Famous Psychologists

Famous psychologists to know for the AP test, from all units

Frances Galton

maintained that personality and ability depend almost entirely on genetic inheritance

William Wundt

father of modern or scientific psychology; structuralism was the approach and introspection was the methodology

John Watson

founder of behaviorism, generalization, Little Albert experiment

Alfred Adler

Neo-Freudian; believed that childhood social tensions are crucial for personality formation; believed that people are primarily searching for self-esteem and achieving the ideal self

Carl Jung

extended Freud theories and believed in a collective unconscious as well as a personal unconscious; coined the terms introversion and extroversion

Gordon Allport

three levels of traits, cardinal, central, and secondary

Albert Ellis

rational emotive therapy

Albert Maslow

created the hierarchy of needs

Carl Rogers

believed in unconditional positive regard; people will naturally strive for self-actualization and high self-esteem

B.F. Skinner

operant conditioning, skinner box

Ivan Pavlov

classical conditioning

Noam Chomsky

believed that humans have the ability to develop language, words and concepts are learned but the brain is hardwired for grammar and language

Jean Piaget

theory of cognitive development, sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational

Erik Erikson

people evolve through 8 states over the life span; each state is marked by psychological crisis that involves confronting “Who am I?”

Lawrence Kohlberg

there are 3 states of moral reasoning (pre-conventional, conventional, post-conventional) and each level can be divided into two stages

Carol Gilligan

maintained that Kohlberg’s work was developed only observing boys and overlooked potential differences between the habitual moral judgment of men and women

Hans Eysenck

personality is determined to a large extent by genes

S. Schacter

believed that to experience emotions one must be physically aroused and must then label the arousal

Mary Cover Jones

systemic desensitization; maintained that fear could be unlearned; Little Peter experiment

Benjamin Whorf

language determines the way we think

Robert Sternberg

triarchic of intelligence (academic problem-solving intelligence, practical intelligence, creative intelligence)

Howard Gardner

theory of multiple intelligences

Albert Bandura

observational learning, bobo doll experiment

E.L. Thorndike

law of effect- the principle that behavior followed by favorable consequences becomes more likely and vice versa

Alfred Binet

General I.Q tests

Lewis Terman

revised Binet I.Q test and established norms for American children

David Weschler

established an intelligence test especially for adults

Charles Spearman

found that specific mental talents were highly correlated; concluded that all cognitive abilities showed a common core (general ability)

H. Rorschach

developed the inkblot test

Philip Zimbardo

Stanford prison experiment, studied how social roles influence people’s behavior

David Rosenhan

conducted a hospital experiment to test the diagnosis that hospitals make on patients

S. Asch

studied conformity

Stanley Milgram

studied obedience

Harry Harlow

studied theory of attachment in monkeys

William Sheldon

theory that linked personality to physique on the grounds that both are governed by genetic endowment

Sigmund Freud

psychoanalytical theory that focuses on the unconscious

Karen Horney

criticized Freud, personality is molded by fears and impulses rather than being determined solely by childhood experiences

Martin Seligman

learned helplessness is the giving up reaction that occurs from the experience that whatever you do you cannot change your situation

H. Ebbinghas

first to conduct scientific studies on memory and forgetting (learning curves)

Hubel/Wisel

did a study on the activities on neurons in the visual cortex

Ernst Weber

pioneered the first study on Weber’s Law

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

5 stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance)

Robert Zajonc

mere exposure effect

Henry Murray

stated that the need to achieve varied in strength in different people and influenced their tendency to approach success and evaluate their own performance

David McClelland

devised a way to measure Henry Murray’s theory

Paul Ekman

theory that facial expressions are universal

James Marcia

divided adolescence into four groups- foreclosed, achieved, diffused, moratorium