Key Psychologists and Historic Figures
History and Approaches- Charles
Darwin
• Charles Darwin- British
naturalist who came up
with the
groundbreaking theory
of evolution. Darwin’s
theory of natural
selection continues to
influence the modern
evolutionary
perspective.
William Wundt
• William Wundtestablished first
psychology research
laboratory. Pioneered a
research method called
introspection in which
subjects reported
detailed descriptions of
their own conscious
mental experiences.
William James
• William James- Harvard
professor who played a
key role in establishing
psychology in the US.
He emphasized studying
the purpose of
behavior and mental
experiences.
G. Stanley Hall
• G. Stanley Hall- studied
adolescence and coined
the phrase “storm and
stress”
Mary Whiton Calkins
• Mary Whiton Calkinsfemale psychologist
who was denied a Ph.D.
at Harvard due to
sexism and served as
the first president of
the American
Psychological
Association.
Margaret Floy Washburn
• Margaret Floy
Washburn- holds the
distinction of being the
first woman to be
awarded a Ph.D. in
psychology.
Sigmund Freud
• Sigmund Freud- founded
the psychoanalytic
thought and developed a
theory of personality that
emphasized the role of
unconscious conflicts.
Also, believed that
dreams provided a
particularly important
insight into unconscious
motives.
John B. Watson
• John B. WatsonAmerican psychologist
who emphasized the
study of observable
behaviors rather than
the study of subjective
mental processes.
Founder of
behaviorism; known
for 12 infant quote
Biological Bases of Behavior- Paul
Broca
• Paul Broca- French
physician who
discovered that speech
production center of
the brain is located in
an area of the lower
left frontal lobe. He
helped revolutionize the
understanding of
speech production
Carl Wernicke
• Carl Wernicke- German
neurologist and
psychiatrist who
discovered that damage
to area on the left
temporal lobe caused
deficits in language
comprehension.
Roger Sperry
• Roger Sperry- best
known for his
pioneering research
with split-brain
patients and
demonstrated that the
brain’s right and left
hemispheres have
specialized functions.
Michael Gazzaniga
• Michael Gazzanigacontinued Sperry’s
research by advancing
understanding of how
two cerebral
hemispheres
communicate with one
another.
Sensation and Perception- Ernst
Weber
• Ernst Weber- German
physician who discovered
the just noticeable
difference (JND) and now
what we call Weber’s
law. This law states that
for each sense, the size of
the JND will vary
depending on its relation
to the strength of the
original stimulus.
Gustav Fechner
• Gustav FechnerGerman experimental
psychologist who
demonstrated that
mental processes can
be measured.
David Hubel
• David Hubel- research
on feature detectors
helped demonstrate the
presence of specialized
neurons in the occipital
lobe’s visual cortex that
have the ability to
respond to specific
features of an image.
Torsten Wiesel
• Torsten Wieselcollaborated with David
Hubel on feature
detection and their
joint work expanded
the scientific knowledge
of sensory processing
and perception.
States of Consciousness- David Hilgard
• David Hilgardrenowned for research
on hypnosis and pain
control. Came up with
the idea of dissociation
during hypnosis that
the person has a
divided consciousness.
Learning- Ivan Pavlov
• Ivan Pavlov- originally
studied digestion and
devoted 3 decades of
research on studying
and formulating the
principles of classical
conditioning.
John Garcia
• John Garcia- pioneering
researcher on taste
aversion. His research
supports evolutionary
perspective that being
biologically prepared to
quickly associate
nausea with food or
drink is adaptive.
Robert Rescorla
• Robert Rescorla- refined
Pavlov’s studies and
indicated that the CS
must be reliable signal
that predicts the
presentations of the
UCS. His research
demonstrated the
complexity of classical
conditioning.
Edward Thorndike
• Edward Thorndikeconducted first systematic
investigation in animal
behavior and coined the
term “law of effect”
which simply stated
satisfying outcomes are
more likely to be
repeated, while
unpleasant outcomes are
less likely to be repeated.
B.F. Skinner
• B.F. Skinner- believed
psychologists should
only focus on
observable behavior.
Skinner formulated the
principles of operant
conditioning
Edward Tolman
• Edward Tolmanchallenged Thorndike
and Skinner by showing
rats displayed a
cognitive map or
mental representation
of a maze. He realized
that latent or hidden
learning does occur.
Wolfgang Kohler
• Wolfgang Kohler- believed
that behaviorists had
underestimated animals
cognitive abilities and
designed an experiment
to see if chimps could
obtain food outside of
their cages. He coined the
term insight to describe a
sudden understanding of
a problem
Albert Bandura
• Albert Bandura- best
known for “Bobo doll”
experiment that
showed the role of
modeling in human
behavior. Believes
observational learning
is responsible for most
human behavior.
Cognition- George Miller
• George Miller- best
know for research on
short term memory (7
plus or minus 2). He
helped gain insight on
chunking.
Herman Ebbinghaus• Herman Ebbinghausconducted research on
forgetting. His famous
forgetting curve shows
a rapid loss of
memories of relatively
meaningless
information, followed
by a very gradual
decline in the remaining
information.
Elizabeth Loftus
• Elizabeth Loftus- Her
research deals with the
misinformation effect
that demonstrates the
weakness of eye
witness testimony.
Noam Chomsky
• Noam Chomskyrenowned linguist who
argued that children
possess an innate
capacity to learn and
produce speech. His
hypothesis states that
human learn language
because of innate speech
enabling structures called
the Language Acquisition
Device.
Motivation and Emotion- Abraham
Maslow
• Abraham Maslow- founder
of the humanistic approach
to psychology. He came up
with the hierarchy of needs
that stated that basic and
physiological and safety
needs and then ascends to
belonging and self- esteem.
Individuals reach selfactualization by realizing
their full potential and
achieving harmony and
understanding
Stanley Schachter
• Stanley Schachter- best
known for the twofactor theory of
emotion. He believed
our emotions depend
on physical arousal and
a cognitive label of that
arousal.
Hans Selye
• Hans Selye- Best known
for work on stress. He
came up with the 3
stage General Adaption
Syndrome that stresses
Alarm, Reaction, and
the Exhaustion.
Alfred Kinsey
• Alfred Kinseyrenowned for his
pioneering controversial
research on human
sexuality.
Developmental Psychology- Mary
Ainsworth
• Mary Ainsworth- came
up with the idea of the
“strange situation” to
observe attachment
differences in infants
and their mothers were
securely or insecurely
attached.
Harry Harlow
• Harry Harlowconducted a famous
experiment on monkeys
to see if they preferred
their wire or cloth
mother and research
showed that the need
for touch is essential in
development.
Konrad Lorenz
• Konrad Lorenz- known
as the founder of
ethology- the
comparative study of
animals (including
humans) and their
natural surroundings
and came up with the
advances in imprinting
and aggression.
Jean Piaget
• Jean Piaget- focused on
the rational perceiving
child who has the
capacity to make sense
of the world. He helped
identify four distinct
stages of cognitive
development.
Lev Vygotsky
• Lev Vygotsky- believed
that children learn their
culture’s habits of mind
through a process called
internalization.
Diana Baumrind
• Diana Baumrind- best
known for work on
parenting styles. Came
up with the idea of
Permissive,
Authoritative, and
Authoritarian Parents.
Erik Erikson
• Erik Eriksoncame up with
the idea of
social
development
that 8 stages
from infancy
to death. We
will study this
in detail in
development.
Lawrence Kohlberg
• Lawrence KohlbergAmerican psychologist
who used hypothetical
moral dilemmas to
study moral reasoning.
He believed we
developed moral
reasoning in 3 stages.
Carol Gilligan
• Carol Gilligan- best
known for her critique
against Kohlberg since
all his subjects were
male and argued that
women focus more on
caring on compassion.
Personality- Alfred Adler
• Alfred Adler- known as
a neo- Freudian. Adler’s
goal was to help his
patients see the power
of self determination
and command the
courage to alter their
interpretation of events
and life experience.
Carl Jung• Carl Jung- also known as
Neo- Freudian who
developed the concept of
the collective
unconscious. He believed
the collective
unconscious included
shared human
experiences and cultural
archetypes. Influenced
thinking on humans as
symbol using beings.
Carl Rogers
• Carl Rogers- believed in
optimistic view of
human nature and a
humanist who believed
in client centered
therapy where
therapist is genuine,
accepting, and
empathetic.
Paul Costa and Robert Mccrae
• Paul Costa and Robert
Mccrae- best known for
the 5 factor model in
personality which
identifies
conscientiousness,
agreeableness,
neuroticism, openness,
and extroversion as the
broad domains of
personality.
Testing and Individual DifferencesFrancis Galton
• Francis Galtoninterested in statistics
and developed the
statistical concept of
correlation and was the
first to demonstrate
that the normal
distribution could be
applied to intelligence.
Charles Spearman
• Charles Spearman- He
observed that an
individuals intelligence
scores on various tests of
intellectual performance
correlated with one
another. Thus, he
proposed that intelligence
is a single, underlying
factor, which he coined
general intelligence.
Robert Sternberg
• Sternberg- Best known
for his triarchic theory
of intelligence which
emphasized analytic,
creative, and practical
intelligences.
Howard Gardner
• Howard Gardnerknown for his theory of
multiple intelligences.
Disputed Spearman due
to different types of
intelligences.
Alfred Binet
• Alfred Binet- invented
first usable intelligence
test. Made important
distinctions between a
child’s mental and
chronological ages.
Lewis Terman
• Lewis Terman- best
known as the inventor
of the Stanford- Binet
test. His simple
equation took mental
age/ chronological age *
100.
David Wechsler
• David WechslerWechsler determined
how far a person’s score
deviates from a bell
shaped normal
distribution of scores.
Treatment of Abnormal BehaviorDorothea Dix
• Dorothea Dix- American
reformer who
documented the
deplorable conditions
of how states cared for
the mentally ill.
Albert Ellis
• Albert Ellis- renowned
for developing the
principles of rationalemotive therapy.
Replaced irrational
beliefs with more
rational interpretations
of events.
Aaron Beck
• Aaron Beck- widely
regarded as the father
of cognitive therapy
and his theories are
widely used to treat
clinical depression.
Mary Cover Jones
• Mary Cover Jonesconducted the
pioneering research in
applying behavioral
techniques to therapy.
Joseph Wolpe
• Joseph Wolpe- took
Cover Jones research
and furthered it with his
technique called
systematic
desensitization that
helped clients relax and
work their way through
anxiety producing
situations.
Social Psychology- Leon Festinger
• Leon Festinger- came
with the idea of
cognitive dissonancewhich states when are
behaviors and attitudes
are inconsistent we
change them to reduce
our inconsistent
feelings.
Phillip Zimbardo
• Phillip Zimbardo- best
known for Stanford
Prison Study on role
playing and
deindividuation.
Soloman Asch
• Soloman Asch- study on
conformity shows how
individuals respond to
the social pressures and
expectations of others.
Stanley Milgram
• Stanley Milgram- shock
study on obedience
showed the power of
informational social
influence.