AP Psych Famous Psychologists

Mary Ainsworth

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"

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Memorized nonsense syllables in early study on human memory

Erik Erikson

Known for his 8-stage theory of Psychosocial Development

Sigmund Freud

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

Harry Harlow

Studied attachment in monkeys with artificial mothers

William James

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

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

Ivan Pavlov

Described process of classical conditioning after famous experiments with dogs

Jean Piaget

Known for his theory of cognitive development in children

Carl Rogers

Developed "client-centered" therapy

Stanley Schachter

Developed "Two-Factor" theory of emotion; experiments on spillover effect

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 "liguistic determinism"

William Wundt

Conducted first psychology experiments in first psych laboratory

Philip Zimbardo

Conducted Stanford Prison experiment

Hans Selye

Described General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

Karen Horney

Neo-Freudian; offered feminist critique of Freud's theory

Alfred Adler

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

Aaron Beck

Developed cognitive-behavior therapy, created a "depression inventory" test

Phineas Gage

his survival of a horrible industrial accident taught us about the role of the frontal lobes (okay, he's not really a psychologist...)

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

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

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

Conducted the "HE-ART" experiments with split brain patients

Ernst Weber

best known for "________'s Law" (last name), the notion that the JND magnitude is proportional to the stimulus magnitude

Robert Rescorla

researched classical conditioning; found subjects learn the predictability of an event through trials (cognitive element)

Edward Tolman

researched rats' use of "cognitive maps"

Wolfgang Kohler

considered to be the founder of Gestalt Psychology

Alfred Kinsey

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

Lev Vygotsky

founder of "Social Development Theory" (note: not "social learning theory" OR "psychosocial" development...); emphasizes importace of More Knowledge Others (MKO) and the Zone of Proximal Development

Carl Jung

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

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)

Lewis Terman

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

David Weschler

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)

Edward Bradford Titchener

Student of Wundt and founder of structuralism. Used introspection to search for the mind's structural elements.