AP Psych - Important People

Benjamin Whorf

language; his hypothesis is that language determines the way we think

Aaron Beck

pioneer in Cognitive Therapy. Suggested negative beliefs cause depression.

Abraham Maslow

humanistic psychology; hierarchy of needs-needs at a lower level dominate an individual's motivation as long as they are unsatisfied; self-actualization, transcendence

Albert Bandura

pioneer in observational learning (AKA social learning), stated that people profit from the mistakes/successes of others; Studies: Bobo Dolls-adults demonstrated 'appropriate' play with dolls, children mimicked play

Albert Ellis

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

Alfred Adler

neo-Freudian, psychodynamic; Contributions: inferiority complex, organ inferiority; Studies: birth order influences personality

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)

Anna Freud

child psychoanalysis; emphasized importance of the ego and its constant struggle

Anna O.

Austrian-Jewish woman (real name: Bertha Pappenheim) diagnosed with hysteria, treated by Josef Breuer for severe cough, paralysis of the extremities on the right side of her body, and disturbances of vision, hearing, and speech, as well as hallucinations and loss of consciousness. Her treatment is regarded as marking the beginning of psychoanalysis.

B.F. Skinner

behaviorism; pioneer in operant conditioning; behavior is based on an organism's reinforcement history; worked with pigeons

Carl Jung

neo-Freudian, analytic psychology; archetypes; collective unconscious; libido is all types of energy, not just sexual; dream studies/interpretation

Carl Rogers

humanistic psychology; Contributions: founded client-centered therapy, theory that emphasizes the unique quality of humans especially their freedom and potential for personal growth, unconditional positive regard,

Carol Gilligan

moral development studies to follow up Kohlberg. She studied girls and women and found that they did not score as high on his six stage scale because they focused more on relationships rather than laws and principles. Their reasoning was merely different, not better or worse

Charles Darwin

biologist; developed theory of evolution; transmutation of species, natural selection, evolution by common descent; "The Origin of Species" catalogs his voyage on The Beagle

Charles Spearman

intelligence; found that specific mental talents were highly correlated, concluded that all cognitive abilities showed a common core which he labeled 'g' (general ability)

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

Darley & Latane

social psychology; bystander apathy, diffusion of responsibility

David McClelland

achievement motivation; developed scoring system for TAT's use in assessing achievement motivation

David Rosenhan

did study in which healthy patients were admitted to psychiatric hospitals and diagnoses with schizophrenia; showed that once you are diagnosed with a disorder, the label, even when behavior indicates otherwise, is hard to overcome in a mental health setting

David Weschler

established an intelligence test especially for adults (WAIS); also WISC and WPPSI

Hermann Ebbinghaus

memory; studied memorization of meaningless words

Edward Thorndike

behaviorism; Law of Effect-relationship between behavior and consequence

Ekman & Friesen

Universal Emotions (based upon facial expressions); Study Basics: Constants across culture in the face and emotion

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross

developmental psychology; wrote "On Death and Dying": 5 stages the terminally ill go through when facing death (1. denial, 2. anger, 3. bargaining, 4. depression, 5. acceptance)

Elizabeth Loftus

cognition and memory; studied repressed memories and false memories; showed how easily memories could be changed and falsely created by techniques such as leading questions and illustrating the inaccuracy in eyewitness testimony

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?"

Ernst Weber

perception; identified just-noticeable-difference (JND) that eventually becomes Weber's law

Francis Galton

differential psychology AKA "London School" of Experimental Psychology; Contributions: behavioral genetics, maintains that personality & ability depend almost entirely on genetic inheritance; compared identical & fraternal twins, hereditary differences in intellectual ability

Gazzaniga or Sperry

neuroscience/biopsychology; studied split brain patients

Gibson & Walk

developmental psychology; "visual cliff" studies with infants

Gordon Allport

trait theory of personality; 3 levels of traits: cardinal, central, and secondary

Harry Harlow

development, contact comfort, attachment; experimented with baby rhesus monkeys and presented them with cloth or wire "mothers;" showed that the monkeys became attached to the cloth mothers because of contact comfort

Harry Stack Sullivan

interpersonal psychoanalysis; groundwork for enmeshed relationships, developed the Self-System, a configuration of personality traits

Henry Murray

personality assessment; created the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) with Christina Morgan, stated that the need to achieve varied in strength in different people and influenced their tendency to approach and evaluate their own performances

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

Hans Eysenck

personality theorist; asserted that personality is largely determined by genes, used introversion/extroversion

Hobson & McCarley

sleep/dreams/consciousness; pioneers of Activation-Synthesis Theory of dreams; sleep studies that indicate the brain creates dream states, not information processing or Freudian interpretations

Holmes & Rahe

stress and coping; used "social readjustment scale" to measure stress

Howard Gardner

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

Ivan Pavlov

discovered classical conditioning; trained dogs to salivate at the ringing of a bell

Jean Piaget

cognitive psychology; created a 4-stage theory of cognitive development, said that two basic processes work in tandem to achieve cognitive growth (assimilation and accommodation)

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

Judith Langlois

developmental psychology;: social development & processing, effects of appearance on behavior, origin of social stereotypes, sex/love/intimacy, facial expression

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"

Karl Wernicke

"Wernicke's area"; discovered area of left temporal lobe that involved language understanding: person damaged in this area uses correct words but they do not make sense

Kenneth Clark

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

Kurt Lewin

social psychology; German refugee who escaped Nazis, proved the democratic style of leadership is the most productive; studied effects of 3 leadership styles on children completing activities

Langer & Rodin

Social Psychology; Helping behavior, personal responsibility; studied the effects of enhanced personal responsibility and helping behavior

Lawrence Kohlberg

moral development; presented boys moral dilemmas and studied their responses and reasoning processes in making moral decisions. Most famous moral dilemma is "Heinz" who has an ill wife and cannot afford the medication. Should he steal the medication and why?

Leon Festinger

social cognition, cognitive dissonance; Study Basics: Studied and demonstrated cognitive dissonance

Lev Vygotsky

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

Lewis Terman

revised Binet's IQ test and established norms for American children; tested group of young geniuses and followed in a longitudinal study that lasted beyond his own lifetime to show that high IQ does not necessarily lead to wonderful things in life

Little Albert

subject in John Watson's experiment, proved classical conditioning principles, especially the generalization of fear

Konrad Lorenz

ethology (animal behavior); studied imprinting and critical periods in geese

Martin Seligman

learning; Positive Psychology; learned helplessness theory of depression; Studies: Dogs demonstrating learned helplessness

Mary Ainsworth

developmental psychology; compared effects of maternal separation, devised patterns of attachment; "The Strange Situation": observation of parent/child attachment

Mary Cover-Jones

behaviorism/learning; pioneer in systematic desensitization, maintained that fear could be unlearned

Masters & Johnson

motivation; human sexual response—studied how both men and women respond to and in relation to sexual behavior

Noam Chomsky

language development; disagreed with Skinner about language acquisition, stated there is an infinite # of sentences in a language, humans have an inborn native ability to develop language

Paul Ekman

emotion; found that facial expressions are universal

Phillip Zimbardo

social psychology; Stanford Prison Study; college students were randomly assigned to roles of prisoners or guards in a study that looked at who social situations influence behavior; showed that peoples' behavior depends to a large extent on the roles they are asked to play

Phineas Gage

Vermont railroad worker who survived a severe brain injury that changed his personality and behavior; his accident gave information on the brain and which parts are involved with emotional reasoning

Raymond Cattell

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

Robert Rosenthal

social psychology; focus on nonverbal communication, self-fulfilling prophecies; Studies: Pygmalion Effect-effect of teacher's expectations on students

Robert Sternberg

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

Robert Yerkes

intelligence, comparative; Yerkes-Dodson law: level of arousal as related to performance

Robert Zajonc

motivation; believes that we invent explanations to label feelings

Rosenhan

Psychopathology and Social Psychology; effects of labeling; Rosenhan and colleagues checked selves into mental hospitals with symptoms of hearing voices say "empty, dull and thud." Diagnosed with schizophrenia. After entered, acted normally. Never "cleared" of diagnosis. Roles and labels in treating people differently.

Rosenthal & Jacobson

Intelligence and learning, self-fulfilling prophecy; Study Basics: Researchers misled teachers into believing that certain students had higher IQs. Teachers changed own behaviors and effectively raised the IQ of the randomly chosen students

Solomon Asch

conformity; showed that social pressure can make a person say something that is obviously incorrect ; in a famous study in which participants were shown cards with lines of different lengths and were asked to say which line matched the line on the first card in length

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

Stanley Schachter

emotion; stated that in order to experience emotions, a person must be physically aroused and know the emotion before you experience it

Tolman

cognition; studied rats and discovered the "cognitive map" in rats and humans

Walter B. Cannon

motivation; believed that gastric activity as in empty stomach, was the sole basis for hunger; did research that inserted balloons in stomachs

William James

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

William Sheldon

personality; theory that linked personality to physique on the grounds that both are governed by genetic endowment: endomorphic (large), mesomorphic (average), and ectomorphic (skinny)

Wilhelm Wundt

structuralism; in 1879 founded first psychology laboratory in world at University of Leipzig; introspection, basic units of experience

Wolpe

learning; systematic desensitization

Zajonc & Markus

intelligence and development; discovered that first born and only children tend to have higher IQs than latter born children

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 .

René Descartes

17t century French philosopher. Famously known for writing "cogito ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am"). Wrote about concept of dualism.

Socrates

Ancient Greek philosopher. Promoted introspection by saying, "Know thyself."

Aristotle

Ancient Greek philosopher. Wrote "Peri Psyches" ("About the Mind").

William Dement

Sleep researcher who discovered and coined the phrase "rapid eye movement" (REM) sleep.

John Garcia

Researched taste aversion. Showed that when rats ate a novel substance before being nauseated by a drug or radiation, they developed a conditioned taste aversion for the substance.

Edward Bradford Titchener

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

Herman von Helmholtz

Theorist who both aided in the development of the trichromatic theory of color perception and Place theory of pitch perception.

Sigmund Freud

founder of psychoanalysis; pioneer in talk therapy; emphasized the influence of unconscious motives and childhood experiences