Famous Psychologists
History and Approaches
 Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930)
 First president of the American Psychological Association.
 Was denied her doctorate degree from Harvard.
 Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882)
 "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection"
 Dorothea Dix (1802 – 1887)
 Greatly improved the lives of mentally ill people in America.
 one of the most effective advocates of humanitarianism reform in
mental Institutions
 Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)
 Developed the psychosexual stages.
 used the psychoanalytical approach to help treat his patients.
 Greatly impacted the psychological world
 G. Stanley Hall (1844 – 1924)
 A pioneering American psychologist.
 First president of the American Psychological Association.
 William James (1842 – 1910)
 Wrote books about psychology, the education of psychology, psychology
and religion, and also on the theory of Pragmatism.
 Ivan Pavlov (1849 – 1936)
 The dog experiment" - where the dogs salivate before food is shown
when a bell rings.
 conditioned reflex - when we associate things with other stimuli.
 Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980)
 A leading developmental psychologist.
 his work is greatly influential in the field of cognitive development
 Carl Rogers (1902 – 1987)
 Humanistic approach to psychology.
 developed client-centered therapy
 B. F. Skinner (1904 – 1990)
 Radical behaviorism seeks to understand behavior as a function of
environmental histories of reinforcing consequences.
 Margaret Floy Washburn (1871 – 1939)
 First woman to obtain a PhD in psychology.
 John B. Watson (1878 – 1958)
 Little Al experiment
 influenced the school of behaviorism
 Wilhelm Wundt (1832 – 1920)
 In 1879, Wundt founded the first formal laboratory for psychological
research at the University of Leipzig.
 He is widely regarded as the "father of experimental psychology"
Biological Bases of Behavior
 Paul Broca (1824 - 1880) (Neurobiological)
 Studied human speech and brain functions.
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Most famous for discovering the speech production area of the brain in the frontal lobes
now known as Broca’s area.
Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882) (Evolutionary)
 Developed the theory of Natural Selection and Evolution.
 Wrote “The Origin of Species”, which contained his theories about evolution.
Michael Gazzaniga (1939 - Present) (Neurobiological)
 Studied the interactions and functions of each hemisphere of the brain.
 Studied split-brain patients
 Showed different functions of each hemisphere of the brain.
Roger Sperry (1913 - 1994) (Neurobiological)
 Studied Split-Brain patients and the effects of severing the corpus callosum.
 Used the severing of the corpus callosum as a technique for treating epileptic seizures
Carl Wernicke (1848 - 1905) (Neurobiological)
 Conducted research on linguistic functions of the brain in response to Broca’s
discoveries.
 Discovered an area of the brain next to Broca’s area responsible for the comprehension
of language, now known as Wernicke’s area.
Sensation and Perception
 Ernst Weber (1795 - 1878)
 Experiments with the difference threshold
o Stimuli must differ by constant proportion for difference to be perceptible
o Although others experimented on this later, it is known as Weber’s Law
 Gustav Fechner (1801 - 1887)
 Furthered experiments on difference threshold, influenced by Ernst Weber
 David Hubel (1926 - Present) & Torsten Weisel (1924 - Present)
 Experiments with visual information processing
o Brain has feature detector neurons that respond to lines in certain angles and
moving in specific directions
o Showed that brain builds complex image out of simple stimuli
States of Consciousness
 William James (1842 – 1910)
 James’ two-stage model effectively separates chance (the
indeterministic free element) from choice (an arguably determinate
decision that follows causally from one’s character, values, and
especially feelings and desires at the moment of decision).
 Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)
 Claimed that sex drives motivation and sex is what drives humans.
 Ernest Hilgard (1904 – 2001)
 American psychologist, professor at Stanford university
 Became famous in the 1950s for his research on hypnosis, especially with
regard to pain control.
 developed the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scales from the 1950s
onwards.
Learning
 Albert Bandura (1925 - Present) (Behavioral)
 Theory of self-efficacy
 Social learning theory- behavior is shaped in part by what we observe; particularly
focused on learned aggression
 Performed the Bobo Doll experiment (1961)
 John Garcia (1917 - Present) (Behavioral)
 Nausea conditioning:
drug  nausea
waiting room + drug  nausea
waiting room  nausea
 Taste aversion experiment- rats avoid water which made them nauseous before
(classical conditioning)
 Conditioned taste aversion is called the “Garcia Effect”
 Ivan Pavlov (1849 – 1936) (Behavioral)
 Research in classical conditioning with dog drool:
UCS(food)  UCR(drool)
CS(bell) + UCS(food)  UCR(drool)
CS(bell)  CR(drool)
Stimulus similar to bell(tuning fork)  CR(drool)[generalization]
 B.F. Skinner (1904 – 1990) (Behavioral)
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“modern behaviorism’s most influential and controversial figure”
 operant conditioning chamber (Skinner Box): rat presses bar for food reward, responses
are recorded
 shaping behavior with reinforcements
 Edward Thorndike (1874 – 1949)
 law of effect: rewarded behavior is likely to recur
 starting point for Skinner’s experiments
 John B. Watson (1878 – 1958) (Behavioral)
 Little Albert experiment
Cognition
 Noam Chomsky (1928 - Present) (Cognitive)
 Greatly involved in linguistics and how children learn languages.
 Credited with the creation of the theory of generative grammar
 Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850 - 1909) (Cognitive)
 Pioneered the study of memory.
o Conducted memory experiments on himself to better understand the processes
of learning and forgetting.
 Developed the forgetting curve and the learning curve. Both of which measure the rate at
which each activity occurs.
 Wolfgang Kohler (1887 - 1967) (Cognitive)
 Founded Gestalt Theory.
 His famous quote is “The whole is different from the sum of it’s parts” not “The whole is
greater than the sum of its parts” as some textbooks say.
 Elizabeth Loftus (1944 - Present) (Cognitive)
 Conducted research on false memories and the misinformation effect.
 Uncovered huge problems in the legal system because of false eyewitness accounts and
the format used in questioning and obtaining information.
 George A. Miller (1920 - Present) (Cognitive)
 Studied memory
 Discovered that seven plus or minus two is the capacity of items that can be maintained
in the short term memory.
Motivation and Emotion
 William James (1842 – 1910) (Pragmatism and Functionalism)
 The James-Lange Theory of Emotion
o Emotion comes from the awareness of our physiological response
 Alfred Kinsey (1894 – 1956)
 Sex research, the sexual response cycle, the “Kinsey Report”
 Changed how we look at sexual attitudes and beliefs
 Abraham Maslow (1908 – 1970) (Humanistic)
 The Hierarchy of Needs
o The belief system of humanistic psych., that we are first motivated by basic
needs for survival and then move up
 Stanley Schachter (1922 – 1997) (Cognitive)
 Two-Factor Theory of Emotion
o Emotion comes from the labeling of physiological arousal
 Hans Selye (1907 – 1982) (Biological)
 Concept of “stress”, General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)
o We respond to stress in three stages (alarm  resistance  exhaustion)
Developmental Psychology
 Mary Ainsworth (1913 – 1999) (Behavioral)
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“strange situation” experiment
o found that some children are securely attached to their mothers, some are
insecurely attached (avoidant, ambivalent, or disorganized)
 Albert Bandura (1925 - Present) (Behavioral)
 Bobo doll experiment (1961): researched effects of observational learning on
development
 Diana Baumrind (1927 - Present)
 theory of parenting styles: Authoritarian, Permissive, and Authoritative
 Erik Erikson (1902 - 1994) (Psychoanalytic *Neo-Freudian)
 Theory on social development: 8 (later 9) stages of development
 Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) (Psychoanalytic)
 the Oedipus complex
 5 stages of psychosexual development
 Harry Harlow (1905 – 1981) (Humanistic)
 experiments on rhesus monkeys, with cloth mother vs. wire feeding mother; also studied
maternal separation and social isolation
 Lawrence Kohlberg (1927 – 1987) (Cognitive)
 Kohlberg’s stages of moral development
 Konrad Lorenz (1903 – 1989) (Neurobiological)
 studied instinctive behavior in animals
 discovered imprinting in birds; he had geese who thought he was their mama
 Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980) (Cognitive)
 suggested nature and nurture work together
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4 stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational,
formal operational
 Lev Vygotsky (1896 – 1934) (Sociocultural)
 introduced notion of zone of proximal development (potential of human cognitive
development, rather than the actual)
Personality
 Alfred Adler (1870 - 1937)
 Founder of the school of individual psychology
 First to break away from psychoanalysis and apply methods of psychotherapy and
personality theory
 Most famous concept is the inferiority complex
 Albert Bandura (1925 – Present)
 Developed the social learning theory and the theory of self sufficiency
 Conducted the Bobo Doll Experiment to study behavior associated with aggression
 Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939) (Psycholanalytic)
 Structural model of personality (id, ego, superego)
 Carl Jung (1875 – 1961)
 Pioneer in the field of dream analysis
 Theory of individuation, or becoming your “true-self”
 Abraham Maslow (1908 - 1970) (Humanistic)
 Founded humanistic psychology and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
 Carl Rogers (1902 - 1987) (Humanistic)
 Developed self concept principle
Testing and Individual Differences
 Alfred Binet (1857 – 1911)
 Stanford-Binet IQ Test, Simon-Binet Intelligence Scale
 Designed tests that concentrated on mental abilities outside of learned information
 Lewis Terman (1877 – 1956)
 Adaptation/Revision of Binet’s test, concept of IQ
 Viewed intelligence as fixed and inherited
 David Wechsler (1896 – 1981)
 Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children
 Improved on old tests, success depended less on having formal schooling, and subtests
were scored separately
 Charles Spearman (1863 – 1945) (Cognitive)
 Concept of g (general intelligence)
 Believed that correlations on test scores are created by a general cognitive ability
 Robert Sternberg (1949 – Present)
 Triarchic Theory of Intelligence
o There are 3 types of intelligence: Analytic; Creative; Practical
 Howard Gardner (1943 – Present) (Humanistic)
 Multiple Intelligences (MI) Theory
o All people have a number of intelligences that involve different skills
 Francis Galton (1822 – 1911) (Biological)
 Sparked the eugenics movement, formed nature vs. nurture argument
 Believed intelligence was a result of genetic predispositions
Treatment of Abnormal Behavior
 Albert Ellis (1913 - 2007)
 Developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)
 Founder of cognitive-behavioral therapies
 Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939)
 Used the medical model of abnormal behavior
 Provided very good descriptions of mental illness, but his explanations were questionable
 Emphasized the importance of social environment on abnormal behavior
 Mary Cover Jones (1896 –1987)
 “The mother of behavior therapy”
 Study of unconditioning the fear of rabbits
 Carl Rogers (1902 - 1987) (Humanistic)
 Psychogenic approach to abnormal psychology – abnormality is caused by psychological
problems
 B.F. Skinner (1904 –1990) (Behavioral)
 American behaviorist and social philosopher
 Developed radical behaviorism
 Joseph Wolpe (April 20, 1915 – December 4, 1997)
 Developed reciprocal inhibition techniques to treat anxiety
 Coined and perfected systematic desensitization
Social Psychology
 Solomon Asch (1907 – 1996)
 Known for his conformity studies—tested whether or not subjects would conform with the
group’s wrong answers to an easy question about line lengths
 Leon Festinger (1919 – 1989)
 Developed theory of cognitive dissonance
 Performed experiment involving a dull peg turning task and later asking participants to tell
another participant that it was “exciting and fun”
o Those paid $1 to persuade others later reported a more positive attitude toward
task than those paid $20
 Stanley Milgram (1933 – 1984)
 Known for controversial experiments on obedience
o Subject was instructed to shock a learner with increasing voltages for wrong
answers in a study on “punishment on learning/memory”
 Philip Zimbardo (1933 – Present)
 Known for the controversial Mock Prison Experiment in which normal people were
randomly assigned to role of guard or prisoner
 Also the (awesome!) host of the Discovering Psychology videos
Credits:
 Garrison Shea
 History and Approaches
 States of Consciousness
 Robbie Brown
 Biological Bases of Bahavior
 Cognition
 Karrine Manning
 Learning
 Developmental Psychology
 Hayley Westphal
 Motivation and Emotion
 Testing and Individual Differences
 Jake Matheson
 Personality
 Treatment of Abnormal Behavior
 Aleyna Hunt
 Sensation and Perception
 Social Psychology
 Compiling and Formatting