Famous Psychologist
Roger Sperry
American Psychologist. He discovered that the human brain is actually made up of two part
Mary Ainsworth
American child development psychologist. Developed a technique called the strange situation test. The test used to view the attachment between child and the caregiver
Carol Gilligan
American feminist, ethicist, and psychologist. Her work on moral development outlines how a woman's morality is influenced by relationships and how women form their moral and ethical foundation based on how their decisions will affect others
William James
American philosopher and psychologist. First to offer a course on psychology in the USA
William Glasser
American psychiatrist. He introduced the concepts of reality and choice therapy
David McClelland
American psychological theorist. Created the theory of motivational needs which states the three types of motivational needs are achievement motivation, authority/power motivation and affiliation motivation
G. Stanley Hall
American psychologist and educator. He focused on childhood development and evolutionary theory which suggested that embryonic stages of an organism resemble the stages of development of its ancestors
Martin Seligman
American psychologist and speaker. Father of modern positive psychology. Focused on what makes people feel happy and fulfilled
John Dewey
American psychologist and western philosopher. He argued that education is not only a way to gain knowledge but education provides important information about moral decision-making
Timothy Leary
American psychologist and writer. Experimented with psychedelic drugs and became known though them
Paul Ekman
American psychologist, first to study human emotions and their relations to facial expressions
John Watson
American psychologist. Created the path for behaviorism. He considers emotion to be another classical conditioning. Emphasized the importance of learning and environmental influences on development
Albert Ellis
American psychologist. Developed rational emotive behavior therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy
Kay Redfield Jamison
American psychologist. Explored the link between bipolar and creativity
Gordon Allport
American psychologist. One of the first psychologist to study personality. His trait theory states that every human being possesses hundreds of traits that exist one of the three levels cardinal, central and secondary trait
Edward Thorndike
American psychologist. Working on animal behavior and the learning process led to the theory of connectionism and it states that behavioral responses to specific stimuli are established through a process of trial and error
Abraham Maslow
American psychology professor.Tested Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority
Leon Festinger
American social psychologist. Developed the theory of cognitive dissonance that said people experience tension or discomfort when their beliefs do not match their behaviors
George Kelly
American therapist, psychologist and personality theorist. Major role in the development of clinical psychology. His work is part of the cognitive movement and he is often called the first cognitive theorists
Ken Wilber
American writer, public speaker and Neoplatonic. Came up with the basic framework of the integral theory which states all human knowledge and experience can be placed in a four-quadrant grid
Phil McGraw
Art psychologist, him and his father presented pathway seminars that provides training that allows people to create their own results
Paul Watzlawick
Austrian american psychologist and got a degree in analytical psychotherapy. Introduced the theory of schizophrenia
Viktor Frankl
Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist. Founder of the Logotherapy and wrote a book about life in concentration camps
Konrad Lorenz
Austrian zoologist. He discovered imprinting and that is the social bond in infant animals
Søren Kierkegaard
Author and a philosopher. First existentialist philosopher and he dealt with how ones live single handedly as individuals
Robert Cialdini
Author of the book Influence: Science and Practice and Influence: Psychology of Persuasion. He researched why people comply with request
B. F. Skinner
Behaviorist, psychologist, author, inventor and social philosopher. Considered free will an illusion and human action dependent on consequences of previous actions and used the principle of reinforcement to strengthen behavior
Alfred Kinsey
Biologist, entomology, zoology professor and sexologist. He launched a sex studies program and created an institute for sex research
Ernest Jones
British psychoanalyst and neurologist. Influenced psychoanalytic research with his monograms
John Bowlby
British psychologist, psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Believed that early childhood attachments played a critical role in the development and mental functioning. Developed the attachment theory
Anna Freud
Co-founder is psychoanalytic child psychology. Discovered that children often require different psychological treatment from adult and stated children develop through distinct developmental phases
Simon Baron-Cohen
Cognitive Neuroscientist. His theory related to autism says autism involved degrees of mind blindness
Wilhelm Wundt
Considered the father of experimental psychology and was a German psychologist, physician, physiologist and professor. Among the first to use a psychological lab and he used it to determine abnormal behaviors, mental disorders and studied brains
Edgar Schein
Created the theory of organizational development states that culture is made up of values and beliefs doesn't develop instantly
Robert Hare
Criminal psychologist. Created the Psychopathy checklist and it is used to predict the violent behavior and diagnose cases of psychopathy
Charles Spearman
English psychologist. He worked determining correlations among mental abilities and concluded that the prevalence of positive correlations must result from the general factor "g"
Rollo May
Extential psychologist. Developed the fact people develop through a number of stages in their life time
Carl Rogers
Father of client-centered therapy. He believed that humans have one basic motive and that's the tendency to self-actualize or to fulfill one's potential. He also added on to Abraham Maslow, that for a person to "grow", they need an environment that provides them with genuineness, acceptance, and empathy
Aaron Beck
Father of cognitive therapy, theories are used as treatments in clinical depression
Sabina Spielrein
First Russian psychoanalyst. Her book Concerning the Psychological Content of a Case of Schizophrenia was the first dissertation psychoanalytically oriented
Henri Wallon
French psychologist, philosopher, teacher and neuro-psychiatrist. According to his theories child development isn't a single step process. He also proposed the concept of social and environmental factors impacting on the development of children
Karen Horney
German psychoanalyst. Created the theory of neurotic needs which states that strategies used to cope with anxiety can be overused, causing them to take on the appearance of needs
Hans Eysenck
German psychologist. Developed the concept of neuroticism saying it was a biological form of emotional instability. He also argued that much personality is genetically determined
Hermann Ebbinghaus
German psychologist. Discovered the forgetting curve and spacing effect. Memory loss is exponential and spacing learning over a span of time help the learns retain and process the information
Fritz Perls
German psychotherapist and psychiatrist. Developed the Gestalt therapy that emphasizes the present moment and personal responsibility. His therapy is considered humanistic
Erich Fromm
German social psychologist, humanistic philosopher, democratic socialist, sociologist and psychoanalyst. Developed the concept that freedom was a main part of human nature and argued that biophilla was a sign of good psychological health
Kurt Lewin
German-American psychologist. He had a major impact on social psychology because of his Field theory which proposed that behavior is the result of the individual and the environment.
Hugo Münsterberg
German-American psychologist. He suggested that psychology could be used for variety of industrial applications
Albert Bandura
He developed the social learning theory which states behavior is guided by a combination of drives, cues, responses, and rewards
Elizabeth Loftus
Her research has demonstrated the malleability of memory and recovered that memories aren't always accurate and that the brain fills in gaps of information that is not known
Harry Harlow
His work demonstrated the absolute importance of developing safe and supportive emotional bonds with caregivers. Also suggested that closeness and contact that provides the comfort a child needs
Margaret Mahler
Hungarian psychoanalyst. Her theory on separation and individuation states that children exist in a symbiotic phase until they reach about six months of age
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Hungarian psychology professor. He created a concept of flow and introduced flow psychology which says people are happy when they are in a state. Contemporary psychologist
Daniel Kahneman
Israeli-American psychologist. With help from others he established a cognitive basis for common human errors. Notable for his work on the psychology of judgement, decision making and behavioral economics
Lawrence Kohlberg
Known fro his theory of moral development which expanded on Piaget's two stages. He argued that correct moral reasoning was the most significant factor in moral decision making
Alfred Adler
Medical Doctor, psychotherapist. Founder of Adlerian psychology, sometimes called individual psychology and his work pioneered attention to community life, prevention, and population health
Virginia Satir
Mother of family therapy and psychotherapist. Creator of the Virginia Satir change process model that is used to determined the impact of change
Alhazen
Muslim scientist, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher. Said to be the first theoretical physicist
Sigmund Freud
Neuropsychology. He developed many theories and practices. With most of his studies based around dreams
Jerome Bruner
One of the people who discovered the constructivist theory. He believed learners creat new ideas and concepts off of prior knowledge. He made impacts on both psychology and education
Max Wertheimer
One of the three founders of Gestalt psychology and they believed that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts
Solomon Asch
Pioneer of Gestalt psychology and a social psychologist. Known for his experiments called the Asch conformity experiment. They showed the effects of social pressure on conformity
David Buss
Professor of psychology. Evolutionary psychology research on human sex differences in mate selection
Nathaniel Branden
Psycho-therapist. He proposed six important pillars of self-esteem consciously, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, living purposefully and personal integrity
Julia Kristeva
Psychoanalysis. Had important ideas on two components of language which were semiotic and symbolic. She believed emotion lie in stress and rhythm of speech
Melanie Klein
Psychoanalysis. Her play therapy techniques still used today and she emphasized the role of the mother and child
Jacques Lacan
Psychoanalyst. He redid Freud's theories and he developed the concept the mirror state which is where infants mimic their caregivers
Otto Rank
Psychoanalyst. He was the first to view therapy as an experience of learning and unlearning and believed relationships formed with patient allows them to think creatively
Alice Miller
Psychologist and author. An author of many books based on parental child abuse
Francis Galton
Psychologist, anthropologist, explorer, meteorologist, geographer and statistical. Known for his pioneering work on human intelligence and the first to apply statistical methods to the study of human difference. Also introduced the use of questionnaires and surveys
Herbert Simon
Psychologist, economist and sociologist. Five major contributions to management are concept, decision making, bounded rationality, administrative man and organizational communication
Steven Pinker
Psychologist, linguist, scientist and author. He pushed for the computational theory of the mind and evolutionary psychology
Philip Zimbardo
Psychologist, sociologist and anthropologist. Famous study with normal people under going depression and passivity because of not being able to express themselves
Alfred Binet
Psychologist. Invented the first practical intelligence test, the Binet Simon scale
Urie Bronfenbrenner
Russian American psychologist. Best known for his ecological theory that involves family, mesosystem that consist of two types of interactions
Ivan Pavlov
Russian physiologist. His work influenced the development of behaviorism. Hid discovery of reflexes influenced the behaviorist movement
Lev Vygotsky
Russian psychologist. Best known for his sociocultural theory he believed that social interaction played a main role in children's learning
R. D. Laing
Scottish psychiatrist who wrote a lot about mental illness especially in relation to psychosis
Stanley Milgram
Social psychologist. Found out the relationship between media consumption and anti-social behavior
Milton Erickson
Specialized in hypnosis and family therapy. He was said to have the ability to alter a person's neurotic habit, cultural backgrounds and favorite words
Jean Piaget
Swiss psychologist and philosopher. He found support for the idea that children think differently than adults. And his theory of cognitive development
Carl Gustav Jung
Swiss psychotherapist and psychiatrist. He founded analytical psychology and argued that empirical evidence was not the only way to arrive at psychological or scientific truths and that the soul plays a key role
Rensis Likert
Teacher and writer. Produced many books about management
Robert Sternberg
american psychologist and psychometrician. Founder of the triarchic theory of intelligence
