AP Psych IMportant People

Mary Ainsworth

Studied attachment in infants using the "strange situation" model. Label infants "secure", "insecure" (etc.) in attachment

Solomon Asch

Conducted famous conformity experiment that required subjects to match lines.

Albert Bandura

Famous for the Bobo Doll experiments on observational learning & influence in the Socio-Cognitive Perspective

Alfred Binet

Created first intelligence test for Parisian school children

Noam Chomsky

Created concept of "universal grammar"; pointed out how children "overgeneralize" language rules and the concepts of "deep v. surface" structures in language

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Memorized nonsense syllables in early study on human memory; Forgetting Curve; Rehearsal

Erik Erikson

Known for his 8-stage theory of Psychosocial Development

Sigmund Freud

Developed psychoanalysis; considered to be "father of modern psychiatry"

John Garcia

studied taste aversion in rats; led to knowledge that sickness and taste preferences can be conditioned

Carol Gilligan

Presented feminist critique of Kohlberg's moral development theory; believed women's moral sense guided by relationships

Harry Harlow

Studied attachment in monkeys with artificial mothers; contact comfort

William James

created Functionalist school of thought; early American psychology teacher/philosopher; wrote first psychology textbook

Lawrence Kohlberg

Famous for his theory of moral development in children; made use of moral dilemmas in assessment

Elizabeth Loftus

Her research on memory construction and the misinformation effect created doubts about the accuracy of eye-witness testimony

Abraham Maslow

Humanistic psychologist known for his "Hierarchy of Needs" and the concept of "self-actualization"

Stanley Milgram

Conducted "shocking" (Ha!) experiments on obedience at Yale University

Ivan Pavlov

Described process of classical conditioning after famous experiments with dogs; Behaviorist

Jean Piaget

Known for his theory of cognitive development in children

Carl Rogers

Developed "client-centered" therapy; Humanistic Perspective

Stanley Schachter

Developed "Two-Factor" theory of emotion; experiments on spillover effect and the seven sins of Memory

B.F. Skinner

Described process of operant conditioning

Edward Thorndike

Famous for "law of effect" and research on cats in "puzzle boxes"

John Watson

Early behaviorist; famous for the "Little Albert" experiments on fear conditioning

Benjamin Lee Whorf

Famous for describing concept of "linguistic determinism" (thank Alaska and different words for snow)

Wilhelm Wundt

Father of Psychology; Conducted first psychology experiments in first psych laboratory

Philip Zimbardo

Conducted Stanford Prison experiment

Hans Selye

Described General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS); alarm, resistance and exhaustion

Karen Horney

Neo-Freudian; offered feminist critique of Freud's theory; disagreed with idea of "penis envy"

Martin Seligman

Conducted experiments with dogs that led to the concept of "learned helplessness"; positive psychology

Alfred Adler

Neo-Freudian; introduced concept of "inferiority complex" and stressed the importance of birth order

Albert Ellis

Cognitive Therapist, developed "rational emotive behavior therapy" (REBT) - "STOP!"

Aaron Beck

Developed cognitive-behavior therapy (thoughts affect behavior); Beck's Triad of Depression

Gordon Allport

Founder of Trait Theory; Identified some 4,500 traits! 3 main types of traits...(Cardinal, Central & Secondary)

Phineas Gage

horrible accident that severed frontal lobe and limbic system; showed how changes in the brain affect behavior

Mary Whiton Calkins

first female president of the APA (1905); a student of William James; denied the PhD she earned from Harvard because of her sex (later, posthumously, it was granted to her)

Charles Darwin

believed that genetic composition of a species can be altered through natural selection, has had a lasting impact on psychology through the evolutionary perspective

Dorothea Dix

American activist who successfully pressured lawmakers to construct & fund asylums for the mentally ill

G. Stanley Hall

Opened first psychology lab in the U.S.

Margaret Floy Washburn

First female to be awarded a PhD in psychology; 2nd president of the APA (1921)

Paul Broca

the part of the brain responsible for coordinating muscles involved in speech was named for him, because he first identified it

Carl Wernicke

an area of the brain (in the left temporal lobe) involved in language comprehension and expression was named for him because he discovered it

Michael Gazzaniga & Roger Sperry

Studied split brain patients; showed that left/right hemispheres have different functions

Gustav Fechner

early German psychologist credited with founding psychophysics (when we first experience sensations)

David Hubel & Torsten Weisel

Nobel prize winning neuroscientists who demonstrated the importance of "feature detector" neurons in visual perception

Ernst Weber

best known for "Weber's Law", the notion that the JND magnitude is proportional to the stimulus magnitude

Robert Rescorla

specialized in the involvement of cognitive processes in classical conditioning focusing on animal learning and behavior.

Edward Tolman

researched rats' use of "cognitive maps"

Wolfgang Kohler

Studied insight and "ah-ha" moment in the brain; used chimps and divergent thinking

George A. Miller

made famous the phrase: "the magical number 7, plus or minus 2" when describing human memory

Alfred Kinsey

his research described human sexual behavior and was controversial (for its methodology & findings)

Diana Baumrind

her theory of parenting styles had three main types (permissive, authoritative, & authoritarian)

Lev Vygotsky

Critic of Piaget and concept of Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

Konrad Lorenz

won Nobel prize for research on imprinting

Carl Jung

neo-Freudian who created concept of "collective unconscious" and wrote books on dream interpretation

Paul Costa & Robert McCrae

creators of the "Big Five" model of personality traits

Howard Gardner

best known for his theory of "multiple intelligences"

Charles Spearman

creator of "g-factor", or general intelligence, concept

Robert Sternberg

creator of "successful intelligence" theory (3 types, thinking "CAP"...they call me "Bob")

Lewis Terman

developed Stanford-Binet test and oversaw army's use of intelligence testing during WWI

David Wechsler

developer of WAIS and WISC intelligence tests

Paul Ekman

Interested in the universality of facial expressions: facial expressions carry same meaning regardless of culture, context, or language. Use of microexpressions to detect lying.

William Masters & Virginia Johnson

used direct observation and experimentation to study sexual response cycle (4 stages)

Raymond Cattell

intelligence: fluid & crystal intelligence; personality testing: 16 Personality Factors (16PF personality test)

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross

Developed 5 stages of Grief (DABDA)

Anna Freud

child psychoanalysis; emphasized importance of the ego and its constant struggle (daughter of Freud)

Clark Hull

motivation theory, drive reduction; maintained that the goal of all motivated behavior is the reduction or alleviation of a drive state, mechanism through which reinforcement operates

Daniel Goleman

emotional intelligence (EQ)

David Rosenhan

Best known for experiment that challenged the validity of psychiatry diagnoses; "Empty, dull, thud"

Gibson & Walk

perception and developmental psychology; "visual cliff" studies with infants

Henry Murray

personality assessment; created the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Hermann Rorschach

developed one of the first projective tests, the Inkblot test which consists of 10 standardized inkblots where the subject tells a story, the observer then derives aspects of the personality from the subject's commentary

Eysenck & Eysenck

personality theorists, argued there are 2 distinct traits in personality

Extraversion vs. Introversion; emotional stability vs. emotional instability

Kenneth Clark

social psychology; research evidence of internalized racism caused by stigmatization; doll experiments-black children chose white dolls

William Sheldon

American psychologist and physician who was best known for his theory associating physique, personality, and delinquency. (Ectomorph, Ectomorph, Mesomorph)

Robert Yerkes

Yerkes-Dodson law: level of arousal as related to performance

John Locke

17th century English philosopher. Wrote that the mind was a "blank slate" or "tabula rasa"; that is, people are born without innate ideas. We are completely shaped by our environment.

Edward Titchener

Student of Wilhelm Wundt; founder of Structuralist school of psychology.

Carol Dweck

a psychologist who proposed the idea of mindset—how people perceive their abilities and how this plays a key role in their motivation and achievement.

Leon Festinger

Proposed the theory of Cognitive Dissonance, the conflict that you feel when you attitudes are not in synch with your behaviors; changing behavior/attitude can aid in feeling better