AP Psych Important People

Erik Erikson

neo-Freudian, humanistic; 8 psychosocial stages of development: theory shows how people evolve through the life span. Each stage is marked by a psychological crisis that involves confronting "Who am I?"

William Wundt

Conducted first psychology experiments in first psych laboratory

William James

founder of functionalism; studied how humans use perception to function in our environment

Phineas Gage

railroad worker who survived a severe brain injury that dramatically changed his personality and behavior; case played a role in the development of the understanding of the localization of brain function

Weber's Law

the principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount)

Young-Helmholtz trichromatic theory

the theory that the retina contains three different color receptors—one most sensitive to red, one to green, one to blue—which, when stimulated in combination, can produce the perception of any color.

Hering's opponent-process theory

the theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision. For example, some cells are stimulated by green and inhibited by red; others are stimulated by red and inhibited by green

Ivan Pavlov

Russian physiologist who observed conditioned salivary responses in dogs (1849-1936)

John B. Watson

behaviorism; emphasis on external behaviors of people and their reactions on a given situation; famous for Little Albert study in which baby was taught to fear a white rat

B.F. Skinner

Behaviorist that developed the theory of operant conditioning by training pigeons and rats

Edward Thorndike

behaviorism; Law of Effect-relationship between behavior and consequence

Albert Bandura

researcher famous for work in observational or social learning including the famous Bobo doll experiment, also leader in social-cognitive perspective on personality

Noam Chomsky

theorist who believed that humans have an inborn or "native" propensity to develop language

Benjamin Whorf

Concept of "linguistic determinism" or how language impacts thought

Yerkes-Dodson

Motivation-optimum level of arousal for performance

Abraham Maslow

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

Carl Rogers

Humanistic; self-concept and unconditional positive regard drive personality

James-Lange Theory

the theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli

Cannon-Bard Theory

the theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion

Schachter-Singer Theory

A theory of emotion that states that both physiological arousal and cognitive appraisal must occur before an emotion is consciously experienced.

Jean Piaget

Four stage theory of cognitive development: 1. sensorimotor, 2. preoperational, 3. concrete operational, and 4. formal operational.

Lev Vygotsky

child development; investigated how culture & interpersonal communication guide development; zone of proximal development; play research

Henry Harlow

study on monkeys with two wire frame monkey mothers, one with milk, one that was soft

• monkey babies preferred soft mother over milk mother

conclusion: physical comfort is important in the formation of attachment with parents

Mary Ainsworth

studied how different attachment styles affected kids, did strange situation experiment

Diana Baumrind

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

Lawrence Kohlberg

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

Sigmund Freud

Austrian neurologist known for his work on the unconscious mind. Father of psychoanalysis.

Alfred Adler

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

Karen Horney

neo-Freudian, psychodynamic; criticized Freud, stated that personality is molded by current fears and impulses, rather than being determined solely by childhood experiences and instincts, neurotic trends; concept of "basic anxiety"

Carl Jung

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

Charles Spearman

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

Charles Darwin

English natural scientist who formulated a theory of evolution by natural selection (1809-1882)

Howard Gardner

devised theory of multiple intelligences: logical-mathematic, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, linguistic, musical, interpersonal, naturalistic

Robert Sternberg

intelligence; devised the Triarchic Theory of Intelligence (academic problem-solving, practical, and creative)

Alfred Binet

pioneer in intelligence (IQ) tests, designed a test to identify slow learners in need of help-not applicable in the U.S. because it was too culture-bound (French)

Louis Terman

advocate of intelligence testing in US; developed Standford-Binet test and oversaw army's use of intelligence testing during WWI

David Wechsler

developer of WAIS and WISC intelligence tests

Albert Ellis

pioneer in Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET), focuses on altering client's patterns of irrational thinking to reduce maladaptive behavior and emotions

Aaron Beck

pioneer in Cognitive Therapy. Suggested negative beliefs cause depression.

Fritz Heider

proposed the attribution theory; we can explain people's behavior by the situation or their disposition

Solomon Asch

Conducted famous conformity experiment that required subjects to match lines.

Kitty Genovese

woman whose murder in front of witnesses led to research on bystander effect

Stanley Milgram

obedience to authority; had participants administer what they believed were dangerous electrical shocks to other participants; wanted to see if Germans were an aberration or if all people were capable of committing evil actions

Philip Zimbardo

1933-present; Field: social psychology; Contributions: proved that peoples behavior depends to a large extent on the roles they are asked to play; Studies: Stanford Prison Study-studied power of social roles to influence people's behavior

Mary Whiton Calkins

First female president of the APA; denied PhD from Harvard despite fulfilling all of the requirements

Margart Floy Washburn

first woman to receive a PhD in psychology

Edward Titchener

founder of structuralism and introspection

Eleanor Gibson

The "visual cliff" experiment. Showed that depth perception cues are innate and arise around 8 months old

McGurk Effect

a perceptual phenomenon that demonstrates an interaction between hearing and vision in speech perception. The illusion occurs when the auditory component of one sound is paired with the visual component of another sound, leading to the perception of a third sound.

John Garcia and Robert Koelling

operant conditioning researchers, performed a famous experiment illustrating how rats more readily learned to make certain associations than others

Edward Chase Tolman and C.H. Honzik

• studied rats exploring mazes without reinforcements (latent learning) resulting in the rats developing cognitive maps of the maze

Ebbinghaus

created the forgetting curve and serial position effect in memory

Henry Molaison (H.M.)

patient who lost long term memory after surgery for epilepsy after hippocampus was removed

Elizabeth Loftus

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

Broca's area

Controls language expression - an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech.

Wernicke's area

controls language reception - a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe

Flynn effect

The rise in average IQ scores that has occurred over the decades in many nations due to better access to nutrition and education

Carol Gilligan

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

Alfred Kinsey

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

William Masters and Virginia Johnson

researchers who described the human sexual response cycle and sought to define and treat sexual disorders based on that model

Robert Zajonc and Joseph LeDoux

demonstrated that some emotional responses, especially simple likes, dislikes, and fears, involve no deliberate thinking

Richard Lazarus

American psychologist who concluded that some emotional responses do not require conscious thought

Hans Selye

Psychologist who researched a recurring response to stress that he called the general adaptation syndrome

Martin Seligman

researcher known for work on learned helplessness and learned optimism as well as positive psychology

Hans Eysenck

personality is determined to a large extent by genes; used the terms extroversion and introversion

Leon Festinger's Cognitive Dissonance Theory

The conflict that you feel when your attitudes are not in sync with your behaviors. It can be reduced by changing dissonant elements or by adding consonant elements.