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Famous people

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 9 months ago
Famous Psychology People you should know for the AP Exam
This is a list I have been compiling. It would be great  if people would contribute to this page and to define and give an explanation for each person
  1. Rene Descartes -- Believed in dualism - mind and body were separate. Some ideas are innate (nature part of nature vs. nurture).
  2. John Locke -- Associated with empiricism. Philosopher that contradicted Descartes. Believed in tabula rasa, or "blank slate." Children are born with a blank slate that experience writes on (the nurture side of nature vs. nurture). Knowledge comes from experience through the senses; science should be observation and experimentation.
  3. Charles Darwin -- Associated with natural selection, evolution, and adaptive traits.
  4. Wilhelm Wundt -- Made the first scientific psychology laboratory; worked with consciousness and illusions with the senses (especially auditory).  generally acknowledged as the founder of experimental psychology.  Along with William James, regarded as the father of psychology
  5. William James -- A founder of pragmatism (way of problem solving) and functionalism (all mental processes are useful to an organism in adapting to the environment). Authored a textbook for the emerging discipline of psychology. James-Lange theory (see Lange)
  6. Ivan Pavlov -- Russian physiologist who observed conditioned salivary responses in dogs (classical conditioning; unconditioned and conditioned stimuli & responses).
  7. John Watson -- Behaviorist, thought that cognition isn't important. Did the Little Albert experiment with Rosalie Rayner -- used conditioning to make a toddler afraid of white rats. This fear was generalized to include other furry animals.
  8. B.F. Skinner -- Worked with operant conditioning (how to control self to elicit rewards or avoid punishment). Made the Skinner Box (an operant chamber) - it contains a bar or key that an animal can press to get a reinforcer. The rate of bar pressing/key pecking is recorded. Developed reinforcement schedules: fixed ratio, variable ratio, fixed interval, and variable interval. Studied the importance of operant conditioning on education, work, and parenting.
  9. Carl Rogers -- Humanistic pyschology - believed in human potential and a person-centered perspective. Believed that people are essentially good. Came up with unconditional positive regard (total acceptance towards another person). Also associated with active listening.
  10. Abraham Maslow -- "father of humanistic psychology".  noted for his conceptualization of a "hierarchy of human needs" (pyramid, the highest level being self-actualization). 
  11. Lev Vygotsky -- By age 7, kids are becoming more capable of thinking in words and using words to work out solutions to problems. They no longer think aloud, but internalize speech. Founder of cultural historical psychology.  In contrast to Piaget, held that cognitive stages are in part driven by education (and education should take place within a zone of proximal development).
  12. Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens -- a French physiologist, the founder of experimental brain science and a pioneer in anesthesia.
  13. Heinrich Kluver -- notable figure in the fields of animal behavior and Gestalt psychology.
  14. Paul Bucy -- an American neuropathologist.  professor of neurosurgery.  worked with Heinrich Kluver; together they discovered Klüver-Bucy syndrome, and were able to clincically reproduce this disorder in rhesus monkeys by performing bilateral temporal lobectomies.
  15. Roger Sperry -- split-brain research.
  16. Michael Gazzaniga -- worked under the guidance of Roger Sperry, with primary responsibility for initiating human split-brain research. He subsequently made remarkable advances in our understanding of functional lateralization in the brain and how the cerebral hemispheres communicate with one another.
  17. Weber’s Law -- To be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a contact minimum percentage, as opposed to a constant amount. (just noticeable difference)
  18. David Hubel -- sensory processing, concerning information processing in the visual system
  19. Torsten Wiesel -- co-recipient with David H. Hubel of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for their discoveries concerning information processing in the visual system; the prize was shared with Roger W. Sperry for his independent research on the cerebral hemispheres.
  20. Ewald Hering -- main work was with the physiology of color perception. Challenged the color vision theory of Helmholtz. Proposed a theory of color vision based on three types of receptors operating by opponent processes to detect black-white, yellow-blue, and red-green differences in stimulation. Strongly influenced modern theories of color vision.
  21. Georg von Békésy-- A biophysicist, known for his research on the cochlea (in hearing). He found that the cochlea vibrates in response to sound. High frequencies vibrate at the beginning of the cochlea, and low frequencies vibrate at the end.
  22. Eric Kandel -- worked in the memory-biology field. Studied synaptic changes during learning (conditioning) with a California sea snail. He did this research with James Schwartz. Discovered that snails release serotonin at some synapses--these synapses become more efficient.
  23. Donald Hebb -- said that humans seem to be the most emotional species.
  24. John Garcia -- worked with learning and conditioning. Discovered taste aversion: food that makes you sick (like in food poisoning) will become a conditioned stimulus for nausea. The US does not have to immediately follow the CS. This aversion is only true for taste, not for sights or sounds.
  25. Keller Breland --  Student of B. F. Skinner. Established Animal Behavior Enterprises (ABE), aka I. Q. Zoo, a for-profit animal training business. Used operant methods to train animals for entertainment, advertising, and military applications. Article "The Misbehavior of Organisms" reflected on the roles of innate and learned components of behavior.
  26. Marian Breland -- (see Keller Breland) 
  27. Albert Bandura -- Children learn through observation and imitation; aggressiveness can be learned = social learning theory. Observational learning can be prosocial and anti-social. Used Bobo dolls in imitation experiments. Reinforcements and punishments determine imitation. Came up with reciprocal determinism - the interacting influences between personality and environmental factors.
  28. Edward Thorndike -- Made the law of effect (rewarded behavior is likely to recur). This helped Skinner with operant conditioning.
  29. Wolfgang Kohler -- Gestalt psychologist. Observed insight in chimpanzees. Ex: the chimp Sultan, in a cage, displayed insight to get food with sticks.
  30. Allan Collins -- first chairman of the Cognitive Science Society. Best known for work on semantic memory and mental models; in artificial intelligence for work on plausible reasoning and intelligent tutoring systems; and in education for work on inquiry teaching, cognitive apprenticeship, situated learning, epistemic games and systemic validity in educational testing.

  31. Elizabeth Loftus -- Worked with memory, repression, memory construction, the effect of framing on memory, and the misinformation effect. Believed that hypnosis was inaccurate.
  32. Fergus Craik -- older adults do well on tests that assess general vocab, knowledge, and ability to integrate information. Repeating information may not be enough to effectively store it for later recall. Worked with Endel Tulving to compare visual, acoustic, and semantic encoding. Flashed a word at people and asked a question that required visual, acoustic, or semantic encoding (see pg 357 for example). Semantic encoding led to better encoding of the word.
  33. Robert S. Lockart -- worked with Craik to write Levels of processing: A framework for memory research. Levels of processing theory is a theory of memory that says that memory does not have stages, but rather is a byproduct of processing (there is no difference btw/ declarative and procedural memory). Proposes that different depths of processing have substantial effects on how well it is remembered. Deep processing creates memories that last longer and are stronger traces.
  34. Paivio’s Dual Code -- Memory for concrete nouns (as opposed to abstract) is easier when encoded both semantically (by meaning) and visually.
  35. Noam Chomsky - Worked with language development and learning in young children. identified 'critical age' before which language must be learned. Findings had a large effect on the wild child team.
  36. Benjamin Whorf -- linguist. Said that language determines the way we think. Language determinism hypothesis - different languages impose different conceptions of reality. People who are bilingual may think about themselves differently, depending on what language they're using.
  37. Eleanor Maccoby -- developmental psychologist. Gender differences in power lessen w/ maturity. Females are more open and responsive to feedback. Did research with gender roles and gender development. Gender differences widen over time because people interact mostly with their own gender. Girls talk more intimately and play less aggressively than boys.Some risk for behavior problems with children who spend extended time in daycares. Children with a positive self-concept are more confident, independent, optimistic, assertive, and sociable.
  38. Carol Jacklin -- worked with Maccoby. They published Psychology of Sex Differences in 1974.
  39. Daniel Kahneman - worked with Amos Tversky. Nobel Laureate. Identified two important heuristics: representative heuristic (truck driver or professor?) where we compare a subject to our mental image rather than actual likelihood. the availability heuristic is making judgments based on how readily information comes to our mind; how available it is to us.
  40. Amos Tversky -- worked with Daniel Kahneman. see above.
  41. Joy Paul Guilford -- American psychologist and practitioner of psychophysics—the quantitative measurement of subjective psychological phenomena—exemplified by his studies of the relative effectiveness of colour, hue, brightness, and saturation for men and women.
  42. James Olds -- neuropsychologist. Olds and Milner tried to implant electrodes in the reticular formations of rats, but made a mistake and put it in part of the hypothalamus instead. The rat kept returning to the place on its enclosure where it had been stimulated by this electrode--hypothalamus provides a pleasurable reward. Olds found other "pleasure centers" (reward centers).  The rats would do anything to get the stimulation.
  43. Peter Milner -- worked with Olds
  44. Henry Murray -- Tested the prophetic power of dreams. Came up with achievement motivation (the desire for significant accomplishment). Also developed the TAT, Thematic Apperception Test, a projective test in which people are shown ambiguous pictures. The stories they make up from the pictures supposedly project their inner feelings.
  45. Carl Lange -- James-Lange theory says that emotions follow bodily responses. A pounding heart (the arousal) may lead you to label yourself as feeling fear (the emotion).
  46. Walter Cannon -- Cannon-Bard theory says that arousal and emotion occur simultaneously. One does not cause the other.
  47. Philip Bard -- see Cannon.
  48. Stanley Schachter -- Schachter-Singer Two-Factor Theory says that physiology and cognitions create emotion together. To experience emotion, there must be a physical arousal and a cognitive label. Emotions need a conscious interpretation of the arousal because many emotions are physiologically similar. Pounding heart (arousal) + "i'm afraid" (cognitive label) = fear (emotion).
  49. J.E. Singer -- see Schachter.
  50. Erik Erikson -- Developmental theorist, associated with the term basic trust. Most known for his stages of development with psychosocial tasks: 1) Infancy - trust vs. mistrust; 2) Toddlerhood - autonomy vs. shame and doubt; 3) Preschooler - initiative vs. guilt; 4) Elementary school - competence vs. inferiority; 5) Adolescence - identity vs. role confusion; 6) Young adulthood - intimacy vs. isolation; 7) Middle adulthood - generativity vs. stagnation; 8) Late adulthood - integrity vs. despair.
  51. Jean Piaget -- Most influential observer of children; believed that children knew differently, not less. Came up with the idea of schemas (mental molds), accomodate and assimilate. Said that morality developed with cognition. Four cognitive stages: 1) Birth to 2 yrs - sensorimotor stage - experience world with senses; 2) 2 yrs to 7 yrs - preoperational stage - worked with language, not logic; 3) 7 yrs to 11 yrs - concrete operational stage - worked with logic; 4) 12 yrs to adult - formal operational - abstract reasoning.
  52. Lawrence Kohlberg -- development of moral reasoning. Preconventional morality: before age 9, children obey to avoid punishment or gain (concrete) rewards. Conventional morality: by early adolescence, children obey laws because they are laws. Postconventional morality: those with abstract reasoning obey what they think is right, based on ethical principles.These three form a moral ladder. Emphasized thinking over acting.
  53. Sigmund Freud
  54. Carl Jung -- Psychoanalyst (analytical psychology), neo-Freudian. Believed that the unconscious exerts a powerful influence, and that there is a collective unconscious. Used to be associated with Freud. Said that people are molded by ancestral and personal history, and we are motivated by moral and spiritual values, not sex (this is part of where he differed from Freud). Came up with the idea of archetypes. Believed that libido is "life energy," not sex energy.
  55. Alfred Adler -- personality theorist and neo-Freudian. People have a need to belong. Childhood social tensions are important. Proposed the idea of the inferiority complex - behavior is driven by the need to conquer feelings of inferiority.
  56. Karen Horney -- neo-Freudian feminist, came up with the word womb envy (contrasting to Freud's "penis envy," it said that men are jealous of women's ability to give birth). Believed that social tensions (rather than sexual) are important for the formation of personality. Childhood anxiety triggers desire for love/security.  
  57. Julian Rotter -- Came up with the external locus of control, and the internal locus of control--perceptions of control. External = outside forces determine fate. Internal = they control their own destiny.
  58. Raymond Cattell -- found that fluid intelligence decreases slowly until 75, and more quickly afterwards.
  59. Hans J. Eysenck
  60. Gordon Allport
  61. David McClelland
  62. Sandra Bem -- Developed the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), a measure of androgyny, in 1974. Also associated with gender schema theory -- you form concepts/schemas for your gender. 
  63. Walter Mischel -- Worked with personality and social psychology. Thought that people should delay gratification and become more socially responsible. Since people don't act with predictable consistency, past behavior patterns in similar situations can predict future behavior better than tests can.
  64. Arthur Jensen
  65. Lewis Terman
  66. Joseph Wolpe -- Work with systematic desensitization. Used gradual exposure therapies, with the idea that you cannot be anxious and relaxed at the same time.
  67. Albert Ellis -- Cognitive behavioral therapy. People can break fears by forcing self into situations with fears (therapy). Well-known therapist. Thought that no one and nothing is supreme, self-gratification is good, and commitment (like marriage) is bad.
  68. Aaron Beck -- cognitive therapist. Found that people who abuse alcohol are five times more liekly than others to eventually kill themselves. Analyzed dreams of depressed people and found recurring negative themes (loss, rejection, abandonment) that continued in their waking thoughts. Cognitive therapists use questioning to help people with depression (see pages 695 - 696 of the textbook for an example).
  69. Stanley Milgram -- Social psychologist, worked with obedience. In his famous experiments, a "teacher" administers a shock to a "learner" whenever the learner gets a question wrong. The electric shocks were staged--the teacher thought they were real, but the learner knew they were not. With more wrong answers, the shocks increase in voltage. The teacher has to choose between obeying the experimenter supervising the teacher, who urges them to continue, or the learner who is in apparent pain, who begs them to stop. 63% of men proceeded to the final 450 volt shock. Teachers were most likely to obey when 1) the experimenter was nearby and with presitigious affiliation (i.e. Yale professor), 2) the victim was distanced or depersonalized, and 3) when they were told that no other teacher defied the experimenter.
  70. William McGuire -- people are mindful of their differences when they're around people. Viewing violence doesn't necessarily cause aggression.
  71. Leon Festinger -- came up with cognitive dissonance theory - conflict arises when a person holds contrasting cognitions. If you act in ways that contradict your beliefs/feelings, you change your attitude to fit your actions, not the other way around.
  72. John Darley
  73. Bibb Latané
  74. Konrad Lorenz -- worked with imprinting (process where animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life). He made sure that he was the first moving creature the ducks saw during their critical period. The ducks followed him everywhere. Imprinting is difficult to undo.
  75. Richard Lazarus -- worked with emotion. Brains process and react to some things without conscious awareness. Some emotional responses don't require conscious thinking. Emotions occur when we appraise an event as beneficial or harmful to ourselves, even though we may not be consciously aware of this appraisal.
  76. Irving Janis -- social psychologist. Said policymakers in government, business, and education usually make decisions "by the seat of their pants." Came up with "groupthink": when in groups, harmonious thinking overrides realistic thinking, especially if a group leader (like a president) shows support for a particular idea. Fed by overconfidence, conformity, self-justification, and group polarization. Apparent in historical fiascos such as the Watergate cover-up, Chernobyl accident, and the explosion of the space shuttle the Challenger.
  77. Philip Zimbardo
  78. Solomon Asch -- world-renowned American Gestalt psychologist and pioneer in social psychology.  He became famous in the 1950s, following experiments dealing with CONFORMITY which showed that social pressure can make a person say something that is obviously incorrect.  (Solomon Asch thought that the majority of people would not conform to something obviously wrong, but the results showed that participants conformed to the majority on 32% of the critical trials. However, 25% of the participants did not conform on any trial.)

 

Most information from textbook "Psychology"

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