September 1


1831 

Charles Darwin's father reluctantly gave him permission to sail on the Beagle.  Arguments by both Darwin and his uncle, Josiah Wedgwood, were needed.

1848 

August Forel was born.  Forel is remembered primarily for his early studies of the social behavior of ants and other insects.  He also published studies in legal psychiatry, mental health, and hypnotism.

1896 

Mary Cover Jones was born.  Jones was best known for her early studies of the elimination of fear responses through counterconditioning and for studies of differences between early and late-maturing girls.  Jones also became a specialist in gerontology through her longitudinal studies at the Institute of Child Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley.

1905 

Wayne Dennis was born.  Dennis's field studies of the handicapping effects of environmental deprivation on physical, intellectual, and social development were landmarks in the field.

1906 

Henry H. Goddard assumed his post as director of the Vineland Laboratory at the Vineland Training School in New Jersey.  Under his direction, Vineland became a leader in the education of people with mental retardation.  Goddard was succeeded by Stanley D. Porteus in 1919 and by Edgar A. Doll in 1925.

1912 

The Moscow Institute of Psychology was opened.  Georgy Chelpanov, a student of Wilhelm Wundt and Carl Stumpf, was instrumental in its founding and was appointed first director.

1929 

The first International Congress of Psychology meeting to be held in the United States began in New Haven, Connecticut.  This was the Ninth International Congress and the third attempt to hold the meeting in the United States.  The opening address was delivered by noted psychologist James R. Angell, president of Yale University.

1936 

The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) was founded in Room 104 of McNutt Hall, Dartmouth College.  Ross Stanger was chair pro tem and Goodwin Watson was the first elected chair.  SPSSI is now Division 9 of the APA.
1937 The American Association for Applied Psychology (AAAP) petitioned to affiliate with the APA.  A letter from AAAP Secretary Horace B. English presented the request, which the APA approved on September 8, 1938.
1938 Robert S. Woodworth's book Experimental Psychology was published.  This edition and subsequent revisions with coauthor Harold Schlosberg became standard texts for decades.
1940 The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health opened.  The Hogg Foundation supports community mental health research and services.  Grants in the 1980s averaged about $2.5 million per year.
1951 The first psychiatric service benefit in a medical insurance plan was implemented by the Kaiser-Permanente Health Plan in Oakland, California. The services were provided at a small in-patient hospital and out-patient clinic in San Francisco. The chief architects of the plan were psychologists Timothy Leary and Mervin B. Freedman, and psychiatrists Harvey Powelson and Mary Sarvis.
1960 The First Annual Scientific Meeting of the Psychonomic Society began at the University of Chicago.  The meeting's officers were Clifford T. Morgan, chairman; William S. Verplanck, secretary-treasurer; Benton J. Underwood, program, and William D. Neff, arrangements.
1962 This was the effective date of the founding of the Department of Psychology at Colorado State University, following approval by the Colorado State Board of Agriculture.
1962 Stanley Schachter and Jerome E. Singer published "Cognitive, Social, and Physiological Determinants of Emotional States" in Psychological Review (69(5), pp. 379-399). This paper is the basis of their tw0-factor theory of emotion.
1963 At a meeting with Robert I. Watson, the Psychology Press agreed to financially sponsor the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences.  The first issue was published in 1965.
1967 Martin Luther King, Jr., addressed an audience of about 5,000 at the APA annual meeting.  His topic was "The Role of the Behavioral Scientist in the Civil Rights Movement." The entire speech can be found here.
1968 The organizing meeting of the American Psychology-Law Society was held in the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco during the APA convention.  Jay Ziskin and Eric Dreikurs were instrumental in establishing the new organization.  The society merged with Division 41 of the APA in 1984.
1969 Members of the Black Students Psychological Association (BSPA) took the stage before George Miller's APA presidential address.  BSPA president Gary Simpkins presented a request to address the Council of Representatives the next day with a list of demands. APA support of the activities of the BSPA followed.
1969 George A. Miller delivered his often-quoted "giving psychology away" APA presidential address in Washington, DC. The formal title of the address was "Psychology as a Means of Promoting Human Welfare."
1980 The first lecture in the APA's G. Stanley Hall Lecture Series was delivered at the APA convention in Montreal.  The topic was "Current Challenges in Personality," by Walter Mischel.
1980 The Max Planck Institute's Center for Psychology and Human Development was founded in Berlin.  Psychologist Paul B. Baltes was appointed as its director.
1988

Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind, by V. S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee, was published on this date. The book is regarded as one of the top ten psychology books by Oxford Scholastica.

2022 Experience of Playing a Musical Instrument and Lifetime Change in General Cognitive Ability: Evidence From the Luthian Birth Cohort 1936, by Okely, Overy, and Deary, was published on this date. According to readership views and Altmetric Attention Scores, this was a top ten article (#2) among articles published in all APS journals for 2022.
2022 No Evidence That Siblings' Geneder Affects Personality Across Nine Countries, by Dudek et al, was also published on this date. According to readership views and Altmetric Attention Scores, this was a top ten article (#3) among articles published in all APS journals for 2022.