Who used the word Psychology for the first time?

The word psychology is derived from two Greek words “psyche” and “logos”. Psyche means soul (life) and logos means knowledge (explanation) or the study of the soul.

Key Points

• The first use of the term “psychology” is often attributed to the German scholastic philosopher Rudolf Göckel, who published the Psychologia hoc est de hominis perfectione, anima, ortu in 1590. 
• Psychology was one of the last special sciences that separated from philosophy in the nineteenth century.
• One of the most influential early users of the term in English was Herbert Spencer who published the first volume of his Principles of Psychology in 1870. 

Thus, it is concluded that Rudolf Göckel used the word Psychology for the first time.

Hint

• ​Guilford developed the theory of multiple intelligence.
• Skinner was an American psychologist best-known for his influence on behaviorism.
• Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, a physiologist whose studies of digestion won him the Nobel Prize in 1904, concluded that stimuli other than food, may produce salivation and this led him to study conditioned reflex in detail.