Psychology: Notable Psychologists

Empirical philosopher and psychologist, born in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, NE Scotland, UK. He became professor of logic at Aberdeen University (1860–81), and founded the journal Mind in 1876.

French neurologist known for his research into diseases of the nervous system. Sigmund Freud was one of his pupils.

German experimental psychologist who undertook the first systematic and large-scale studies of memory and devised tests using nonsense syllables.

Havelock Ellis, while writing extensively on other subjects also, was a major pioneer in the endeavour to dispel the rigidity and secrecy regarding sexual matters which held sway in Western Europe, not least in Britain, during the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Fechner was one of a small number of German scientists whose work in the nineteenth century laid the foundation for modern experimental psychology.

William James has an interesting (and possibly confusing) family tree, being the son of Henry James, the religious philosopher, and brother of another Henry James, the novelist. He himself was a philosopher and psychologist who taught at Harvard.

Psychologist and neurologist, born in Paris, France. He studied under Jean Martin Charcot, lectured in philosophy, and became the director of the psychological laboratory at La Salpêtrière hospital in Paris (1899), and professor of psychology at the Sorbonne.

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
German psychiatrist who was at the forefront of establishing experimental psychiatry as a research method. His studies led to a new classification of mental illnesses; he identified ‘dementia praecox’ and ‘manic-depressive insanity’ as distinct diseases.

Psychologist and logician, born in Windsor, Connecticut, USA. She studied mathematics at Johns Hopkins University, where she married faculty member Fabian Franklin (1882).

Edward Bradford Titchener, described as the dean of experimental psychology in America during his lifetime, was influential in bringing the ‘new psychology’, the experimental psychology of Wilhelm Wundt and others, to the United States.

German physiologist and psychologist who studied sensory response and is considered a founder of experimental psychology.

Wundt created and developed the first school of psychological thought, structuralism, the basic building block of which was sensation.

Baldwin represents the rather interesting case of a researcher whose early career neatly tracked the empirical path that American psychology took during the years bridging the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but who then seemed to revert to the more philosophical interests and approaches of an earlier time.

Psychologist, the founder of intelligence tests, born in Nice, SE France. Director of physiological psychology.

From The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies
British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. His theory of attachment is an account of the development of secure, intimate, meaningful, enduring, and trusting relationships. The forming of attachment begins in infancy with the child's primary caregiver but has ramifications for the way they relate to others throughout life. Bowlby's theory has had a profound influence on the understanding and treatment of children in every aspects of their lives. It is possibly the most influential 20th-century psychological theory of child development.

Jerome Bruner's contributions can be anchored in three concepts which are concerned with how we learn to mean and to understand others’ meanings. These are intentionality, thinking and culture.

Following contact with Francis Galton early in his life, Cyril Burt's first academic appointment was to Charles Sherrington's Department of Physiology in the University of Liverpool. In 1913 he moved to London as psychologist to the London County Council: the first educational psychologist appointment in Britain.

Psychologist, born in Alma, Wisconsin, USA, the brother of Gerhard Gesell. He studied at Clark and Yale universities, became Director of the Clinic of Child Development at Yale in 1911, and also taught at Yale School of Medicine (1915–48).

Donald Hebb committed himself to psychology late, at the age of 30. After graduating from Dalhousie University without special distinction, except in maths and physics, he became a high school teacher in his home village.

After obtaining his PhD from Columbia, the first decade of Arthur Jensen's life was spent applying Hullian theory to verbal learning. When this theory entered its death throes, Jensen moved fields to the psychology of individual differences, where he concentrated on the field of general intelligence and scholastic performance.

Lawrence Kohlberg was the son of a wealthy businessman. He went to prestigious schools but instead of continuing on the path of privilege he joined the Merchant Marines after leaving high school.

Swiss psychologist, noted for his work on the development of the cognitive functions in children.

Lev Semeonovich Vygotsky grew up in Gomel, near Belarus's borders with Russia and with the Ukraine. His early life and education were those of a well-to-do Jewish family of the time.

Gordon Allport was the youngest of four brothers. His father was a country physician, and the family moved to Ohio shortly after Gordon's birth.

Psychologist, born in New York City, New York, USA. She taught at Barnard College (1930–9), Queens College (1939–46), and Fordham University (1946–79). In 1933 she married psychologist John Porter Foley Jr, a fellow graduate of Columbia University.

When he completed his PhD (an experimental investigation of visual perception) Arnheim worked for five years (1928-33) as assistant editor of a cultural affairs magazine published in Berlin.

Albert Bandura grew up in Mundare, Northern Alberta, Canada. He spent his elementary and high-school years in the village's one and only school. At the University of Iowa he studied with Kenneth Spence (an associate of Clark Hull) and earned a doctorate in clinical psychology.

Psychologist, born in Staffordshire, C England, UK. He studied at London University, taught at Harvard, Clarke, and Duke universities before World War 2, and after the war became director of the Laboratory of Personality Assessment at Illinois University.

from Chambers Biographical Dictionary
Swiss psychologist and educationalist; born in Geneva. After studying there and in Leipzig and Paris, he founded the journal Archives de psychologie (1901). As professor at Geneva from 1908, he was director of the experimental psychology laboratory and in 1912 founded the J J Rousseau Institute for the study of child psychology and educational science. An exponent of Functionalism, he pioneered studies in sleep and problem-solving.

Panamanian-born American psychologist and author who demonstrated the psychological effects of racial segregation and ghetto life.

Psychologist and writer, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He studied at Columbia University (1947 PhD), taught at Rutgers University (1948–9), and practised clinical psychology from 1950.

Psychologist, born in Berlin, Germany. He studied in France and at London University, and was professor of psychology at London University (1955–83). Much of his work was psychometric research into the normal variations of human personality and intelligence.

What have each of the following got in common: decision making, communication, level of aspiration, food deprivation, persuasion, deindividuation in groups, pursuit eye movement and the technology of prehistoric hunting tools? The answer is Leon Festinger.

Although his initial training at the University of Chicago was in clinical psychology, Fiedler has always been interested in industrial and organizational psychology.

Psychologist, born in McConnelsville, Ohio, USA. He studied at Princeton and Edinburgh universities, and taught psychology at Smith College (1928–49) and at Cornell (1949–72).

Harlow's contributions to psychology comprise a series of empirical findings in three main areas: the learning of problem solving, curiosity and manipulation, and the development of affectional systems.

Psychologist, born in Akron, New York, USA. He studied at Michigan and Wisconsin universities, then taught at Wisconsin and (from 1929) in the Institute of Human Relations at Yale, where he conducted experimental research into behaviour and learning processes.

German psychiatrist, philosopher, and theologian. A founder of modern existentialism, he was concerned with human reactions to extreme situations.

Swiss psychiatrist and psychologist; he offered an alternative to Freudian psychoanalysis, developing concepts such as the collective unconscious, with its archetypes, the complex, and personality types.

US psychologist. A professor at Brooklyn College (1937-51) and Brandeis University (1951-61), he is regarded as the founder of humanistic psychology.

David McClelland is the founder and chairman of the Board of MoBer and Co. and Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. His forty years of research have resulted in an internationally recognized theory of human motivation.

American psychologist. A founder of humanistic psychology, he developed client-centered therapy, in which the client directs the focus and pace of each session.

Rorschach's stature has been obscured by the development and partial eclipse of the projective test that bears his name. The only firm links between the two are the reduced set of ten inkblots, accepted by the publisher from the fifteen he had carefully selected, and his theoretic stance.

Name given by Sigmund Freud to a system of interpretation and therapeutic treatment of psychological disorders.

Sigmund Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis and proved to be the most influential writer about the unconscious mind in the twentieth century. In 1900, he published The Interpretation of Dreams, which became a seminal work in the history of psychoanalysis. Not only did it include his ideas about the unconscious and the conscious, it also revealed Freud’s tendency to view many psychological conflicts as rooted in sexuality.

Pioneer psychiatrist, born in Vienna, Austria. He trained in Vienna, and first practised as an ophthalmologist, but later turned to mental disease and became a prominent member of the psychoanalytical group which formed around Sigmund Freud in 1900.

Alexander's contributions lie in the areas of psychoanalytic research, psychotherapy and psychosomatics. He was the most prominent representative of the neo-Freudian Chicago School of psychoanalysis.

German-born US psychoanalytic theorist who contributed to the understanding of human mental development.

Anna Freud (1895-1982) was the youngest of Sigmund Freud's six children and the only one among them who made her father's ideas into her own life work and mission.

First educated by Jewish teachers and Talmudists, Fromm studied sociology with Alfred Weber at Heidelberg. He was trained in psychoanalysis and became a psychoanalyst at the end of the twenties.

German-born US psychoanalyst best known for her concentration on the importance of the environment in the development of character.

Melanie Klein was one of the most influential and controversial psychoanalysts in Britain, one of the current analytic schools being named after her. She trained originally as a nursery-school teacher.

Psychiatrist and writer. He studied medicine in Vienna and, becoming interested in Freud’s theories of sexuality, became associated with Freud’s Psychoanalytic Polyclinic in Vienna.