Famous Psychologist
Carol Gilligan
American Feminist, ethicist and psychologist. Famous from work with Lawrence Kohlberg on ethical relationships/ ethical community. Thinks mental processes of men vs women help develop moral development.
Abraham Maslow
American Psych professor. Famous for The Heirarchy of Needs and Humanistic Psychology. believe people were "good" by nature. Too positive in peers eyes
Roger Sperry
American Psychobiologist. Discovered brain is made of two parts and they serve different purposes.
Robert Sternberg
American Psychometrician. Now works as provost at Oklahoma State University. Had test anxiety while young. Developed intelligence test called Sternberg Test of mental Ability(STOMA). Created the triarchic theory of intelligence and Triangle theory of love.
Ken Wilber
American Writer and neoplatonic. Leader behind integral theory, founded Integral Institute in 1998. Famous for phenomenon called All Quadrants All Levels(AQAL). He described it as one suggested architecture of the kosmos. It is a model of manifest existence.
Mary Ainsworth
American child development psychologist. Known for work with emotional attachment of infants to their guardian. Used The strange situation experiment and attachment theory. Famous for proving that there are individual differences in attachment.
John Dewey
American psychologist, western philosopher, educational reformer. Laid foundation for functional psychology. Focused on epistemology in philosophy. Helped develop American school of thought called pragmatism(nature)
Leon Festinger
American social Psychologist. Pioneer of social comparison and cognitive dissonance theory. Set up advanced-level experimentation techniques in social psychology. Famous for theory on the proximity effect. Influenced by Kurt Lewin. Gave idea of propinquity(to do with interpersonal interaction)
George Alexander Kelly
American therapist, psychologist, educationist and personality theorist. leader in cognitive clinical psychology. Famous for theory called Personal Construct Theory.
Martin Seligman
American. Father of positive psychology, motivational speaker and leader of learned helplessness theory. Worked with Christopher Peterson.
William James
American. First educator in history to offer a course in psychology in the US. Advocate of pragmatism.
Paul ekman
American. First person to study human emotions and how it could be related to facial expressions.
Kay Redfield Jamison
American. Leader on bipolar disorder. Founded Mood Disorders Clinc at UCLA. Her own Bipolar disorder drove her to study it. Wrote books about her disorder.
Paul Watzlawick
Austrian American psychologist/philosopher. worked to develop theory of schizophrenia called double bind. Which describes when a person is trapped under mutually exclusive expectations. also gave Pragmatics of Human communication.
Konrad Lorenz
Austrian Zoologist. Nobel Prize winner. Father of Ethology. Quacked to his ducks and they started following him.
Otto Rank
Austrian writer, teacher and psychoanalyst. First psychoanalyst to view therapy as an experience of learning and unlearning. Leader in fields of existential psychotherapy, transpersonal psychology, gestalt psychology and humanistic psychology.
Viktor Frankl
Austrian. Founded Logotherapy and Existential Analysis. Survived the holocaust. Wrote "Man's Search for Meaning" after the holocaust.
Sigmund Freud
Austrian. Known mostly for field of neuropsychology. Coined "Oedipus Complex" and came up with three stages of immature sexual development. Worked a lot of dreams and unconciousness. Killed himself with morphine.
Melanie klein
Austrian. Legend in field of development psychology. Known for creating therapeutic techniques for children. Developed object relations theory. First to perform psychoanalysis on children.
Alice Miller
Author/Psychologist, Psychoanalysis Child abuse effects
Alfred Charles Kinsey
Biologist, Sexologist, Zoology Professor. Founded Sex research institute. First psychologist to create large scale inquiry system for human sex research
Max Werttheimer
Born in Prague. Founding members of Gestalt psychology. Born into a very educated family. His theory on Gestalt said that "wholes", determine how the individual parts act and not the other way around.
John Bowlby
British Psychologist, psychoanalyst, and psychiatrist. Famous for work on child develoment and development of attachment theory. Believed behavior problems and mental issues were brought about from problems in childhood.
Julia Kristeva
Bulgarian. Member of Tel Quel political group. Famous for ideas about two components of signification in language: semiotic and symbolic.
B.F. Skinner
Burrhus Frederick Skinner- Behaviorist, psychologist, author, inventor, social philosopher. Helped develop Radical Behaviorism. Skinner Box
Steven Pinker
Canadian. Supported the computational theory of mind and evolutionary psychology. Famous for for work on theory of language acquisition. Thinks human mind is not complex.
Anna Freud
Co-founder of Psychoanalytic child psych with Melanie Klein. Sigmund Freud was her father and taught her.
Simon Baron-Cohen
Cognitive Neuroscientist. Famous for work with Autism. One theory says that Autism involves "mind blindness" and another says autism is an extreme form of the male brain. Proved Autism causes delay of the theory of mind in kids.
Aaron Beck
Cognitive Theory, addiction, depression and suicide treatment
Jacques Lacan
Controversial psycho-analyst. His ideas influenced many different fields like French philosophy, film theory, critical theory, and more.
Alfred Binet
Created Intelligence Quotient(IQ) Nice, france. Never studied for formal degree in psychology, only independent learning
Robert Hare
Created Psychopathy Checklist. Now works as Emertitus Professor of Psychology in the University of British Columbia. His checklist used to predict violent behavior and psychopathy.
Soren Kierkegaard
Danish. Father of Existentialism, made of 3 spheres(Human existence, knight of faith, and infinite qualitative distinction). Worked a lot with Christian Love.
Lawrence Kohlberg
Developed theory about the stages of moral development. The theory was inspired by Jean Piaget. theory based on the idea that humans are motivated to learn and broaden horizons through experiencing their world.
Phil McGraw
Dr. Phil! Was an inside linebacker.
Rollo May
Existential Psychologist. Rough Childhood. Established the fact the people develop through stages in life. Founded Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center in San Francisco.
Ernest Jones
Famous British psychoanalyst and neurologist. Biographer of Sigmund Freud. President of International Psychoanalytic Association
Fritz Perls
Famous German Psychotherapist and Psychiatrist. He worked heavily on Gestalt therapy- where the individual and the environment he interacts with usually is focused on.
Jerome Bruner
Famous for contributions in cognitive learning theory and human cognitive psychology. Ground breaking research in cognitive psychology. Taught in England for ten years. Found that sensation and perception are active processes rather than passive ones.
John Watson
Famous for popularizing behaviroism as an approach to psychology. Father left him in childhood. Studied with John Dewey. Interested in animal behavior. Wanted to make psychology more exact and science like.
nathaniel Branden
Famous for work in psychology of self-esteem. Worked with writer Ayn Rand with the concept of objectivism- saying that the existence of reality is independent of consciousness.
Harry harlow
Famous for work on social isolation, maternal separation and dependency needs. Experiments involved Rhesus monkeys. Worked with motherly love, care and affection in social/cognitive development in children.
Erich Fromm
Famous german social psychologist, humanistic philosopher, democratic socialist, sociologist, and psychoanalyst. Deep ties with Frankfurt School of Critical Theory.
Rensis Likert
Famous in field of conflict management. Wrote six books about management. head of Division of Program Surveys in the US dept. of Agriculture
Carl Rogers
Founder of Humanistic Approach. Worked with Abraham Maslow in humanistic psych. Former president of American Psych Asso.
Henri Wallon
French psychologist, philosopher, teacher, neuro psychiatrist. Was a Marxist, worked in fields of child psychology and development. Theories influenced by Marxism. First to apply concept of dialectical materialism in psychology
Hans Eysenck
German famous for work in development of intelligence and personality theories. Eysenck personality Questionnaire
Karen Horney
German psychoanalyst. Faced opposition as an educated woman in her time. Tried to get with her brother. Famous for her theories on neurosis, the best even today.
Hermann Ebbinghaus
German, Leader in study of memory, discovering spacing effect and forgetting curve. Philosophy education interrupted because of Franco Prussian War.
Kurt Lewin
German-American Psychologist. Father of modern social psychology. Instead of choosing nature or nurture, he said they both worked to determine personality. Lewins equation for behavior: B = f(P,E). Worked to reduced racial/religious prejudices.
Hugo Munsterberg
German-American. Pioneer of applied psychology. Research in legal, medical, clinical, educational, industrial fields. Studied under Wilhelm Wundt. Also studied medicine later on. Invited by William James to be chair of psychology for 3 years at harvard
Wilhelm Wundt
German. Father of Experimental psychology. One of the founders of modern psychology. Founded first formal psychological laboratory in 1879.
Carl Gustav Jung
Helped develop analytic psychology. Made theories of intro/extroverted personality traits. Founded concepts like collective unconscious. Mysers-Briggs personality test based off his theories. Theories contrast Freuds
Margaret Mahler
Hungarian psychoanalyst. Inspired to study the symbiotic relationship between children and their parents when she saw a man bring in his son who would later die that night. Famous for Separation-Individuation Theory. Says infants go through 3 stages before recognizing separation from mother.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Hungarian. Currently works at Claremont graduate University. Given clifton Strengths Prize. Idea of happiness entitled "Flow: the psychology of optimal experience" Saying that people are happiest when they are in a state of flow.
G. Stanley hall
Inspired by Wilhelm Wundt. He got the first doctorate in Psychology in America! Thinks highschools should work more on the mental capacity of students rather than preparing for college.
William Glasser
Introduced the concepts of reality therapy and choice therapy. Warned against traditional psychiatry because it just wants to diagnose and prescribe drugs. Opened the Institute for Reality therapy in 1967
Virginia Satir
Known for works in Family Theory. Created Virginai Satir Change process Model- used to define the impact of change. Founded Mental Research Institute.
Charles Spearman
Leader in Factor analysis as a technique to reduce and interpret data. First psychologist to use mathematics to study the complex human mind. Developed General Intelligence(g factor)
Gordon Allport
Leader in personality psychology. believes every personality is unique and should be studied as it is in the present and not the past because personality is always changing.
Alhazen
Muslim Astronomer, Born in 965, Physicist, Scientist, mathematician, Wrote Book of optics
Solomon Asch
Polish. Helped create Gestalt Psychology and social psychology. Known for Asch conformity experiments. Showing the effects of social pressure on conformity.Left the world with Asch paradigms
Timothy Leary
Psychedelic Drug Advocate. Concord prison experiment and marsh Chapel experiment. Described as the most dangerous man in America by richard Nixon. Arrested on a regular basis. LSD
David Mcclelland
Psychological theorist who founded "Need Theory." Theory of Needs has 3 sub categories: need for achievement, need for authority/power, and the need for affiliation.
David Buss
Psychology Professor in Texas. Famous for his evolutionary research on mate selection with the basis on human sex differences. Mating strategies and relationships studied.
Stanley Milgram
Published Obedience to Authority. Studied Adolf Eichmann(nazi war criminal) to see why the nazis did what they did. Found that they were just following orders and often went against their own morals.
Albert Ellis
Rational Emotive behavior therapy(REBT). Lots of modern psychology theories. Worked in Clinical psych, psychotherapy, and philosophy.
Sabina Spielrein
Russian Physician. First Russian psychoanalyst. Known for work: "Destruction as the Cause of Coming into Being" Strong ties with Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud.
Lev Vygotsky
Russian Psychologist. Contributed to child development and cognitive psychology. Called Mozart of Psychology because he came up with many theories in a short amount of time. Died from tuberculosis at 38. Came up iwth Sociocultural theory- said social interaction was critical for cognition development.
Ivan Pavlov
Russian physiologist. Famous for work in classical conditioning, transmarginal inhibition and behavior modification. Father of modern russian physiology.
Urie Bronfenbrenner
Russian-American. Known for Ecological System Theory and co-founded the Head Start Programme.
Ronald David (R.D.) Laing
Scottish. Self-diagnosed his mother and fathers attitudes and personalities. Founded Philadelphia Association.
Elizabeth Loftus
Serious contributions to cognitive psychology and human memory. Worked on the misinformation effect and eye witness testimony.
Philip Zimbardo
Sicilian. Triple majored. famous for prison study in Stanford. Wrote The Time Paradox and The Lucifer Effect. IG nobel Award for Psychology for his report: Politicians' Uniquely simple Personalities in 2003.
Milton Erickson
Specialized in Family therapy and medical hypnosis. Founder of American society for clnical hypnosis. Had polio as a child and used self-hypnosis to heal himself.
Alfred Adler
Started individual psychology(saying humans are complex individuals and unique), medical doctor and psychotherapist. different personality ideas than Sigmund. Inferiority complex
Francis Galton
Successful psychologist, anthropologist, explorer, meteorologist, geographer, statistician. Fist to use statistical tools to study our behavior and humans level of intelligence in analyzing his theories.
jean Piaget
Swiss psychologist. Emphasized educating children. Worked with Alred Binet. Remembered for work in childrens cognitive development
Edgar Schein
Very famous in the field of organizational development and therefore a famous business theorist as well.
Herbert Simon
Was american politician, psychologist, economist, sociologist. over 1k published papers. Created terms of satisficing and bounded rationality. went to UC berkley
Edward Thorndike
Worked on Animal behavior, layed the foundation for modern educational psychology and proposed theory on connectionism. Theory on learned behavior.
Robert Cialdini
Wrote one of the most important publications on the subjects of psychology and persuasion- Influence: Science and Practice & Influence: Psychology of Persuasion. Godfather of Influence.
Albert Bandura
Youngest president of American Psych Association (82nd president). Amazing theory in self regulated learning.Theories in cognitive Theory, therapy to personality psych.
Daniel Kahneman
israeli-American psychologist famous for important work on decision making, behavioral economics, hedonic psychology.