AP Psychology Important Contributors

Adler, Alfred

Neo-Freudian but disagreed with Freud’s emphasis on the unconscious, instinctual drives, and the importance of sexuality and had a more positive view. Believed we are social creatures governed by social urges, we strive for superiority. Talked about how people attempt to compensate for their shortcomings. Inferiority Complex.

Ainsworth, Mary

Secure attachment- stable and positive. Anxious-Ambivalent- desire to be with a parent and some resistance to being reunited. Avoidant- tendency to avoid reunion with parent. Secure infants have good bonds with mothers. Reverse is also true.

Allport, Gordon

Trait Theorist. Central- the core traits that characterize an individual personality. Secondary- traits that are inconsistent or relatively superficial. Cardinal- so basic that all of a person’s activities relate to it.

Asch, Solomon

Studied conformity- subjects were shown lines of different lengths and asked which of the lines matched an example line that they were shown, his accomplices gave the wrong answer to see how the actual subject would react to finding that their opinion differed from the group opinion, subjects conformed in about 1/3 of the trials

Atkinson, John William

Pioneered the study of human motivation, achievement, and behavior

Bandura, Albert

Studied observational learning in children using a Bobo Doll. Modeling. “Bo-Bo Doll” Experiment to demonstrate how children imitate anti-social behavior.

Beck, Aaron

Cognitive therapy approach.

Bem, Sandra

Bem Sex Role Inventory to study femininity, masculinity, androgyny. Rigid gender stereotypes greatly restrict behavior. Studied gender roles.

Berne, Eric

Transactional Analysis- has elements of cognitive, humanist, and psychoanalytic approaches

Binet, Alfred

Designed the first intelligence test made up of “intellectual” questions and problems, results were based on average scores for children in each age group.

His test was revised by Lewis Terman and others at Stanford and made into the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, which were used in North America.

Bowlby, Edward John Mostyn

Child development. Attachment theory. Was a teacher of Mary Ainsworth.

Cannon, Walter and Bard, Philip

Emotions and cognitive appraisal at the same time.

Cattell, James

First professor of psychology in the United States, helped establish psychology as a legitimate science.

Cattell, Raymond

16 Trait Personality Inventory. Surface traits appear in clusters, 16 source traits. Factor analysis.

Charcot, Jean-Martin

Known as the founder of modern neurology, taught and influenced Freud.

Chomsky, Noam

Proposed an innate language acquisition device.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly

professor and former chair of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago, is currently the Davidson Professor of Management at Claremont Graduate University and director of the Quality of Life Research Center. He is author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (1990), Creativing: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention (1993), and Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everything in Life (1997).

Dollard, John & Miller, Neal

Habits make up the structure of personality and are governed by drive, cue, response and reward.

Ebbinghaus, Hermann

Forgetting curve. Remember visual, elaborative and acoustic encoding.

Ekman, Paul

Pioneer of the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions.

Developmental psychologist.

Ellis, Albert

Cognitive therapist, founder of rational emotive behavioral therapy which attempts to change irrational beliefs that cause emotional problem. Rational emotive therapy (RET is a form of cognitive therapy)

Erikson, Erik

Proposed eight stages of SOCIAL development (know these!!) Proposed that development occurs in stages, each stage confronts a person with a new developmental task. Trust v. Mistrust, autonomy v. shame and doubt, initiative v. guilt, industry v. inferiority, identity v. role confusion, intimacy v. isolation, generativity v. stagnation, integrity v. despair.

Eysenck, Hans

Trait theorist. Big 3- melancholic, choleric, phlegmatic.

Festinger, Leon

Cognitive dissonance

Frankl, Victor

Existential therapist. Logotherapy- emphasized the need to find and maintain meaning in life.

Freud, Anna

Neo-Freudian. Disagreed with Freud’s theories about women.

Freud, Sigmund

Founder of psychoanalysis. Id, Ego, Superego. Many of our behaviours are driven by unconscious motives/desires. Psychosexual stages of development. Free association.

Garcia, John

Studied taste aversion in rats with radiation, decided there was an evolutionary element to taste aversion

Gardner, Howard

Theorized that there are actually eight different kinds of intelligence.

Language, logic and math, visual and spatial thinking, music, bodily-kinesthetic kills, intrapersonal skills, interpersonal skills, naturalist skills.

Gazzaniga, Michael S. - He is one of the leading researchers in cognitive neuroscience, the study of the neural basis of mind. Did Split Brain studies.

Gibson, Eleanor

The “visual cliff” experiment. Showed that depth perception cues are innate.

Gilligan, Carol

Created a theory of moral development in women because male psychologists were overly focused on defining moral maturity in terms of justice and autonomy. She pointed out that there is also an ethic of caring about others that is a major element of moral development. Studied gender differences. Males value accomplishments and women value relationships.

Haidt, Jonathan David

in the 1990s developed the Social Intuitionist Model of moral judgment, which posits that moral judgment is mostly based on automatic processes

Hall, G. Stanley

Founded the American Journal of Psychology.

Harlow, Harry and Harlow, Mary

Separated baby rhesus monkeys from their mothers at birth, placed with surrogate mothers either made of wire/metal or cloth, studied mother-infant relationships and discovered Contact Comfort. Showed importance of physical touch over nourishment in infant monkeys.

Heider, Fritz

Gestalt Psychologist. Balance theory, attribution theory.

Hilgard, Ernest

Studies showing that a hypnotic trance includes a “hidden observer” suggesting that there is some subconscious control during hypnosis.

Hilgard, Ernest

Researched hypnosis and its effectiveness as an analgesic “hidden-observer” effect.

Horney, Karen

Neo-Freudian. Among the first to challenge the obvious male bias in Freud’s theories, also disagreed with his cause of anxiety- believed that people feel anxious because they feel isolated and helpless in a hostile world, believed causes are rooted in childhood

Hull, Clark L.

Drive theory. Modern study of hypnosis.

Ivan, Pavlov

Famous for his classical conditioning experiments. Remember the dog and the bell and the meat powder.

Izard, Carol

Believes the infants can express several basic emotions as early as 10 weeks of age.

James, William

Wrote The Principles of Psychology and helped establish psychology as a serious discipline, regarded consciousness as a stream or flow of images and sensations. James Lange theory of Emotion.

Jones, Mary

Pioneer of behavior therapy. Unconditioned a fear of rabbits in a three year old named Peter.

Jung, Carl

People are either introverts or extroverts. Collective unconscious- mental storehouse for unconscious ideas and images shared by all humans, such universals create archetypes. Anima (female principle) & Animus (male principle) exist in everyone.

Kagan, Jerome

Studies to indicate that in-born temperament may explain many behaviors. Showed face masks to 2-yr-olds and found they were fascinated when they saw faces with features in the wrong places.

Kent, Grace Helen

Kent-Rosanoff free association test- psychiatric screening tool using objective scoring and norms

Kinsey, Alfred

Studied human sexuality. Published the Kinsey Report.

Koffka, Kurt

Co-founder of Gestalt psychology

Kohlberg, Lawrence

Proposed three stages of MORAL development (all framed around the word conventional.) This theory was criticized as it only tested young children by framing hypothetical situations for them and their responses to these. It did not test cross-culturally and between the genders.

Köhler, Wolfgang

Co-founder of Gestalt psychology. Studied insight learning in chimpanzees. Demonstrated use of “insight” in apes when they used sticks to reach a banana that was out of reach.

Kubler-Ross, Elizabeth

Thanatologist- one who studies death. Reactions to impending death- denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance

Loftus, Elizabeth

Along with John Palmer showed people a filmed automobile accident, asked how fast cars were going when they smashed or bumped or contacted, asked if they had seen broken glass in the film (there was none) to study the tendency of people to construct memories based on how they are questioned: “misinformation effect” shown in memory studies.

Lorenz, Konrad

Discovered the principle of imprinting. Studied instinctive behavior in animals.

Lorenz, Konrad

Imprinting studies. Showed how baby animals would follow the first object they saw after birth. Believed to be a built-in survival mechanism.

Marcia, James

Studied adolescent psychological development, elaborated on Erikson’s theories. Theory of identity achievement.

Maslow, Abraham

Humanist: Self-Actualization was important. Hierarchy of human needs- physiological needs, safety and security, love and belonging, esteem and self-esteem, self-actualization.

Maslow, Abraham and Rogers, Carl

The humanistic perspective and therapy approach.

Masters, William & Johnson, Virginia

Directly studied sexual intercourse and masturbation in nearly 700 males and females. Sexual response can be divided into four phases: excitement, plateau, orgasm and resolution

May, Rollo - Rollo Reece May - was an American humanist and existential psychologist. He was the author of the influential book Love and Will, which was published in 1969. He is often associated with both humanistic psychology and existentialist philosophy. He along with Viktor Frankl was a major proponent of "existential psychotherapy," which seeks to analyze the structure of human existence with the aim of understanding the reality underlying all situations of humans in crises.

McClelland, David

Believes that IQ is of little value in predicting real competence to deal effectively with the world. IQ predicts school performance, not success in life

Mead, Margaret

Anthropologist who observed the Tchambuli people of New Guinea, where gender roles are the opposite of those in America.

Mesmer, Franz

Austrian physician who believed he could cure disease with magnets. His treatments were based on the power of suggestion, not really magnetism and he was later rejected as a fraud. The term “mesmerize” comes from his name, his treatments sparked interest in hypnosis

Milgram, Stanley

Studied obedience: Two subjects (“teacher” and “learner”) but the “learner” was actually an actor. The teacher was told to shock the learner every time they answered a question incorrectly to see how far they were willing to go.

Mischel, Walter

Marshmallow Experiment. Test of impulse control. Personality and situation

Myers, Isabel and Briggs, Katherine

Myers Briggs Personality Inventory

Pavlov, Ivan

Studied classical conditioning. Paired a bell with food to make dogs salivate

Perls, Fritz

Originator of Gestalt therapy: Considered most dreams a special message about what’s missing in our lives, what we avoid doing, or feelings that need to be “re-owned”

Believed that dreams are a way of filling in gaps in personal experience

Method of analyzing dreams involved speaking for characters and objects in your dreams

Piaget, Jean

Proposed four stages of COGNITIVE development. (Remember the acronym Socks Pulled Over Cold Feet to remember these in order.) Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete, and Formal Stages. Development is sequential.

Rajonc, Robert

Worked with Rescorla on the relationship between the types of stimulus and the responses they can pair with.

Ramachandran, Vilayunar S.

Neuro-Plasticity and neurological development and growth. Works with amputees and with people with amazing brains.

Rescorla, Robert

Proposed that there is a conscious connections between the CS and the UCS in classical conditioning experiments. (A smoker is aware that a nausea-producing drug will affect his behavior) Stated that the predictive value of a conditioned stimulus is critical, contingencies are important. The Rescorla-Wagner model is a formal model of the circumstances under which Pavlovian conditioning occurs. It attempts to describe the changes in associative strength (V) between a signal (conditioned stimulus, CS) and the subsequent stimulus (unconditioned stimulus, US) as a result of a conditioning trial. The model emerged in the early 1970s (Rescorla and Wagner 1972) as an attempt to deal with empirical results suggesting that the idea of simple co-occurrence of two events, important in historical philosophical, psychological, and biological thinking, was inadequate.

Rogers, Carl

Humanist: Emphasized the human capacity for inner peace and happiness

People need ample amounts of love and acceptance from others.

Rorschach, Hermann

Created the Rorschach inkblot test, a projective test of personality.

Rotter, Julian

Social learning theory and locus of control.

Schachter, Daniel

7 sins of memory

Schachter, Stanley

Emotion occurs when we apply a particular label to general physical arousal- we have to interpret our feelings. Proposed the two factor theory of emotion; physiological arousal and a cognitive label. A person's experience of an emotion stems from the mental awareness of the body's physical arousal.

Schachter-Singer Experiment

showed that emotions have both a physical and a cognitive component.

Schafer, Roy- Psychoanalyst who emphasizes a psychoanalytic concept of narrative. For Schafer, an important purpose of the analytic process is that the subject regains agency of her own story and of her own life. Psychoanalyst and subject each have a role in telling and retelling the subject’s life story: the analyst helps the subject by elevating subjectivity as awareness of multiple interpretations.

Seligman, Martin

“Learned Helplessness Experiment” with dogs. Showed the external locus effect in animals (generalized to depression with humans). Prepared for fear theory- we are prepared by evolution to readily develop fears to certain biologically relevant stimuli, such as snakes and spiders. Created the concept of learned helplessness. Proposed the creation of a Positive Psychology.

Selye, Hans

General Adaptation Syndrome (stress responses). Studied stress- the body responds in the same way to any stress (infection, failure, embarrassment, a new job, trouble at school etc.) General Adaptation Syndrome- a series of bodily reactions to prolonged stress (alarm, resistance, exhaustion).

Sherif, Muzafer

Co-operation among divisive groups when they had subordinate (shared) goals.

Singer, Margaret

Studied and aided hundreds of former cult members. Cults use a powerful blend of guilt, manipulation, isolation, deception, fear, and escalating commitment.

Skinner, B. F.

Studied operant conditioning with rats and pigeons. Created the Operant Chamber (AKA) Skinner Box. Developed our main understanding of operant conditioning.

Spearman, Charles

Known for work in statistics, as a pioneer of factor analysis, and for Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. Created a model for human intelligence, including the theory that disparate cognitive test scores reflect a single General intelligence factor and coined the term g factor

Sperry, Roger

The first to propose “spilt-brain” surgery to help epileptic patients.

Stanford-Binet Test

Modern IQ formula. Mental age/chronological age x 100.

Sternberg, Robert

Sternberg (2003) categorizes intelligence into three parts, which are central in his theory, the triarchic theory of intelligence: Analytical intelligence, the ability to complete academic, problem-solving tasks, such as those used in traditional intelligence tests. Creative or synthetic intelligence, the ability to successfully deal with new and unusual situations by drawing on existing knowledge and skills.

Szasz, Thomas Stephen

Social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, and of the social control aims of medicine in modern society, as well as of scientism. His books The Myth of Mental Illness (1960) and The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement (1970) set out some of the arguments with which he is most associated.

Terman, Lewis

Revised Binet’s intelligence test to help create the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales for use in North America, appropriate for people ages 2-90.

Thorndike, Edward L.

Learning theorist: Law of Effect- the probability of a response is altered by the effect it has, acts that are reinforced tend to be repeated