28 April in the History of Psychology

On April 28:

1885 — Karl Muenzinger was born. Muenzinger's careful experimental work with rats contributed many papers on learning that supported Edward Tolman's theory of purposive behaviorism.

1903 — Ivan Pavlov presented "Experimental Psychology and Psychopathology of Animals" to the International Congress of Medicine at Madrid. This was the first public exposition of conditioned and unconditioned reflexes. Pavlov was the second of four speakers at a general assembly held at 3:00 p.m. at the Grand Amphitheatre of the Faculty of Medicine.

1905 — Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon's first intelligence test and related research were presented to the International Congress of Psychology in Rome. Their paper, read by Henri-Étienne Beaunis, was titled "New Methods for Diagnosing Idiocy, Imbecility, and Moron Status."

1905 — George A. Kelly was born. Kelly developed the personal construct theory of personality and psychotherapy, emphasizing individual interpretations of a setting as the determinants of individual differences in behavior. Kelly's Role Repertoire Test was the basis of many studies of personality.

1920 — James R. Angell was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, becoming the sixth psychologist elected to the Academy.

1921 — The Psychological Corporation was incorporated. The incorporation papers were drawn up by Harlan F. Stone, later to become chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and were signed by James McKeen Cattell, Edward L. Thorndike, and Robert S. Woodworth. In 1969, the Psychological Corporation was purchased by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

1922 — G. Stanley Hall's book Senescence: The Last Half of Life was published. Hall's work in developmental psychology was noteworthy for its time because he wrote about development beyond the childhood years.

1933 — Wolfgang Köhler wrote, for the newspaper Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the last anti-Nazi article to be published openly in Germany before World War II. The article defended Jewish professors recently dismissed from their university posts and pointed to the many contributions Jews had made to German culture.

1955 — The drug Miltown (meprobamate; Wallace Laboratories) was approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Meprobamate is a propanediol that affects the thalamus and the limbic system and causes muscle relaxation. It is prescribed as an antianxiety medication. Equanil (Wyeth) is another trade name for meprobamate and was approved by the FDA on August 26, 1955.

1959 — Louis L. Thurstone's The Measurement of Values, a classic book on attitude scaling, was published.

1979 — The APA Monitor published new criteria for accreditation of doctoral programs in professional psychology. The standards incorporated greater emphasis on practitioner training, as recommended by the Vail Conference on Graduate Training.