Famous psychologists

Testing/Individual Differences
Worked with Theodore Simon to devise the first modern intelligence test in 1905
Alfred Binet

History and Approaches
The first woman to hold a Ph.D. in psychology (conferred in 1894)
Margaret Floy Washburn
Developmental
Developed a four stage theory of cognitive (intellectual) development in children
Jean Piaget

History and Approaches
Dualism- holds that reality is composed of two entities, mind and matter (body) with the mind being entirely distinct from the body
French philosopher-mathematician
Rene Descartes
Learning
Stressed the importance of observation and imitation in learning and proposed a more social-learning approach.
*Bobo Doll
Albert Bandura
Behavioral
Behaviorism was founded with the publication of his influential article, “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It”
*Nurture only
*Little Albert
John B. Watson
Motivation and Emotion
Humanistic psychologist; developed a “hierarchy of needs” that stressed the importance of positive growth and self-actualization
Abraham Maslow
Motivation and Emotion
Developed the general adaptation syndrome (GAS) which is a three phase process for dealing with stress.
Hans Seyle
Biology
The French surgeon, proposed that the production of speech is controlled by the left side of the human brain in an area later named after him.
*Patient: Tan
Paul Broca
Treatment/ Personality
Developed a form of therapy called client-centered therapy, which stresses humanistic ideas such as positive personal growth.
Carl Rogers
Learning
American psychologist who discovered the “law of effect” through his experiments with cats in a “puzzle box”.
Edward Thorndike
Developmental
Developed a theory of moral development including preconvention, conventional, and post conventional morality or reasoning.
Lawrence Kohlberg
History and Approaches
Naturalist - research and writings on the origin of species had a direct influence on the early school of psychology known as functionalism
Charles Darwin
Social Psychology

Conducted controversial research on social obedience
*People follow orders from authority figures
*Used to explain Holocaust
Stanley Milgram
Learning/ Treatment
One of the most influential psychologists of the late 20th century advocated the idea that behavior is controlled by its consequences
*behaviorism
*schedule of reinforcement
B.F. Skinner
Developmental
Developed an eight-stage theory of psychosocial development beginning with trust versus mistrust.
Erik Erikson
Personality/ Treatment/ Development
Founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology through his development of the id, ego, and superego.
*unconscious
Sigmund Freud
Biology
Nobel Prize for his research on split-brain patients who had their corpus callosum cut.
Robert Sperry
History and Approaches
The Principles of Psychology
Influence on the early development of psychology, along with his theory of emotions with Carl Lange.
William James
History and Approaches
Nobel Prize for work in the area of digestion, discovered that animals could learn to respond completely arbitrary stimuli.
Classical conditioning.
Ivan Pavlov
Personality
Psychodynamic
Founder of Individual Psychology who developed the idea of “striving for superiority” and the “inferiority complex”
Alfred Adler

Social Psychology
Social psychologist who studied conformity and how group pressure affects distortion of judgement by asking subjects to compare the lengths of different lines.
Solomon Asch
Personality
Proposed that personality was made up of two dimensions:
1. introversion vs extroversion
2. Emotionality (psychoficism) vs. stability (neuroticism)
Hans Eysenck
Personality
Developed the concept of the collective unconscious and archetypes
Founded The Analytical School of Psychology
Carl Jung
State of Consciousness
One of the first to use hypnosis to help patients
He would “magnetize” his patients, harnessing their “animal magnetism” to cure their problems.
Franz Mesmer
Cognition
Linguist who suggested humans have an inborn or “native” propensity to learn to talk
Universal Grammar
Noam Chomsky
Emotion
Studied facial expressions and found cross- cultural agreement on the interpretation of facial expressions.
Micro-expressions (lying)
Facial Feedback Theory
Paul Ekman
Personality
Swiss psychologist
Developed the inkblot test (projective test)
Herman Rorschach
Testing/Individual Differences
Developed an intelligence scale (test) which stressed both verbal and nonverbal intelligence.
David Wechsler
Emotion
With William James developed a theory of emotions whereby emotions are the result of bodily reactions
Carl Lange
Testing/Individual Differences
American psychologist who made major revisions of Binet’s intelligence test to create The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale
Lewis Terman
Emotion
Along with Bard, suggested emotional sensory information first reaches the thalamus, then simultaneously are felt and cause a bodily reaction
Walter Cannon
Testing/Individual Differences
Proposed a Triarchic theory of intelligence
-analytical
-creative
-practical
Triarchic theory of love
Robert Sternberg
Biology
German neurologist who discovered the part of the brain responsible for the comprehension of speech
Karl Wernicke
Testing/Individual Differences
Divided intelligence into 8 different types; logical- mathematical, linguistic, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist.
-Very controversial
-Used in education
Howard Gardner
Learning
American psychologist, proposed learned helplessness can cause depression or other mental illnesses;
Current advocate of positive psychology
Martin Seligman
History and Approaches
In 1879, established the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany
Wilhelm Wundt
Personality
English philosopher argued every person begins life as “tabula rasa” (“blank slate”) and all knowledge is the result of experience, a view that became known as empiricism
John Locke
Personality
Charged that psychoanalytic theory as developed by Freud was male-biased and proposed a more social-cultural approach to balance the masculine view of psychology of the time
Karen Horney
Cognition/Memory
Developed a rigorous empirical approach to the study of memory and the “forgetting curve”
Hermann Ebbinghaus
Biological
Cousin of Darwin
English scientist who coined the term “nature vs nurture” and a firm believer in the eugenic theory.
Sir Francis Galton
Developmental
American psychologist who studied attachment to caregivers in infant monkeys
Harry Harlow
Sensation/Perception
Developed a distortion room that is named after him where people of similar sizes appear to be at different heights.
Adelbert Ames
Developmental
American psychologist
Researched differences between males and females in moral development
Believed that females tend to lean more towards fulfilling human needs and are more relationship oriented than males. Men =Justice
Carol Gilligan
Developmental
Russian cognitive theorist
Emphasized the role of the environment, especially the social world of people, in intellectual development and the “zone of proximal (potential) development.”
Lev Vygotsky
Personality
Founder of Trait Theory
Believed personality can be described in terms of fundamental traits that he divided into three kinds of traits: cardinal, central and secondary traits
Gordon Allport
Personality
Trait theorist who divided personality into 16 factors
Suggested there were two types of intelligence- fluid and crystallized
Raymond Cattell
History and Approaches
Established the first American psychology research lab (Johns Hopkins, 1883) established the first professional journal in psychology (American Journal of Psychology,1887) and founded American Psychological Association (1892)
G . Stanley Hall
Abnormal
American activist on behalf of the insane who created the first generation of American mental asylums.
Dorthea Dix
Biology
Led pioneering studies in learning and understanding split brained patients and how their brains work
Michael Gazzaniga
Experimental/
Sensation/Perception
Early German psychologist credited with founding psychophysics
Gustav Fechner
Experimental/
Sensation/Perception
Studied absolute threshold and JND (Just Noticeable Difference) between two stimuli
Ernst Weber
Sensation/Perception
Studied the structure and function of the visual cortex
 Co-recipient with Torsten Wiesel of the Nobel Prize in Physiology for their discoveries concerning information processing in the visual system.
Feature Detectors
David Hubel
Sensation/Perception
Studied of the structure and function of the visual cortex
 Co-recipient with Hubel of the Nobel Prize in Physiology for their discoveries concerning information processing in the visual system.
Feature Detectors
Torsten Weisel
States of Consciousness
Research on hypnosis, especially with regard to pain control
Ernest Hilgard
Learning
Conditioned taste aversion
Survival mechanism due to the fact that people/animals can decipher whether the food is poisonous or not; which essentially can avoid sickness or death
Ex. Poisoned Sheep and wolves
John Garcia
Learning
American psychologist who experimentally demonstrated the involvement of cognitive processes in classical conditioning
Robert Rescorla
Learning
Behaviorist, demonstrated that rats that had incorrectly explored a maze that contained food while they were not hungry, were able to run it correctly on the first trial when they entered it having now been made hungry
Edward Tolman
Sensation/Perception/Cognition
Cofounder of Gestalt Psychology
Studied insight learning which he tested on animals, particularly chimpanzees
Wolfgang Kohler
Cognition/Memory
Studied repressed memories and false memories
Showed how easily memories could be changed and falsely created by techniques such as leading questions and illustrating the inaccuracy in eyewitness testimony
Elizabeth Loftus
Cognition/Memory
Found that short term memory has the capacity of about 7 (plus or minus 2) items
George A. Miller
Motivation
His research described human sexual behavior (orientation) and was controversial (for its methodology & findings); Kinsey report, Kinsey scale
Alfred Kinsey
Emotion
Developed "Two-Factor" theory of emotion (with Singer); experiments on spillover effect
Stanley Schachter
Developmental
Studied attachment in infants using the "strange situation" model. Label infants "secure", "insecure" (etc.) in attachment
Mary Ainsworth
Developmental
Her theory of parenting styles had three main types (permissive, authoritative, & authoritarian)
Diana Baumrind
Developmental
Nobel Prize for research on imprinting
Konrad Lorenz
Testing/Individual Differences
Creator of "g-factor", or general intelligence, concept
Charles Spearman
Philip Zimbardo
Social Psychology
Proved people’s behavior depends to a large extent on the roles they are asked to play
Stanford Prison Experiment
Aaron Beck
Social Psychology
Described concept of cognitive dissonance
Leon Festinger
Treatment/ Therapy
Developed cognitive-behavior therapy