Abstract

In this review we examine psychology’s early beginnings, tracing the influence of Greek philosophers through to the different schools of thought, each with their own research methods and theoretical dogma. Structuralism, functionalism, behaviourism, Gestalt psychology and psychoanalysis were all popular approaches, and each provided in their own way the backbone for what psychology became, what and how it should be researched and how findings should be interpreted. Here we consider how these schools continue to contribute to the development of the current subareas of psychology. While the common goal of these approaches is to try and explain human behaviour, currently as an academic discipline, psychology lacks a unifying theory. We suggest here that in its first thirty years evolutionary psychology is already showing the potential to become this unifying framework for psychology.