Famous psychologists (and their most known accomplishments) that you should know for the AP Psychology Exam.
13886173844 | Mary Ainsworth | Studied attachment in infants using the "strange situation" model. Label infants "secure", "insecure" (etc.) in attachment | 0 | |
13886173845 | Solomon Asch | Conducted famous conformity experiment that required subjects to match lines. | 1 | |
13886173846 | Albert Bandura | Famous for the Bobo Doll experiments on observational learning & influence in the Socio-Cognitive Perspective | 2 | |
13886173847 | Alfred Binet | Created first intelligence test for Parisian school children | 3 | |
13886173848 | Thomas Bouchard | Studied identical twins separated at birth | 4 | |
13886173849 | Noam Chomsky | Created concept of "universal grammar" | 5 | |
13886173850 | Hermann Ebbinghaus | Memorized nonsense syllables in early study on human memory | 6 | |
13886173851 | Erik Erikson | Known for his 8-stage theory of Psychosocial Development | 7 | |
13886173852 | Sigmund Freud | Developed psychoanalysis; considered to be "father of modern psychiatry" | 8 | |
13886173853 | John Garcia | studied taste aversion in rats; led to knowledge that sickness and taste preferences can be conditioned | 9 | |
13886173854 | Carol Gilligan | Presented feminist critique of Kolhberg's moral development theory; believed women's moral sense guided by relationships | 10 | |
13886173855 | Harry Harlow | Studied attachment in monkeys with artificial mothers | 11 | |
13886173856 | William James | created Functionalist school of thought; early American psychology teacher/philosopher | 12 | |
13886173857 | Jerome Kagan | Conducted longitudinal studies on temperament (infancy to adolescence) | 13 | |
13886173858 | Ancel Keys | Conducted semi-starvation experiments to measure psych effects of hunger | 14 | |
13886173859 | Lawrence Kohlberg | Famous for his theory of moral development in children; made use of moral dilemmas in assessment | 15 | |
13886173860 | Elizabeth Loftus | Her research on memory construction and the misinformation effect created doubts about the accuracy of eye-witness testimony | 16 | |
13886173861 | Abraham Maslow | Humanistic psychologist known for his "Hierarchy of Needs" and the concept of "self-actualization" | 17 | |
13886173862 | Stanley Milgram | Conducted "shocking" (Ha!) experiments on obedience | 18 | |
13886173863 | Ivan Pavlov | Described process of classical conditioning after famous experiments with dogs | 19 | |
13886173864 | Jean Piaget | Known for his theory of cognitive development in children | 20 | |
13886173865 | Carl Rogers | Developed "client-centered" therapy | 21 | |
13886173866 | Stanley Schachter | Developed "Two-Factor" theory of emotion; experiments on spillover effect | 22 | |
13886173867 | B.F. Skinner | Described process of operant conditioning | 23 | |
13886173868 | Edward Thorndike | Famous for "law of effect" and research on cats in "puzzle boxes" | 24 | |
13886173869 | John Watson | Early behaviorist; famous for the "Little Albert" experiments on fear conditioning | 25 | |
13886173870 | Benjamin Lee Whorf | Famous for describing concept of "liguistic determinism" | 26 | |
13886173871 | William Wundt | Conducted first psychology experiments in first psych laboratory | 27 | |
13886173872 | Philip Zimbardo | Conducted Stanford Prison experiment | 28 | |
13886173873 | Hans Selye | (Accidentally) described General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) | 29 | |
13886173874 | Karen Horney | Neo-Freudian; offered feminist critique of Freud's theory | 30 | |
13886173875 | Martin Seligman | Conducted experiments with dogs that led to the concept of "learned helplessness" | 31 | |
13886173876 | Fritz Perls | Creator of Gestalt Therapy | 32 | |
13886173877 | Alfred Adler | Neo-Freudian; introduced concept of "inferiority complex" and stressed the importance of birth order | 33 | |
13886173878 | Albert Ellis | Developed "rational emotive behavior therapy" (REBT) | 34 | |
13886173879 | Aaron Beck | Developed cognitive-behavior therapy | 35 | |
13886173880 | Gordon Allport | Founder of Trait Theory | 36 | |
13886173881 | Phineas Gage | his survival of a horrible industrial accident taught us about the role of the frontal lobes (okay, he's not really a psychologist...) | 37 | |
13886173882 | Walter Mischel | offered famous critique of trait theory and its claims | 38 | |
13886173883 | David McClelland | studied achievement motivation; found those with high levels are driven to master challenging tasks | 39 | |
13886173884 | Mary Whiton Calkins | first female president of the APA (1905); a student of William James; denied the PhD she earned from Harvard because of her sex (later, posthumously, it was granted to her) | 40 | |
13886173885 | Charles Darwin | his idea, that the genetic composition of a species can be altered through natural selection, has had a lasting impact on psychology through the evolutionary perspective | 41 | |
13886173886 | Dorothea Dix | American activist who successfully pressured lawmakers to construct & fund asylums for the mentally ill | 42 | |
13886173887 | G. Stanley Hall | first american to work for Wundt; • Founded the American Psychological Association (now largest organization of psychologists in the USA) and became first president | 43 | |
13886173888 | Margaret Floy Washburn | First female to be awarded a PhD in psychology; 2nd female president of the APA (1921) | 44 | |
13886173889 | Paul Broca | the part of the brain responsible for coordinating muscles involved in speech was named for him, because he first identified it | 45 | |
13886173890 | Carl Wernicke | an area of the brain (in the left temporal lobe) involved in language comprehension and expression was named for him because he discovered it | 46 | |
13886173891 | Michael Gazzaniga | Conducted the "HE-ART" experiments with split brain patients | 47 | |
13886173892 | Roger Sperry | like Gazzaniga, studied split brain patients; showed that left/right hemispheres have different functions | 48 | |
13886173893 | Gustav Fechner | early German psychologist credited with founding psychophysics | 49 | |
13886173894 | David Hubel & Torsten Weisel | two Nobel prize winning neuroscientists who demonstrated the importance of "feature detector" neurons in visual perception | 50 | |
13886173895 | Ernst Weber | best known for "Weber's Law", the notion that the JND magnitude is proportional to the stimulus magnitude | 51 | |
13886173896 | Ernest Hilgard | famous for his hypnosis research & the theory that a "hidden observer" theory | 52 | |
13886173897 | Robert Rescorla | researched classical conditioning; found subjects learn the predictability of an event through trials (cognitive element) | 53 | |
13886173898 | Edward Tolman | researched rats' use of "cognitive maps" | 54 | |
13886173899 | Wolfgang Kohler | considered to be the founder of Gestalt Psychology | 55 | |
13886173900 | George A. Miller | made famous the phrase: "the magical number 7, plus or minus 2" when describing human memory | 56 | |
13886173901 | Alfred Kinsey | his research described human sexual behavior and was controversial (for its methodology & findings) | 57 | |
13886173902 | Diana Baumrind | her theory of parenting styles had three main types (permissive, authoratative, & authoritarian) | 58 | |
13886173903 | Lev Vygotsky | founder of "Social Development Theory" (note: not "social learning theory" OR "psychosocial" development...); emphasizes importace of More Knowledge Others (MKO) and the Zone of Proximal Development | 59 | |
13886173904 | Konrad Lorenz | won Nobel prize for research on imprinting | 60 | |
13886173905 | Carl Jung | neo-Freudian who created concept of "collective unconscious" and wrote books on dream interpretation | 61 | |
13886173906 | Paul Costa & Robert McCrae | creators of the "Big Five" model of personality traits | 62 | |
13886173907 | Francis Galton | interested in link between heredity and intelligence; founder of the eugenics movement | 63 | |
13886173908 | Howard Gardner | best known for his theory of "multiple intelligences" | 64 | |
13886173909 | Charles Spearman | creator of "g-factor", or general intelligence, concept | 65 | |
13886173910 | Robert Sternberg | creator of "successful intelligence" theory (3 types) | 66 | |
13886173911 | Lewis Terman | advocate of intelligence testing in US; developed Standford-Binet test and oversaw army's use of intelligence testing during WWI | 67 | |
13886173912 | David Weschler | Developer of WAIS and WISC intelligence tests | 68 | |
13886173913 | Mary Cover Jones | "Mother of behavior therapy"; used classical conditioning to help "Peter" overcome fear of rabbits | 69 | |
13886173914 | Joseph Wolpe | Described use of systematic desensitization to treat phobias | 70 | |
13886173915 | Leon Festinger | Described concept of cognitive dissonance | 71 | |
13886173916 | Paul Ekman | Interested in the universality of facial expressions: facial expressions carry same meaning regardless of culture, context, or language. Use of microexpressions to detect lying. | 72 | |
13886173917 | William Masters & Virginia Johnson | Used direct observation and experimentation to study sexual response cycle (4 stages) | 73 | |
13886173918 | Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky | Investigated the use of heuristics in decision-making; studied the availability, anchoring, and representativeness heuristics | 74 | |
13886173919 | Raymond Cattell | Intelligence: fluid & crystal intelligence; personality testing: 16 Personality Factors (16PF personality test) | 75 | |
13886173922 | Edward Bradford Titchener | Student of Wundt and founder of structuralism. Used introspection to search for the mind's structural elements. | 76 |