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Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (vʊnt; vʊnt; 16 August 1832 – 31 August 1920) was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the fathers of modern psychology. Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and biology, was the first person ever to call himself a psychologist. He is widely regarded as the "father of experimental psychology". In 1879, at the University of Leipzig, Wundt founded the first formal laboratory for psychological research. This marked psychology as an independent field of study. By creating this laboratory he was able to establish psychology as a separate science from other disciplines. He also established the first academic journal for psychological research, Philosophische Studien (from 1883 to 1903) (followed by another: Psychologische Studien, from 1905 to 1917), to publish the institute's research. A survey published in American Psychologist in 1991 ranked Wundt's reputation as first for "all-time eminence" based on ratings provided by 29 American historians of psychology. William James and Sigmund Freud were ranked a distant second and third. Wundt was born at Neckarau, Baden (now part of Mannheim) on 16 August 1832, the fourth child to parents Maximilian Wundt (1787–1846), a Lutheran minister, and Marie Frederike, née Arnold (1797–1868). Two of Wundt's siblings died in childhood; his brother, Ludwig, survived. Wundt's paternal grandfather was Friedrich Peter Wundt (1742–1805), professor of geography and pastor in Wieblingen. When Wundt was about six years of age, his family moved to Heidelsheim, then a small medieval town in Baden-Württemberg. Born in Germany at a time that was considered very economically stable, Wundt grew up during a period in which the reinvestment of wealth into educational, medical and technological development was commonplace. An economic striving for the advancement of knowledge catalyzed the development of a new psychological study method, and facilitated his development into the prominent psychological figure he is today.
Jérôme Chenal, Marc Antoine Messer, Stéphanie Aline Hasler, Mariano Bonriposi