Skinner gives a talk at a symposium where he first uses the term "radical behaviorism" The term is used in the sense of a behaviorism that embraced all aspects of human functioning.

Skinner's book Verbal Behavior is published. Included in the book are the thoughts on radical behaviorism that he first proposed at the symposium in 1945, establishing that even private events are the result of the principles of behavior.