| 1859 | Edmund Husserl was born. Husserl coined the term phenomenology. Husserl contended that because consciousness synthesizes a meaningful reality from the objective data it is given, phenomenological observation of subjective experiences is essential to the understanding of being. Husserl's thought has influenced humanistic psychology. |
| 1865 | The New York state legislature passed the Willard Law, named for psychiatrist Sylvester D. Willard, providing a mental health facility for the care of the chronic pauper insane. When it opened on October 13, 1869, the Willard Asylum for the Insane near Ovid, on Seneca Lake, was the first U.S. institution for chronically ill patients, reflecting more sophisticated diagnosis and treatment methods. It is now named Willard Psychiatric Center. |
| 1868 | Herbert S. Jennings was born. Jennings was a comparative psychologist who focused on the behavior of lower organisms. He avoided mentalistic explanations for animal behavior. |
| 1885 | James McKeen Cattell completed running participants for his doctoral research on reaction times. Cattell studied under Wilhelm Wundt. |
| 1911 | Edward Maynard Glaser was born. Glaser was an organizational consulting psychologist. During World War II, Glaser worked to improve training, organizational structures, and classification procedures in the U. S. Navy. In addition to professional consulting, Glaser chaired first California state psychology licensing standards committee (1957) and founded the interdisciplinary Human Interaction Research Institute (1961). |
| 1947 | The Institute for Sex Research, popularly known as the Kinsey Institute, was incorporated in Indiana. |
| 1957 | The antipsychotic drug Compazine (prochlorperazine; Smith, Kline, and French) was approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Prochlorperazine is also prescribed for severe nausea and vomiting. |
| 2016 | Luciano L'Abate (1928-2016) died in Atlanta, Georgia. L'Abate was influential in developing family psychology as a specialty area and received the APA Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Applied Research in 2009. |
| 2017 | Gerald "Jerry" Goldstein died in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on this date. Goldstein was instrumental in establishing clinical neuropsychology as a specialty area and was noted for his research dealing with the neuropsychology of alcoholism and schizophrenia. He received the International Neuropsychological Society Distinguished Career Award, the APA Presidential Citation, and the Distinguished Lifetime Contributions to Neuropsychology Award, Distinguished Service Award, and Nelson Butters Award for Research Contributions to Clinical Neuropsychology from the National Academy of Neuropsychology. (Norton, Allen, and Puente, 2018) |