The history of the creation of the journal is closely associated with that of the institutionalization of French psychology.

Théodule Ribot's election to the newly created chair of Experimental and Comparative Psychology at the Collège de France in 1888 is followed by the creation of the first French laboratory of experimental psychology at the Sorbonne in 1889, under the direction of Henri-Étienne Beaunis.

With Beaunis' agreement, he established L'Année Psychologique in 1894 to boost the outreach of the laboratory's research.

[1] The journal's orientation and reputation is associated, through its successive directors, to that of the Institute of Psychology of the University of Paris, founded by Henri Piéron in 1920 and expanded by Paul Fraisse.

In 2012, it officially became an international bilingual journal (French/English), taking the subtitle Topics in Cognitive Psychology.