AP Psych Important People - 2025

All the people and what you need to know about them for AP Psych.

Solomon Asch

Conformity studies (line judgment task).

Stanley Milgram

Obedience study (shocking others on command).

Philip Zimbardo

Stanford Prison Experiment (roles and deindividuation).

Leon Festinger

Cognitive dissonance theory.

Muzafer Sherif

Robbers Cave experiment (superordinate goals reduce conflict).

Philippe Pinel & Dorothea Dix

Reformed treatment of the mentally ill (moral therapy).

David Rosenhan

Being Sane in Insane Places study; labels in psychiatry.

Aaron Beck

Cognitive therapy; aimed at changing negative thought patterns.

Albert Ellis

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT).

Carl Rogers

Client-centered therapy. Humanistic theory; unconditional positive regard.

Abraham Maslow

Hierarchy of needs; self-actualization at the top.

Sigmund Freud

Founder of psychoanalysis; id/ego/superego, defense mechanisms.

Karen Horney

Criticized Freud; emphasized social factors in personality.

Alfred Adler

Inferiority complex; importance of social tensions in development.

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Memory decay curve and spacing effect.

Elizabeth Loftus

Misinformation effect and false memories.

Noam Chomsky

Inborn universal grammar; critiqued behaviorist view of language.

Benjamin Whorf

Linguistic relativity (language affects thought).

Howard Gardner

Theory of multiple intelligences.

Robert Sternberg

Triarchic theory of intelligence (analytical, creative, practical).

Alfred Binet

Created first IQ test (mental age); used in French schools.

Lewis Terman

Revised Binet’s test into the Stanford-Binet IQ test.

Albert Bandura

Observational learning; Bobo doll experiment.

Edward Thorndike

Law of Effect; behavior is strengthened by rewards.

Edward Tolman

Cognitive maps in rats; latent learning.

Robert Rescorla

Cognitive element in classical conditioning (expectancy theory).

Jean Piaget

Cognitive development stages (sensorimotor, preoperational, etc.).

Erik Erikson

Psychosocial development; 8 stages across the lifespan.

Lawrence Kohlberg

Moral development theory; preconventional, conventional, postconventional.

Mary Ainsworth

Strange Situation experiment; attachment styles (secure/insecure).

Harry Harlow

Monkey studies; importance of contact comfort in attachment.

Roger Sperry & Michael Gazzaniga

Split-brain research; showed brain hemisphere specialization.

John B. Watson

Founder of behaviorism; Little Albert experiment (classical conditioning of fear).

B.F. Skinner

Studied operant conditioning; used reinforcement and punishment.

Ivan Pavlov

Discovered classical conditioning using dogs.

Wilhelm Wundt

"Father of Psychology"; established the first psychology lab; used introspection.

William James

Founder of functionalism; wrote Principles of Psychology.

G. Stanley Hall

First APA president; started the first U.S. psych lab.

Franz Joseph Gall

Phrenology - bumps on skull reveal brain capacity, Localization of Function Theory - this theory suggests that different parts of the brain are specialized for specific functions