AP Psychology Scientists

Wilhelm Wundt

Physiologist who established the first psychology lab in Leipzig in 1879 and attempted to bring objectivity and measurement to psychology

Edward Titchener

Student of Wundt's who expanded on his ideas and founded structuralism

William James

Founded functionalism and studied evolutionary psychology

Max Wertheimer

Believed psychology could only be understood as a whole and founded Gestalt psychology

Sigmund Freud

Founded psychoanalysis and stressed the role of early life experiences and the unconscious

Ivan Pavlov

Did studies with salivating dogs and classical conditioning; contributed to behaviorism

John B. Watson

Founded behaviorism, did studies with "Little Albert," and thought psychologists should focus on observable behavior only

B. F. Skinner

Expanded on behaviorism and did studies with rats; founded the theory of operant conditioning

Abraham Maslow

Humanist who developed the theory of self-actualization and a hierarchy of needs

Carl Rogers

Humanist who emphasized human potential (not Maslow)

Phineas Gage

Man who had a large metal rod driven through his head and suffered a personality change; subject of a case study

Ernst Weber

Created the law of just noticeable differences (jnd)

Gustav Fechner

Expanded on Weber's work and studied absolute threshold

Melzack and Wall

Created gate control theory and hypothesized substance P

Eleanor Gibson

Did research with the Visual Cliff

Müller-Lyer Illusion

The illusion involving two straight lines relating to the corners in buildings

Edward Thorndike

Researched and outlined laws of learning voluntary responses with a puzzle box; created Law of Effect

Daniel Dennett

Hypothesized that there were multiple streams of consciousness

Edward Tolman

Gestalt psychologist did studies with rats and maze learning to discover the principles of latent learning

Wolfgang Köhler

Gestalt psychologist who did studies with chimps to discover the principles of insight

Martin Seligman

Shocked dogs and developed the theory of learned helplessness

Bandura

Did studies with Bobo dolls and developed observational learning; created AMIM

Brelands

Two researchers who studied raccoons and pigs and created the principles of instinctive drift

George Sperling

Did studies with the capacity of iconic sensory memory

George Miller

Studied the capacity of short-term memory with the digit-span test

Robert Rescorla

Studied operant conditioning and found that the CS had to provide information about the coming of the UCS

Broca's Area

Area of the brain in the left frontal lobe that allows people to speak smoothly and fluently

Wernicke's Area

Area of the brain in the left temporal lobe that allows people to understand the meanings of words and form meaningful sentences

Elizabeth Loftus

Did studies concerning the changing of memories and the misinformation effect

Pezdeck and Hodge

Did studies and concluded that false memories, to be successfully implanted, must be plausible

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Studied forgetting and discovered the curve of forgetting

Spearman

Studied intelligence and created g factor and s factor

Gardner

Proposed the idea of multiple intelligences; "_________'s 9 intelligences"

Sternberg

Proposed the triarchic theory of intelligence

Alfred Binet

French psychologist who created the first formal test of intelligence

William Stern

Created the formula for intelligence quotient or IQ

David Weschler

Created intelligence tests for different ages of people

Lewis M. Terman

Did prolonged case studies with gifted people

Noam Chomsky

Linguist who theorized that humans have an innate ability to understand and produce language, the language acquisition device

Jean Piaget

Theorized originally that concepts precede and aid the development of language in young humans

Lev Vygotsky

Theorized originally that language helps develops concepts in young humans

Sapir and Whorf

Two researchers who developed the linguistic relativity hypothesis

Rosch-Heider studies

Series of studies that supports the idea of cognitive universalism

William McDougall

Proposed 18 instincts for humans

David C. McClelland

Proposed the theory of motivation involving nAch, nAff, and nPow

Carol Dweck

Proposed that the need for achievement in humans is closely linked to personality factors like the view of self

Yerkes-Dodson Law

Law stating performance is related to arousal and that moderate levels of arousal return better performance than levels too high or too low

Clayton Alderfer

Refined Maslow's self-actualization theory into one involving three needs: existence, relatedness, and growth needs

Ryan and Deci

Two researchers who proposed the self-determination theory, with three needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness

Ekman and Friesen

Two researchers who created the concept of display rules

James-Lange Theory

Theory of emotion in which a physiological reaction leads to the labeling of an emotion

Cannon-Bard Theory

Theory of emotion in which the physiological reaction and emotion are assumed to occur at the same time

Shachter-Singer Theory

Also called the cognitive arousal theory, in which a physical arousal and environment cues lead to labeling and experiencing of emotion

Lazarus

Created the cognitive-mediational theory of emotion