AP Psychology People to Know

Wilhelm Wundt

Known as the father of modern psychology; established the first psychology lab and pioneered introspection.

Edward Titchener

A student of Wundt who used introspection and developed structuralism as a distinct theoretical framework further in the U.S.

William James

Known as the father of American psychology; established functionalism and authored The Principles of Psychology; studied how humans use perception to function in our environment.

G. Stanley Hall

Founded the first psychology research lab in the U.S. and served as the first president of the American Psychological Association (APA).

John B. Watson

Founder of behaviorism, emphasizing observable behavior over introspection; famous for Little Albert study in which baby was taught to fear a white rat.

B.F. Skinner

Expanded behaviorism through operant conditioning; developed the theory of operant conditioning by training pigeons and rats (used successive approximations and a skinner box).

Sigmund Freud

Founder of psychoanalysis, focusing on unconscious motivations and conflicts. focused on the unconscious causes of behavior and personality formation; founded psychoanalysis; id/ego/superego; defense mechanisms.

Carl Rogers

A leader in humanistic psychology, known for client-centered therapy and the concept of unconditional positive regard; emphasizes personal growth.

Abraham Maslow

Developed the hierarchy of needs and emphasized self-actualization in humanistic psychology; hierarchy of needs in which the most basic needs (food/shelter) must be fulfilled to achieve self-actualization.

Max Wertheimer

Founder of Gestalt psychology, which focuses on understanding perception as wholes rather than parts; argued against dividing human thought and behavior into discrete structures; whole is greater than sum of the parts

Paul Broca

Discovered Broca's area (left frontal lobe), associated with speech production.

Carl Wernicke

Identified Wernicke's area (left temporal lobe), linked to language comprehension.

Roger Sperry

Conducted split-brain research, contributing to understanding hemispheric specialization.

Michael Gazzaniga

Worked on split-brain research alongside Sperry; understanding of functional lateralization in the brain; how the cerebral hemispheres communicate.

Hans Selye

Developed the General Adaptation Syndrome, explaining stress response.

Jean Piaget

Developed the stages of cognitive development in children. four stage theory of cognitive development (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational); studied why children got the same questions wrong in the same way

Noam Chomsky

Proposed theories on language acquisition and universal grammar. language development; disagreed with Skinner about language acquisition, stated humans have an inborn native ability to develop language.

Elizabeth Loftus

Conducted research on memory and the misinformation effect. Unreliability of eyewitnesses.

George A. Miller

Known for short-term memory capacity, particularly 'the magical number seven.'

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Studied memory, known for the forgetting curve. conducted studies on forgetting: first, a rapid loss followed by a gradual declining rate of loss; ebbinghaus forgetting curve.

Ebbinghaus forgetting curve

Describes a rapid loss of memory followed by a gradual declining rate of loss.

Erik Erikson

Known for his psychosocial stages of development. 8 psychosocial stages of development: theory shows how people evolve through the lifespan

Lev Vygotsky

Developed the sociocultural theory and concept of the zone of proximal development.

Harry Harlow

Studied attachment using rhesus monkeys. development; realized that touch is preferred in development (studied attachment of infant monkeys to artificial mothers made of cloth and wire)

Mary Ainsworth

Conducted the Strange Situation study to classify attachment styles. developmental psychology; compared effects of maternal separation, devised patterns of attachment; observation of parent/child attachment

Ivan Pavlov

Discovered classical conditioning through experiments with dogs. trained dogs to salivate at the ringing of a bell

Edward Thorndike

Formulated the law of effect, foundational to operant conditioning.

John Garcia

Researched taste aversion (a form of learning where an organism associates a specific taste with illness) and biological preparedness.

Robert Rescorla

Explored contingency theory in classical conditioning.

Edward Tolman

Investigated cognitive maps and latent learning.

Wolfgang Köhler

Researched insight learning in chimpanzees.

Carl Jung

Expanded on Freud's theories with ideas like the collective unconscious and wrote books on dream interpretation.

Alfred Adler

Focused on the importance of social factors and inferiority complex, stressing the importance of birth order.

Albert Bandura

Developed observational or social learning theory and conducted the Bobo doll experiment.

Solomon Asch

Studied conformity through his line judgment experiments. conducted famous conformity experiment that required subjects to match lines of similar length; found that people conformed to the group even if the answer was wrong

Stanley Milgram

Researched obedience through shock experiments. social psychology; shock experiment testing obedience to authority; had participants administer what they believed were dangerous electrical shocks to other participants

Philip Zimbardo

Conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment. social psychology; stanford prison experiment that proved the power of social roles to influence people's behavior

Gordon Allport

Known for trait theory of personality.

Hans Eysenck

Researched personality dimensions, focusing on introversion and extraversion. personality theorist; asserted that personality is largely determined by genes, used introversion/extroversion

Raymond Cattell

Developed the 16 Personality Factor (16PF) model.

Aaron Beck

Founder of cognitive therapy, especially for depression. pioneer in cognitive therapy; suggested depression came from negative schemas about the world, the self, and the future

Albert Ellis

Developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). focuses on altering client's patterns of irrational thinking to reduce maladaptive behavior and emotions

Martin Seligman

Researched learned helplessness and pioneered positive psychology.

David Rosenhan

Conducted experiments on the validity of psychiatric diagnoses ("On Being Sane in Sane Places"). social psychologist; study in which healthy patients were admitted to psychiatric hospitals + diagnosed with schizophrenia; showed that diagnosis leads to negative labels