Influential Psychologists Terms

Alfred Adler

Neo-Freudian psychologist who believed that children experience “feelings of inferiority” and also that birth order affects one’s personality

Mary Ainsworth

Followed the work of Harry Harlow, studying attachment in children, and developed the “strange situation” experiment design; described secure and insecure attachment

Gordon Allport

Early personality theorist who developed a long list of personality characteristics he called traits; also developed the idea of self-esteem

Solomon Asch

Social psychologist who studied conformity; famous for his “line length” experiment

Albert Bandura

Social learning theorist famous for his “bobo doll experiment” and conclusions that much of learning is accomplished through observing others

Aaron Beck

Cognitive psychologist who studied depression and developed a scale for measuring depression

Paul Broca

Neuroscientist who has a region of the brain responsible for producing speech named after him

Raymond Cattell

Trait theorist in personality theory who developed the “16 Personality Factors” and 16PF personality measurement instrument

Noam Chomsky

Studied the development of language and believes that language development is innate and cannot be fully explained with learning theory alone

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Worked in the area of human memory and developed the “forgetting curve;” studied the effect of practice on memory

Albert Ellis

Cognitive behavioral therapist who developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

Erik Erikson

Developmental psychologist that proposed the “8 Stages of Psychosocial Development” tracing human development from infancy to old age

Hans Eysenck

Famous for his work on the structure of personality and his attacks on psychotherapy; also his position on genetic influence on intelligence

Leon Festinger

Social psychologist who developed the idea of “cognitive dissonance”, an incompatibility of one’s thoughts and behavior

Sigmund Freud

Father of modern psychology and developer of psychoanalytic theory; considered to be the most influential psychologist of the first half of the 20th century

Harry Harlow

Studied attachment in rhesus monkeys, and concluded that physical contact is an important aspect of parenting

Karen Horney

Neo-Freudian psychologist known for her feminine perspective on psychoanalytic theory and “womb envy”

Clark Hull

Early psychologist who developed “drive reduction theory” of motivation, focusing on physiological needs and drives

William James

Early American psychologist who founded Functionalism, the precursor of behaviorism, and developed one of the 3 most often cited theories of emotion

Carl Jung

Neo-Freudian psychologist who developed the idea of archetypes and the collective unconscious; famous for his work on dream interpretation as well

Lawrence Kohlberg

Cognitive psychologist who studied how children develop morals and developed a stage theory of moral development

Elizabeth Loftus

Modern psychologist who studied long term memory, in particular the fallibility of eyewitness testimony

Abraham Maslow

Humanistic psychologist famous for his “Hierarchy of Needs” theory of motivation

Stanley Milgram

Social psychologist who conducted one of psychology’s most famous experiments, studying obedience to authority

Ivan Pavlov

Early psychologist who “discovered” classical conditioning while doing work on salivation in dogs

Jean Piaget

Famous cognitive psychologist of the early 20th century who studied cognitive development in children and is famous for his stage theory of cognitive development

Carl Rogers

Humanistic psychologist famous for his “person centered theory” and “client centered therapy”

Stanley Schachter

Developed the “two factor theory of emotions”, one of the most influential emotion theories; famous for his experiment with Singer

Martin Seligman

Considered to be the founder of Positive Psychology and known for his work on “learned helplessness”

B.F. Skinner

Famous behaviorist who developed operant conditioning, which elaborated on the “Law of Effect”

John Watson

Early American psychologist who founded behaviorism and studied classical conditioning

Carl Wernicke

Neuroscientist who has a region of the brain responsible for understanding language named after him

Wilhelm Wundt

The father of psychology who developed the first psychology lab and studied the mind; developed the ideas that led to structuralism

Lev Vygotsky

Studied the impact of culture on intellectual and language development

Philip Zimbardo

Social psychologist known for his work in attitude formation; conducted the famous “Stanford Prison Experiment”