<Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> Today, psychology is defined as "the scientific study of behavior and mental processes ." Philosophical interest in the mind and behavior dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Persia, Greece, China, and India . For a condensed overview, see the Timeline of Psychology article . The history of psychology as a scholarly study of the mind and behavior dates back to the Ancient Greeks . There is also evidence of psychological thought in ancient Egypt . Psychology was a branch of philosophy until the 1870s, when it developed as an independent scientific discipline in Germany and the United States . Psychology borders on various other fields including physiology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, sociology, anthropology, as well as philosophy and other components of the humanities . </P> <P> Psychology as a self - conscious field of experimental study began in 1879, when Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory dedicated exclusively to psychological research in Leipzig, Germany . Wundt was also the first person to refer to himself as a psychologist . Other important early contributors to the field include Hermann Ebbinghaus (a pioneer in the study of memory), William James (the American father of pragmatism), and Ivan Pavlov (who developed the procedures associated with classical conditioning). </P> <P> Soon after the development of experimental psychology, various kinds of applied psychology appeared . G. Stanley Hall brought scientific pedagogy to the United States from Germany in the early 1880s . John Dewey's educational theory of the 1890s was another example . Also in the 1890s, Hugo Münsterberg began writing about the application of psychology to industry, law, and other fields . Lightner Witmer established the first psychological clinic in the 1890s . James McKeen Cattell adapted Francis Galton's anthropometric methods to generate the first program of mental testing in the 1890s . In Vienna, meanwhile, Sigmund Freud developed an independent approach to the study of the mind called psychoanalysis, which has been widely influential . </P>

Who established the first laboratory for the scientific study of the mind