Landmark Studies and Papers in Psychology

Psychology research can be organized into three major areas: research that describes behavioral phenomena, research that finds correlations or connections between data points, and experiments that test hypotheses about human behavior. Possibly more so than any other part of the behavioral sciences, psychological experiments capture the interests of the public. It is interesting to see not only what insight comes from this research but also how researchers shape studies while accounting for the mess of variables that human subjects can present. The following list includes landmark psychology experiments and studies on behaviorism that have helped shaped conventional theory. (For access to research in others areas of psychology [including developmental theory, intelligence testing, perception, and neuropsychology], there is a open-access collection offered through York University here.)

·       John Dewey, The new psychology, Andover Review, 1884.

·       Charles Peirce and Joseph Jastrow, Small differences in sensation, Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, 1884.

·       James Cattell, Attention and reaction (R. S. Woodworth, Trans.), originally published in Philosophische Studien, 1893.

·       AB Hill and R Watanabe, "Sensorial" and "muscular" reactions, American Journal of Psychology, 1894.

·       James Baldwin and James Mark, Types of reaction, Psychological Review, 1895.

·       Robert Yerkes, et al, The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation, Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, 1908.

·       Robert Yerkes and Sergius Morgulis, The method of Pawlow in animal psychology, Psychological Bulletin, 1909.

·       John Watson and Rosalie Rayner, Conditioned emotional reactions, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1920.

·       Karl Lashley, The behavioristic interpretation of consciousness, Psychological Bulletin, 1923.

·       Mary Jones, A laboratory study of fear: The case of Peter, Pedagogical Seminary, 1924.

·       Ivan Pavlov, Conditioned reflexes: An investigation of the physiological activity of the cerebral cortex (G. V. Anrep, Trans.), originally published by Oxford University Press in 1927.

·       Karl Lashley, Basic neural mechanisms in behavior, Psychological Review, 1930.

·       Clark Hull, The concept of the habit-family hierarchy and maze learning: Part I and The concept of the habit-family hierarchy and maze learning: Part II, Psychological Review, 1934.

·       BF Skinner, Two types of conditioned reflex and a pseudo type, Journal of General Psychology, 1935.

·       J Konorski and S Miller, On two types of conditioned reflex, Journal of General Psychology, 1937.

·       BF Skinner, 'Superstition' in the pigeon, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1948.

·       Edward Tolman, Cognitive maps in rats and men, Psychological Review, 1948.

·       DO Hebb, Drives and the C.N.S. (conceptual nervous system), Psychological Review, 1955.

·       Harry Harlow, The nature of love, American Psychologist, 1958.

·       Keller Breland and Marian Breland, The misbehavior of organisms, American Psychologist, 1961.