List of important publications in psychology

Historical foundations

 * James, William (1890). Principles of Psychology. This monumental text can be viewed as the beginning of psychology. Online version


 * Freud, Sigmund (1900). The Interpretation of Dreams. Dream interpretation became a part of psychoanalysis due to this seminal work. Online version


 * Freud, Sigmund (1920). Introductory Lectures on Psycho-analysis. Discussion of slips, transference, and dream analysis. Includes classic case studies.

Behaviorism

 * Watson, John B. (1913). "Psychology as the behaviorist views it," Psychological Review, 20:158-177. With his behaviorism, Watson put the emphasis on external behavior of people and their reaction to a given situation, rather than the internal, mental states of those people. He argued that the analysis of behavior and reactions was the only objective way to get insight into human actions. Online version


 * Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and Human Behavior. This is Skinner's seminal textbook, in which he discusses many subjects that are not usually covered, such as psychotherapy, self-control, and thinking. It was written as part of a publishing deal so that he could get his utopian fiction novel published. It has proven to be an enduring Radical Behaviorist treatment of the person and society. Pavlovian behaviorism has been absorbed into and obliterated by other theories of behavior, including Radical Behaviorism. Online version

Clinical psychology

 * Beck, A.T., Rush, A.J., Shaw, B.F., Emery, G., Cognitive Therapy of Depression. The Guilford Press, 1979. - ISBN 0898620007

Cognitive psychology

 * Bandura, Albert, Ross, D. & Ross, S. A. (1961). "Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63, 575-582.
 * Holyoak, Keith and Morrison, Robert (2005). The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-53101-2. A recent comprehensive collection of survey chapters on topics in higher cognition.
 * Turing, Alan (1950). "Computing machinery and intelligence," Mind, vol. LIX, no. 236, October 1950, pp. 433-460. eprint
 * Fodor, Jerry (1975). The Language of thought
 * Zenon Pylyshyn (1984). Computation and Cognition.
 * Stevan Harnad (1994). "Computation Is Just Interpretable Symbol Manipulation: Cognition Isn't," Minds and Machines 4: 379-390.

Developmental psychology

 * Baldwin, J. M. (1894). Mental development in the child and the race. New York: Macmillan.
 * Beilin, H. (1992). Piaget's Enduring Contribution to Developmental Psychology. Developmental Psychology, 28(2), 191-204.
 * Bringuier, JC. (Ed.). (1980). Conversations with Jean Piaget. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1977)
 * Chapman, M. (1988). Constructive Evolution: Origins and Development of Piaget’s Thought. Cambridge, UK: University of Cambridge Press.
 * Bronfenbrenner, Urie (1979). The Ecology of Human Development.
 * Gruber, HE, Vonèche JJ. (Eds.). (1993). The Essential Piaget: An Interpretive Reference and Guide (2nd ed.). Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.
 * Lourenço, O, Machado A. (1996). In Defense of Piaget's Theory: A Reply to 10 Common Criticisms. Psychological Review, 103(1), 143-164.
 * Piaget, Jean. (1952). The Origins of Intelligence in Children (M. Cook, Trans. 2nd ed.). New York: International Universities Press. (Original work published 1936)
 * Piaget, Jean. (1985). The Equilibration of Cognitive Structures: The Central Problem of Intellectual Development (T. Brown & K. J. Thampy, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1975)
 * Siegler, RS. (1996). Emerging Minds: The Process of Change in Children's Thinking.  New York: Oxford University Press.

Educational psychology

 * Anderson, J. R., Corbett, A. T., Koedinger, K. R., Pelletier, R. (1995). Cognitive tutors: Lessons learned. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4, 167-207.
 * Bandura, Albert (1993). "Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development and functioning," Educational psychologist, 28, 117-148.
 * Cronbach, Lee J. (1957). "The two disciplines of scientific psychology," American Psychologist, 12, 671-684.
 * Cronbach, Lee J. and Meehl, Paul E. (1955). "Construct validity in psychological tests," Psychological Bulletin, 52, 281-302.
 * Mayer, R. E. (1997). "Multimedia learning: Are we asking the right questions?" Educational Psychologist, 32, 1-19.
 * Palincsar, A. S. (1998). Social constructivist perspectives on teaching and learning. Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 345-375.
 * Skinner, B. F. (1958). "Teaching Machines," Science, 128 (3330), 969-977.
 * Spearman, Charles (1904). "General intelligence," objectively determined and measured]. American Journal of Psychology, 15, 201-293.
 * Sweller, J., van Merrienboer J. J., Paas F. G. (1998). "Cognitive architecture and instructional design," Educational Psychology Review, 10, 251-296.
 * Terman, Lewis M. (1916). "The uses of intelligence tests," in The measurement of intelligence (chapter 1). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
 * Thorndike, Edward L. (1910). "The contribution of psychology to education," Journal of Educational Psychology, 1, 5-12.
 * Thurstone, Louis L. (1934). "The vectors of mind," Psychological Review, 41, 1-32.

Evolutionary Psychology

 * Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby (1992). The Adapted Mind. NY: Oxford University Press.
 * Buss, D.M.(2004).Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind.Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.

Evolutionary developmental psychology

 * Bjorklund DF, Pellegrini AD. (2002). The Origins of Human Nature: Evolutionary Developmental Psychology. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.


 * Burgess R. L., MacDonald. (Eds.) (2004). Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Development, 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.


 * Ellis BJ, Bjorklund DF. (Eds.) (2005).  Origins of the social mind: Evolutionary psychology and child development  .   New York: Guilford Press.

Evolutionary educational psychology

 * Geary, D. C. (2002). Principles of evolutionary educational psychology. Learning and Individual Differences, 12, 317-345.


 * Geary, D. C. (2005). Folk knowledge and academic learning. In B. J. Ellis & D. F. Bjorklund (Eds.), Origins of the social mind (pp. 493-519). New York: Guilford Publications.

Forensic psychology

 * Alan M. Goldstein (2003). Forensic Psychology. ISBN 0-471-61920-5. Forty seven forensic psychologists cover the theory and practice of forensic psychology in both civil and criminal litigation.


 * Hugo Münsterberg (1908). On the Witness Stand. Considered to be the first publication to apply psychology to legal matters. Among the topics discussed are the reliability of witnesses' testimony and memory, lie detection, and methods of interrogating suspects of crime.

Genetic Psychology

 * Baldwin, JM. (1896). A New Factor in Evolution. The American Naturalist, 30(354), 441-451.
 * Piaget, Jean. (1979). Behaviour and Evolution (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (Original work published 1976)
 * Simpson, GG. (1953). The Baldwin Effect. Evolution, 7(2), 110-117.
 * Weber, BH. & Depew, D. J. (Eds.). (2003). Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered. Cambridge, MA: Bradford/MIT Press.

Gestalt psychology

 * Max Wertheimer (1912). Experimental Studies of the Perception of Movement. Considered to be the founding article for Gestalt psychology. The article described the Phi phenomenon.

Neuropsychology

 * Jack Cooper, Floyd Bloom, & Robert Roth (1996). The Biochemical Basis of Neuropharmacology. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-510399-8.

Occupational health psychology

 * Everly, G. S., Jr. (1986). An introduction to occupational health psychology. In P. A. Keller & L. G. Ritt (Eds.), Innovations in clinical practice: A source book, Vol. 5 (pp.  331-338).  Sarasota, FL:  Professional Resource Exchange.
 * Frese, M. (1985). Stress at work and psychosomatic complaints: A causal interpretation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 70, 314-328.
 * Karasek, R. A. (1979). Job demands, job decision latitude, and mental strain: Implications for job redesign. Administrative Science Quarterly, 24, 285-307.
 * Kasl, S. V. (1978). Epidemiological contributions to the study of work stress. In C. L. Cooper & R. L. Payne (Eds.), Stress at work (pp. 3-38). Chichester, UK: Wiley.
 * Kasl, S. V., & Cobb, S. (1970). Blood pressure changes in men undergoing job loss: A preliminary report. Psychosomatic Medicine, 32, 19-38.
 * Parkes, K. R. (1982). Occupational stress among student nurses: A natural experiment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67, 784-796.
 * Quick, J. C., & Tetrick, L. E. (Eds.). (2003). Handbook of occupational health psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
 * Zapf, D., Dormann, C., & Frese, M. (1996). Longitudinal studies in organizational stress research: A review of the literature with reference to methodological issues. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 1, 145-169.

Personality psychology
In this paper the Maslow's hierarchy of needs was described. Online version
 * Abraham Maslow (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370-396.

Phenomenology

 * Medard Boss, Existential Foundations of Medicine and Psychology (Jason Aronson, 1984; ISBN 1-56821-420-0)
 * Medard Boss, Psychoanalysis and Daseinsanalysis (Da Capo Pr, 1982; ISBN 0-306-79708-9)
 * Medard Boss, The Analysis of Dreams (Philosophical Library, 1958)
 * Amedeo Giorgi, Psychology as a Human Science (Harper & Row, 1970)
 * R. D. Laing, The Divided Self (Penguin, 1965)
 * Robert D Romanyshyn, Mirror and Metaphor: Images and Stories of Psychological Life (Trivium, 2001)
 * Ernesto Spinelli, The Interpreted World: An Introduction to Phenomenological Psychology (Sage, 2nd Edition, 2005)
 * Erwin Straus, Man, Time and World (Humanities Press, 1982)
 * Erwin Straus, The Primary World of the Senses (Free Press of Glencoe, 1963)
 * Jan Hendrik van den Berg, A Different Existence (Duquesne University Press, 1973)

Psychophysics
Gustav Fechner. Elements of Psychophysics, sections VII and XVI. Foundation of the field of psychophysics. Online version

Social psychology
Classic Readings on Prejudice and Intergroup Relations

This book expounds one of the most influential theories of prejudice reduction, known as the Contact Hypothesis: increasing contact between members of different groups is the foundation for reducing intergroup hostility.
 * Allport, G.W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. New York: Doubleday.


 * Tajfel, H., & Turner, J.C.. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W.G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33-47). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole. (see Social Identity Theory)