The Psychology Timeline

The Dictionary of Classic and New Psychology Trends through the years!!!

 Part 2: 1900-2016

This dictionary is an idea that came up two months ago, just as I was checking the Psychology Section in my library. Although, life demands, rapid technological development and socio-cultural changes may have broaden the boundaries of Psychology, some terms and trends are timeless if not innovative! Just as promised, this is the 2nd and last part of the Psychology Timeline:

• Questionnaire (1901): a (printed) set of questions disigned to elicit information, as in a survey (French term) .

• Industrial relations (1904): relationships between employers and employees. It became established until after World War II.

• Anorexic (1907): someone suffering from anorexia nervosa (anorexia:16th century Latin  term, meaning broadly 'lack of appetite'.

• Libido (1909): the psychic drive or energy, especially that associated with the sexual instinct. It was popularised by eminent Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud.

• Collective unconscious (1917): In the theory of C. G. Jung, that part of the unconscious mind which derives from ancestral experience and is additional to the personal unconscious.

• Persona (1917): Originally a technical term in Jungian psychology, but subsequently used more generally for the 'personality an individual presents to the world'.

• American Dream (1931): the ideal of a democratic and prosperous society which is the traditional aim of the American people; it symbolises US social or material values in general. Nowadays, it is used cross-culturally.

 

• Personal space (1937): the area immediately surrounding each individual which is felt to be his or her own; it did not spread into everyday use until the mid-'70s (German term).

• Role-playing (1943): the deliberate acting of a particular role, often used as a technique in training or psychotherapy (German term).

• Brain-washing (1950): the systematic and, often, forcible elimination from a person's mind of all established ideas, especially political ones, so that another set of ideas can take their place. It is, also, used to describe the negative influence of advertising.

• Freudian slip (1959): an unintentional mistake that seems to reveal a subconscious intention; named after the Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud.

• Human resources (1961): personnel or employees, considered as a significant asset of a business or other organisation, as opposed to material resources.

• Midlife crisis (1965): an emotional crisis occuring in midlife, characterised by the feeling that one is growing old or that life is 'passing one by'. 

• Body language (1966): the gestures and movements by which a person unconsciously or indirectly conveys meaning (Translated from French).

 

• Workaholic (1968): someone who is addicted to working, or who voluntarily works excessively hard and unusually long hours.

• Gender gap (1977): the difference in (especially, political or socio-cultural) attitudes between men and women. Modelled on generation gap (1967): it took the youth-oriented 1960s to take sufficient notice of undesirable differences in outlook and understanding between older and younger people, in order to coin the term.

• Quality time (1977): time spent in giving someone one's undivided attention in order to strengthen a relationship, especially, between a parent and a child; a special phrase coined in order to describe parents' time spent relaxing with their children, since, in the late '70s, both parents had to work for a living.   

• Sick building syndrome (1983): the set of adverse environmental conditions found in buildings that are inadequately ventilated, air-conditioned etc. It, also, refers to the symptoms (headache, dizziness, breathing problems) experienced by the people who live or work there.

• Fashion victim (1984): a slavish follower of trends, especially in clothing fashion. It is, sometimes, tied up with shopaholic (1984): a compulsive shopper. A phenomenon that arose out of the credit boom of the early 1980s, initially, in the USA. 

 

• Prozac (1985): A proprietary name for the popular antidepressant drug fluoxetine hydrochloride. The wonder-drug happy pill of the late 1980s, which was regarded more soberly in the 1990s.

• Offender profiling (1988): a system of itemising and recording the probable psychosocial characteristics , modus operandi, etc. of the perpetrators of particular crimes so that can be matched with the known habits and personalities of individual suspects. 

• Eco-friendly (1989): not harmful to the environment; also applied to products manufactured with explicit regard to the environment.  

• Stalk (1990): to harass or persecute (a person, especially, a celebrity) with unwanted and obsessive attention. The particular phenomenon was recognised since the 1980s, however, it reached new heights during the 1990s.      

• Generation X (1991): a generation of young people perceived to be disaffected, directionless, and having no part to play in society; a 'lost generation'. The term can be traced back to the science-fiction novel of the same title by Charles Hamblett and Jane Deverson, published in 1964. It was popularised in 1991 by the novel 'Generation X: tales for an accelerated culture'. 

• Information fatigue syndrome (1994): a condition of psychological stress induced by the attempt to assimilate or manipulate excessive amounts of information. The quintessential late-20th- century managerial malaise.The term is first recorded in 1991.

• Positive psychology (1998): the scientific study of human functioning, with the goals of discovering and promoting strengths and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive (David Myers, 2014). 

• Reflexive monism (2000): the universe manifests itself both physically and as conscious experience (www.wikipedia.org). 

• Gender dysphoria (2013): the distress certain people experience as a result of the sex and gender they were assigned at birth (www.wikipedia.org).

References

John Auto (1999), 20th Century Words. New York: Oxford University Press.

www.wikipedia.org.

David G. Myers and C. Nathan DeWall (2014), Psychology in everyday life, 3rd edition. New York: Worth Publishers.  

 

Picture Source links

http://mamiverse.com/tips-for-positive-psychology-74325/,

http://www.yummymummyclub.ca/style/fashion/dont-be-a-fashion-victim,

https://gr.pinterest.com/pin/86201780343219119/,

http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/Good-morning-beheaded-uh-I-mean-beloved-New-Yorker-Cartoon-Prints_i8562885_.htm,

https://gr.pinterest.com/pin/357121445424539560/.

 

Tim Voridis

Organisational Psychologist/Consultant - Communication and Personality Specialist

'Innovation for a brighter future'