James MacKeen Cattell studied psychology for his advanced degree under Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig and with Herman Lotze at the University of Göttingen. He won a one-year fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in 1882. He became the first American to publish a dissertation in the field of psychology, an essay on Lotze.

He returned to Germany until 1889 when he became a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1891, he moved to Columbia University, where he became department head of psychology, anthropology, and philosophy. In 1895, he was appointed president of the American Psychological Association. In 1888, he was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society.

Cattell founded or pushased many scientific journals, including Psychological Review, Popular Science Monthly, and Science, which became the official journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science a few years after his purchase. Cattell was the editor of Science for nearly 50 years.

Cattell's great contribution to the teaching of reading was his 1886 publication in Mind "The Time It Takes to See and Name Object."