FTC Forum
ENGLISH => History => Topic started by: MysteRy on May 11, 2014, 09:44:45 AM
-
Aaron Beck
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/aaron-beck.jpg)
Aaron Temkin Beck, the psychologist whose claim to fame is cognitive therapy, was born on July 18th, 1921 in Rhode Island, USA. He studied and graduated from Brown University. His profound theories in cognitive therapy which were developed after years of numerous studies conducted on psychological ailments of addiction, depression and suicide. Accredited as the pioneer of cognitive therapy with its wide application in curing clinical depression, he also developed anxiety scales to measure depression phenomenon he identified and named to segregate one from the other.
A born psychologist that he is, he managed to cure his mother’s depression at a very young age who suffered from it due to two child losses. The man did not decided to become psychologist at a very young age, in fact he was more into studying medicine and organic chemistry so he started studying for the it at Yale medical school. It all began when he started studying as a psychiatry student by chance due to few psychiatry students enrolled at Rhode Island Hospital, at that point in time his journey to becoming a psychologist began.
His inclination in psychology is gauged from the fact that one of his contemporaries brought to light, according to Marjorie Weishaar; Aaron Beck suggested that psychoanalysis can work wonders for treating psychological ailments.
His fascination and belief in psychoanalysis led him to an idea that it can cure illnesses of schizophrenia, neurosis, psychosis and other mental conditions. Being a kind-hearted person, he found this field very engaging because it stimulated him towards gaining his true potential as a psychologist.
After years of spending his time and energy on studying and practicing psychoanalysis it became too monotonous for him as he found a lack of structural framework and scientific evidences to support theories in psychoanalysis and so he switched to cognitive psychology. This shift in his interest led him to some amazing discoveries as it helped him in realizing his true potential as a cognitive psychologist. As a goal oriented and self-made person he is destined to be a ground-breaker that will revolutionize modern psychology through his influential works in cognitive psychology he wants to empower people of their own thoughts and actions and make them see that they can control their lives and become in charge of the situations that disrupts their lives negatively and positively.
Aaron Beck introduced Beck Depression Inventory in 1961 when he began working with more valor and enthusiasm towards his theories in cognitive psychology. The BDI scale is widely used as a critical tool for gauging depression, the BDI scale, much designed like a likert scale, consists of 21 items to identify the seriousness of depression symptoms prevailing in the human mind.
Besides his notable and ground breaking works in cognitive psychology the accomplishments to his name also includes Lasker award in 2006, he is also serving as an honorary president for the academy of cognitive therapy as well as Beck Institute of Cognitive Therapy. He also wrote books mirroring his profound interest in issues and theories relating to cognitive psychology, depression treatment, anxiety disorder and causes and nature of thoughts and actions leading to suicide.
His list of accomplishments does not end here, he has the honor of giving profound lectures in some of the prestigious universities across Pennsylvania and New York. He is the only psychologist who has been awarded by American Psychological Association as well as American Psychiatric Association.
Currently Aaron Beck is serving as the president of a reputable non-profit, The Beck Institute of Cognitive Therapy and Research located at University of Pennsylvania. He has been awarded honorary degrees from Assumption College and Brown University. He has also been bestowed with the “Heinz award” and “Sarnat award” from the Institute of Medicine.
-
Abraham Maslow
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/abraham-maslow.jpg)
Abraham Maslow was an American psychology professor who was born in Brooklyn, New York on April 1, 1908. Maslow remains famous for his contributions to psychology in terms of the theory he proposed otherwise known as The Hierarchy of Needs. He is also known the empathetic, compassionate founder of Humanistic Psychology which entails the focus on every individual’s potential and stresses upon significance of growth and self actualization. Humanistic Psychology, according to Maslow and his kind, states that people are innately good natured. According to his theory, mental and social disorders result as a deviation from a human’s natural ‘goodness.’
Abraham Maslow migrated from Russia; he was the first child among seventh others in his Jewish family. In his notes, he mentioned his childhood as lonesome and rather abysmal and that he enjoyed spending his time perusing fiction and nonfiction in the library. Initially Maslow intended on studying law at City College in New York but he decided to change to University of Wisconsin where he developed interest in psychology. It was in Wisconsin where Maslow found a great mentor and guide in his doctoral advisor Harry Harlow. Maslow commenced teaching at Brooklyn College in 1937 where he continued working as a member to the faculty of the institute. His influences include the famous Gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer as well as well known anthropologist Ruth Benedict. Due to his admiration for these people, Maslow studied and analyzed them for his theories that later on proved to become the foundation of his contributions.
Later on Maslow became the driving force behind humanistic psychology. His hypothesis became well acknowledged theories that included the famous hierarchy of needs in addiction to self actualization. His analysis and experiences formed fundamental subjects in the humanist movement pertaining to psychological studies. In an era where psychologists focused on the clinical aspects of mental and social disorders, Maslow made a significant attempt at understanding and asserting the belief that humans are capable of wonderful, altruistic deeds. His emphasis was on the good nature of his animate surroundings. He extrapolated on human nature, tendencies and how one’s potential and peaks can be materialized into reality. Abraham Maslow paid much attention on the notion to increase one’s personal growth and goodness by dispelling the overtly cold, somewhat insensitive studies other psychologists put forth as their studies.
Interestingly enough, Maslow’s contribution did not sync in well with those of his peers; his theories were deemed too “positive” and “optimistic” for the academics studying them. This criticism did not, however, inhibit Maslow from injecting a strong sense of hope and resurgence in positive psychology. He was highly opposed to the idea of treating humans as “bags of symptoms”; his contributions insisted upon connecting with humans to understand them so they could receive the catharsis and solution they required. In his Hierarchy of Needs, Maslow compassionately explains the needs of human beings in the form of a pyramid. They belong to categories of psychological ones, ones related to love, esteem, self actualization and safety. This pyramid has long described and translated the basic nature of human beings around us. It is because of his genius theory today people can relate to their wants and needs in the form of a simple, colorful pyramid.
-
Albert Bandura
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/albert-bandura.jpg)
“People who believe they have the power to exercise, some measures of control over their lives are more healthier, more effective, more successful than those who lack faith in their ability to effect changes in their lives.” – Albert Bandura
It is not wrong to say that Albert bandura is a living legend in the world of psychology, He is truly a living legend who has proposed theories that proved his mettle against and claimed him fame to the levels of B.F Skinner, Sigmund Freud and Jean Piaget. His name is mentioned against some famous psychologists, including the likes of Sigmund Freud, for his works encompasses around the major contributions in the major spectrums of psychology ranging from social cognitive theory, therapy to personality psychology. Born in Mundare, Canada in 1925 and brought up in a small farming community in Canada after doing his elementary school he had no higher learning opportunities in that city to quench his thirst for knowledge so that lead him into becoming a self motivated learner. He did his BA from University of British Columbia. Then he did his MA from University of Iowa in theoretical psychology.
His first book is based upon the theories and observations behind adolescent aggression. He conducted ‘Bobo doll experiment’ in 1961 which gained fame among the internationally acclaimed psychologists, he conducted this experiment on a young woman spanking a doll, this a kind of doll which sways back and forth when hit by any object as in hammer ,more commonly known as bob clown. The woman objected the clown to physical abuses and shouting out “sockeroo!”, Bandura filmed this video and showed it to a bunch of kids in kindergarten who liked it a lot as per their natural instincts, so they were give a set of bobo dolls and little hammers in front of a bunch of observers to watch on their behaviors. Naturally the little started hammering the bobo dolls with all enthusiasm, so by his experiments he concluded that there is a phenomenon known as observational leaning or modeling, He coined the term social learning theory as an inference for this experiment. The bobo doll experiment provided the basis for child psychology which says that a child learns by observing and repeating what he sees and perceives in the environment.
According to the social learning theory there are some necessary traits that are to be adopted while learning in a social situation, these traits are attention, retention, reproduction, motivation and self-regulation. His ground breaking book based on social learning theory published in 1977 set a new direction for modern psychology in 1980’s. His acclaimed publication in 1986 Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory, in which he proposed that human beings are in control of themselves and have a proactive approach in dealing with life situations and with the choices they make for themselves. He also wrote a book on self-efficacy which is the art of practicing self-control which got published in 1977.
Albert Bandura is a major psychologist of this era who has contributed a great deal in the history of modern psychology. His honorable accolades includes the most youngest president of the American Psychological Association (APA) where he served as the 82nd president of the prestigious association, member of editorial board of the nine psychological journals and Grawmeyer award winner in psychology. His ground breaking theory in self regulated learning earned him the award for distinguished scientific contributions from APA. He also received 16 honorary degrees from universities of repute. As a higher recognition of his works American Psychological Association awarded him with a gold medal recognizing and appreciating his lifetime contributions towards psychology.
-
Albert Ellis
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/albert-ellis.jpg)
Albert Ellis was an American psychologist acknowledged for the proposition of Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), recognized as one of the greatest psychologists who has influenced the society through his works. He is honored for theories that go acclaimed as the ground-breakers in the history of modern psychology. His profound works in the field of Clinical Psychology, Psychotherapy and philosophy enjoys a repute of worldly fame and acknowledgement.
Born at Pittsburg and raised at New York his childhood was not a bed of roses but he survived through his childhood smartly. When he was a child he identified his mother having a bipolar disorder but instead of getting all upset over this issue he tried helping his mother by acting as an adult sibling towards his younger brother and sisters. His mother and father had an irresponsible attitude towards him and his siblings which made him stand on his own feet at a very young age having learnt to turn the hurdles and setbacks to opportunities and successes at a pretty tender age. He wanted to be a novelist but he became a good counselor to his friends with the knowledge he gained and the problems he solved for friends with the passage of time.
He acquired his university education from City University of New York in 1934 and a Ph.D degree in Clinical Psychology from Teachers College at Columbia university. There, he received his training as a psychoanalyst. His interest grew more in clinical psychology with the passage of time. He also realized the effectiveness of psychotherapy at during course of his degree at Columbia University.
His REBT theory works on the principles of ABC: A stands for activating, B stands to belief and C refers to consequences. This theory works by triggering painful experiences or troubles in the past or present that are reasons behind dissatisfaction and unhappiness and beliefs that have or do not have any ground in reality but have become a part of mind that always creates unhappiness, consequences define depression and extreme anger resulting from beliefs and triggering of events from past. According to his theory of REBT he suggested that long term unhappiness caused due to any unpleasant events in the past can be cured by making the unhappy or depressed person realize that he had his share of successes and accomplishments and he is not a complete failure.
Albert Ellis was inspired by the works well renowned scholars of that time including the likes of Adler, Horney, Fromm and Harry Sullivan and they played an influential role in Ellis’s career as a psychologist. His works with America Psychiatric Association are notable and revolutionary in the field of sexology and turned over a new page and gave way to american sexual revolution .
He initiated cognitive behavioral therapies which were proved by scientific evidences. The CBT shaped up modern psychotherapy in many countries and thus helped him gained fame and recognition.
Ellis has enjoyed international repute throughout his professional life. He has large collection of published works and books to his name. He was entitled with “Humanist of the year” by the American Humanist Society in recognition of his profound works in nurturing human minds and freeing them from all kinds of distresses that affects their emotional well-being.
-
Alfred Adler
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/alfred-adler.jpg)
Alfred Adler, the pioneer of individual psychology was born on February 7, 1870 in Rudolfsheim located close to Vienna. He was a medical doctor from Austria as well as a psychotherapist. He laid the foundation of individual psychology which says that human beings are complex individuals, separate from each other. He was very frail as a child often attacked by asthma and other severe medical conditions but it got cured with the passage of time. As a child he was full of curiosity and often took expeditions of children along with him to study different species of animal kingdom.
One of the major works of Alfred Adler is related to the study of individuals from a complete perspective, social as well as individual. His theories regarding personality are much different from that of Sigmund Freud. Adler discussed that humans should not be separated from society and must be studied together to see the effect of one on the other. His thought underlies the perspective that individuals and societies are co-integrated with each other.
Alfred Adler interest lied in studying organic inferiorities and compensation, his interest in this subject grew more when he was working with a circus, he observed that their work includes strength and weaknesses that are not a common phenomena and thus it compelled him towards studying organic inferiorities and compensation.
The much talked about inferiority complex was actually a concept given by Adler. The concept of inferiority complex proposed by him considers organ inferiority as the focal point of this theory. According to him every person suffers from inferiority complex at one point or the other in his life but they usually compensate it in other ways like grooming or attaining a better personality or learning a new skill.
He was invited at a discussion by Sigmund Freud about his theories but Sigmund Freud rejected his ideas. Adler formed free psychoanalytic society in 1911 as a result of disagreement with Sigmund Freud and criticisms of his ideas and concepts regarding individual psychology. While serving the Austrian army during World War I he noticed the damages caused by war so he became more inclined on working towards social interest. Adler certainly had a completely different idea in his mind which conflicted with the most popular concepts of psychology prevailing in that era.
His profound work on child psychology has identified major traits and behavior in children. According to him, lifestyle and personality is developed in early life and he has proposed solid theories regarding childhood psychology.
It is not wrong to say that Alfred Adler was a social idealist concerned with application of psychology towards the betterment of individuals and societal well-being. He wanted to create a holistic view of an individual that is why his theories significantly differed from Sigmund Freud. An individual’s co-integration with the society can create a better and more enduring environment for the survival of the whole society.
-
Alfred Binet
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/alfred-binet.jpg)
Alfred Binet, is the psychologist behind the revolutionary concept of Intelligence quotient or IQ . Born on July 8, 1958 in Nice, France, this man spent his early years in the same city and graduated from law college. He identified his passion for psychology when he wanted to go for medical college but deep in his heart he know that psychology is more important to him so that decision became a turning point in his life for good. At first he started learning about psychology on his own by gaining knowledge from the works of Darwin, Mill, Bain and other notable authors of psychology. He as a worker of French commission developed a scale for gauging the mental age of children. Also the famous invention Intelligence Quotient is very helpful for children who face hurdles in understanding their school’s curriculum effectively. He then started practicing at Salpetriere hospital in Paris with John Martin Charcot as his mentor. He got the position of associate director and researcher after serving at Salpetriere Hospital where he worked as an experimental psychologist. He served at this position till his death.
One of the most notable and fascinating aspect of Binet is that he never studied for a formal degree in psychology instead he gained more insights into the subject by self-learning. This says a lot about the his passion which led him to achieve greater heights in the subject.
Alfred Binet joined French government to conduct his studies on child intelligence by gauging their mental capabilities according to their ages. He, along with his counterpart, Theodore Simon, designed an IQ testing system which identified the mental strengths and capabilities of a child also the test to compare their mental age with their chronological or real age. This scale was named Binet-Simon intelligence scale, after the two psychologists Binet and Simon.
Like everyone else Binet also had his share of failures, when he got his first work published in 1880, it suffered the fate of plagiarism much to his disappointment. After that misfortune he started his job at Salpetriere hospital in Paris with Charcot who was trusted a lot by Binet. Together they proposed a theory about perceptual polarization through testing their findings and ideas about the concept but to their misfortune the theory did not get approval and recognition and all their hard work went down the drain, this was the major setback faced by him, perhaps he faced this failure due the lack of formal degree and training in psychology. He did not loss hope though, he learned to use his failure as a stepping stone to success.
He got married to Edouard-Gérard Balbiani, from whom he had two daughters and they proved to be a success for his career. He conducted studies regarding cognitive processes on them through which the foundations of devising intelligence tests were laid as he made the concept of intelligence tests around attention span and cognitive development. His profound works on intelligence tests earned him accolades. He got the much prestigious laureate award by French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, as a well Worth Prize Money Award. He was selected as a member of French biological society in recognition for his notable works in the field of psychobiology. After his death in 1917 the free society for the psychological study of the child changed their name after Alfred Binet in recognition for his priceless efforts and contributions to psychology. The free society named itself as La Societe Alfred Binet. Even after 50 years of his death his works on intelligence tests is appreciated and recognized and is considered as one of the most momentous developments by Science Mag.
-
Alfred Kinsey
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/alfred-kinsey.jpg)
Alfred Charles Kinsey was a person of multiple talents and interests, he was a biologist, entymology and zoology professor and a sexologist. He founded The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction at Indiana University. His works on human sexuality has greatly influenced the American culture, norms and thinking.
Born on June 23rd,1894 in New Jersey, Kinsey was the eldest of the three children. He faced a distressed and troublesome childhood mainly because his parents had troubles making both ends meet and he faced severe health problems but did not have medical facilities because of poverty. As a young child he was inclined towards nature and camping. His interest in psychology was revealed when he prepared his undergraduate thesis on psychology with title of Group Dynamics in Young Boys. This thesis spoke volumes about his aptitude in psychology. He received his early education from Columbia school where he showed that he was a diligent and hard-working student. He was keen and interested in studying biology and for fulfilling this purpose he joined Bowdoin college, Maine against his father’s wish who wanted him to study engineering. He obtained his bachelor of science degrees in biology and psychology from the college in 1916. After that, he went to Harvard University to study for PhD in biology and successfully obtained the degree. He taught as zoology at Indiana University at Bloomfield.
His renowned acclamation includes being the first psychologist to have developed a large scale inquiry systems for assisting him in conducting researches on human sexuality. Though his researches provoked controversies and raised question about american morals and culture but his works, researches and books acquired international fame and repute, eventually. Pioneer of American sexology, he studied and proposed different theories and practices concerning this subject. He, also designed and developed a scale which measured sexual orientation , widely known as Kinsey Scale, ranged from zero to six where zero is completely heterosexual and 6 is completely homosexual. His first lecture concerning sexual structure and the physiological make-up was his first public discussion conducted at Indiana University which presented the idea that late marriages are essentially counter-productive to health. He got scholarship from Rockefeller Foundation to gain more knowledge and conduct more studies on the subject of human sexology.
He got fame as celebrity when his two books on sexual behavior in human species got published 1948. These publications got world-wide recognition as Kinsey’s Reports. His works earned him such fame and popularity that reputable magazines like Times, Life, Look carried out articles on him. He attained media recognition by these publications. His very first television program with Jack Benny as the host was much like a hidden humour program. Although his theories on this subject raised controversies but it gave way to American revolution in 1960’s. He is regarded as a significant yet controversial personality in the American history. He died of pneumonia and heart attack on 25th August 1956.
-
Alhazen
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/alhazen.jpg)
“The duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.”- Al-Hazen
Alhazen was an accomplished Muslim scientist, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher and polymath from the “Golden Age” of Muslim civilization. Born in 965 in Basra, he became well-known as a physicist in medieval Europe. He is famously known as the “Father of experimental physics, modern optics and scientific methodology”. He is also well regarded as the first theoretical physicist. He was the first to realize that a hypothesis needs to be tested through verifiable experiments or mathematical proof, thus developing the scientific method 200 years before it was adopted by European scientists.
His ground breaking works in the field of optics has been penned-down in his 7-volume book entitled Kitab al-Manazir (Book of Optics), considered one of the greatest contributions to the field after Ptolemy’s Almagest. It was translated to Latin in 1270 and many renowned scientists based their work on this book. Alhazen was the first to describe accurately the structure of the eye and how it works. He contradicted Ptolemy’s and Euclid’s theory of vision which stated that eyes send out radiation to the object and maintained that the rays originated at the object. His focal point of research in the field of catoptrics was spherical mirrors, parabolic mirrors and spherical aberration. He observed that the ratio between the angle of incidence and the angle of refraction does not remain the same. He also studied the magnifying power of a lens. During his research on catoptrics, he came up with a problem now known as “Alhazen’s Problem” which led to the solution of the problem: “Given a light source, find the point on the mirror which would reflect the light to the eye of the observer”. The method he employed used equation of the fourth degree and he is often credited with developing the formula for expansion of the sum of any integral power.
In the field of mathematics, Alhazen reconciled algebra with geometry to form a new branch called analytic geometry. In number theory, his contributions involve solving problem of congruences using what is now known as the Wilson’s Theorem. He also made significant contribution to the field of astrophysics. In his book, Meezan Al-Hikmah (Balance of Wisdom), he discussed the density of atmosphere and its relationship to height. Using this theory, he also attempted to measure the height of homogenous atmosphere. He presented a detailed description of the structure of the earth and also made a model of the motion of the planets without the inherent contradictions that were present in Ptolemy’s model.
Alhazen wrote more than two hundred books, very few of which have survived. For his contribution to astronomy, a crater on the moon has been named Alhazen after him. His face is featured on 10,000 Iraqi dinar banknote. Aga Khan University, Pakistan named its Ophthalmology endowed chair after him to celebrate his work in optics.
-
Alice Miller
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/alice-miller.jpg)
Alice Miller was an eminent polish psychologist as well as an author. Born on January 12th 1923 in Poland she studied for her doctorate degree in psychology, sociology and philosophy at University of Basel in Switzerland. She found her first interest in psychoanalysis on which she wrote three books based on her studies and observations but she found out that psychoanalysis was not feasible enough to serve everybody and deal with the influential aspects of psychology, so after 20 years of being a psychoanalysis practitioner she stopped her practice in the field and started an in-depth study of factors causing and effecting child abuse. She wrote a book, Thou Shalt Not Be Aware: Society’s Betrayal of the Child, for which she was bestowed with the Janusz Korczak literary award in 1986. She analyzed the commonly acceptable childhood abuses such as spanking in the trauma model which she called as poisonous pedagogy, a phrase adopted from Katharina Rutschky’s work originally known as Schwarze Pädagogik and translated as black or dark pedagogy/imprinting. She formulated a trauma model based on the theory of poisonous pedagogy. Poisonous pedagogy describes the methods of bringing up a child that are harmful to their growth and nourishment as in abuses and extreme controlling behavior of parents.
According to the studies conducted by her on child mistreatment and abuse it consisted of all sorts of humiliations starting from the most common spanking to a parent emotionally detaching a child from oneself. Child abuse is one of the most common social dilemmas, according to her that is not only damaging to a child’s social growth but also has a deep seated negative impact on his future well being. According to her propositions on child abuse, it is not about physical or sexual abuse but it is actually the mental torture and abuses that are hurled at a child by his parents which damages a child’s personality. The effects of abuse are often left unidentified until and unless a serious problem in the form of mental illness shows up in the person. All types of mental illnesses which results mostly in a rebellious attitude like involvement in crimes and other damaging activities are an outcome of childhood sufferings in the form of mental abuses that are left unidentified and eventually uncured. The reason behind this is that parents are considered to be a superior authority in every culture and even psychologists are not at all comfortable and confident enough to blame parents for their child’s psychological issues.
Alice Miller was also a gifted and well known writer, her first book, The Drama of a Gifted Child, published in 1979 was about childhood deprivation of love and it’s after effects in adult life, she also wrote a book titled as Abbruch der Schweigemauer (The Demolition of Silence) in which negated the psychotherapists critically who suggested that the victims of emotional abuse should forgive their parents, Miller pointed out this suggestion as completely irrational as this could further increase the suffering. Her other works and publications include Banished knowledge, The Untouched Key which comprised an in depth analysis and theories on childhood abuse.
-
Anna Freud
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/anna-freud.jpg)
Anna Freud is considered the co-founder of psychoanalytic child psychology along with Melanie Klein. She was born on 3rd December 1895 in Vienna, Austria. Her formal education did not play a significant role in her learning instead, she gained a lot of knowledge and learned from her father Sigmund Freud and the guests he hosted at home. She learnt and became fluent in many languages including German, Hebrew and French by serving them as a host. Born as the sixth and last child to Sigmund Freud and Martha Barneys she worked extensively on psychoanalysis with his father. She spent an unhappy childhood which instigated a yearning in her to study child psychology.
Anna was more focused on studying about children and adolescents, unlike, her father who was more into adult psychoanalysis. She made a profound impact on development of ego psychology; she always followed her father’s theories and proposition regarding the subject. She described the mechanism of defense system of the human psyche as well as that of adolescents. The Freudian concept of psychology well known as ego psychology represents today the social and developmental issues that are surrounded by Freudian concept. Anna Freud was not particularly a theoretician. Her interests and inclinations were more devoted towards development of children and adolescents whereas his father was more into adult psychology. Dealing with children as a therapist is a different matter altogether as their defense mechanisms are not built and they cannot express their emotions more clearly so Anna Freud designed and developed a different methodology to deal with adolescents.
She contributed a lot to the study of personality and her contributions mainly came through the studies conducted when she was working at Hampstead Child Therapy Clinic in London. She found out, that the major problem lied among the communication between therapists as well as there was a different method of dealing with children than with adults. She studied that a child’s problem should be dealt and solved on an immediate basis after studying his behavior in different aspects of his life, if there was major difference in his eating pattern, his relationships, attitudes and his lifestyle from other children of his age then it was to be assumed by a clinician that there is a shortcoming that should be addressed promptly. A child is in his developmental stages of life and so his problems should be resolved on immediate basis to strengthen healthy mind and body.
Many of her works were published as books, The Writings of Anna Freud and The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defense both are masterpieces of modern psychology. Anna Freud’s significant contribution to psychoanalysis started off by her first article on beating fantasies which reflected her own inner life about how she actually felt and the emotional experiences that surrounded her. She worked on child development and wrote a book titled, Introduction to the Technique of Child Analysis. Though she did a lot of work on child development and other aspects of psychoanalysis, she never deviated from the theoretical backgrounds laid by his father in the field of psychoanalysis.
-
B. F. Skinner
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/b-f-skinner.jpg)
“We should not teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.” – B. F. Skinner
Burrhus Frederick Skinner(B. F. Skinner), the man well known as a behaviorist, psychologist, author, inventor and social philosopher was born on March 20th 1904, the man proved himself to be an accomplished psychologist by writing a whole new chapter in behavioral psychology. He was born and raised in Pennsylvania where he received his early education, after which he graduated from Hamilton college in New York where he decided to become a writer. His theories on behaviorism have made a profound impact on developing a revolutionary school of thought known as Radical Behaviorism.
One of his ground-breaking inventions was the operant conditioning chamber, which is also called Skinner box. The skinner box consisted of a lever, a food tray and a rat which can feed itself by pressing the lever. Each time a rat was put into that box it would run and sniff around for the food eventually identifying the correct spot, pressing the lever and getting the food pellet. After the first successful attempt, the rat got used to the box and hit many successful attempts resulting in getting food as a reward until it satiated its hunger. BF Skinner formulated the principle of reinforcement through this experiment. The studies indicated and confirmed his belief that human free will is not a phenomenal reality but an indicator of results produced by the actions performed. Reinforcement processes indicated that a positive action beget a positive consequence and a negative action beget a negative consequence, so positive and negative consequences of actions reinforces a person to perform what brings about a positive outcome or reward and avoid the negative actions to stay clear of punishments. He redefined the meaning of free will by proposing the revolutionary concept of behaviorism. The therapy technique of behavior modification resulted from his theories on reinforcement and behaviorism. The significant concept identified by proposition of this theory is reinforcement which can be controlled by shaping. Shaping and controlling are the fundamental concepts underlying theory of reinforcement. B. F. Skinner also conducted his experiments on a device called verbal summator to analyze the theories of verbal behavior and he also conducted an analysis about superstitious phenomena on pigeons.
He had earned numerous awards and positions in rewards for his phenomenal works to the field of psychology. American Psychological Association bestowed him with and Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions in 1958, other accreditations to his name include “Scholar Hall of Fame Award” given by the Academy of Human Resource Development. He was awarded honorary degrees by universities of great repute including Alfred College, Harvard University and John Hopkins University, University of Chicago and McGill University. B. F. Skinner also penned down some notable books which proved his mettle as a great writer, the books he wrote include Walden Two and Beyond Freedom and Dignity.
-
Carl Gustav Jung
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/carl-gustav-jung.jpg)
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.” ~ Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was an accomplished Swiss psychotherapist as well as the psychiatrist who laid the foundation of analytic psychology. He formulated the theories of introverted and extroverted personality traits and differentiated them. His works have played an influential role in psychiatry, religion and literature studies. Individuation is the underlying concept in analytical psychology which is related to the connection between the conscious and unconscious. According to Jung individuation plays a major role in human development. He was known to have founded some of the well known psychological concept which included collective unconscious, complex and synchronicity. One of the most popular and widely applicable personality test Myers-Briggs type indicator is designed and developed based on the theories of Jung.
Born on 26th July 1875 Thurgau, Switzerland he spent a rather depressed childhood. He showed no interest in studying psychology until he read about psychoses as personality diseases in psychiatry textbook. Jung also came to know that biological and spiritual factors are combined together in psychoses. That triggered his interest and inspired him to acquire a degree in medicine from University of Basel. After which he started working for a psychiatric hospital in Zurich known as Burghölzli. He published his thesis in 1903 which was titled “On the Psychology and Pathology of So -Called Occult Phenomena”. His next publication “Studies in word-association” in 1906 started his friendship with Sigmund Freud which lasted till six years. This break up occurred in 1912 when Carl Gustav Jung published a book “Psychology of the Unconscious” which showed major differences with the theories of Sigmund Freud.
According to the theories presented by him about the self, Carl Jung considered self realization to be one of the most significant goals of life. Self realization is a stage of life which makes a person selfless and brings him closer to nature and other people. Synchronicity is the linkage between two events that are meaningfully related to each other. The theory of synchronicity presented by Jung indicated that there is a connection between collective unconscious of human beings. He also coined the most famous terms of introversion and extroversion as personality types, introverts being the ones that are involved in themselves and enjoy solitude whereas extroverts to be more inclined to reach out people and activities in the outer world. It was also Jung who proposed the basic functions of dealing and interacting with the world whether a personality is introverted or extroverted; these functions are sensing, intuiting, thinking, feeling, judging and perceiving.
He exercised an immense influence on popular psychology, spirituality and new age. He was also a great writer whose works consists of 19 volumes, most of which were translated into English after his death. He died on 6th June 1961. His works are collected in a book titled “The Collected Works of C. G. Jung”. He penned downed another book “Analytical Psychology: Its Theory & Practice” which consists of his lectures and theories.
-
Carl Rogers
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/carl-rogers.jpg)
Carl Ransom Rogers was one of the most prominent figures in the history of psychology, well known as the founder of humanistic approach. His influential works have given way to new dimensions in psychology and created a profound impact on psychotherapy, counseling and education. He was born on January 8th 1902 in Chicago, Illinois.
Rogers received his early education in a religious environment followed by studying scientific methods and its application in a practical world. He chose agriculture as his first field of study at University of Wisconsin-Madison, followed by history and religion. Then, he went on to attend International Christian Conference at age 20, after that he decided to change his career paths and attended Teachers College at Columbia University from where he obtained his MA in 1928 and PhD in 1931. After completing his work for PhD degree he engaged himself in child behavioral studies where he held office as the director of The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in New York. Serving as a professor of psychology at University of Chicago he got elected as the president of American Psychological Association. During this period he also wrote “On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy” in 1961.
He worked with Abraham Maslow in laying grounds for humanistic psychology, the major applications of his theory included person-centered therapy, learner centered teaching, cross cultural relations and rogerian rhetorical approach. The theories that he presented on self consisted of 19 propositions, the first one said that every living organism had a sense of their well-being, they know what was threatening or nourishing for them. He termed this notion as organismic valuing. He proposed this idea based on evolution according to which man understands and differentiates between his needs and their fulfillment. Positive regard is the most valuable emotion among humans which includes all the positive emotions like love, appreciation, affection, respect and attention to lead a prosperous and successful life. Positive regard also gives way to nurture positive self-regard which is the self-esteem of a person, what he perceives himself to be in his own eyes, how he values and worth himself.
Carl Rogers used the term person-centered approach to devise applications related to personality theory, interpersonal relations, cross cultural relations and professions like nursing and teaching that need extensive human care and support. Person centered approach was initially named as client centered approach, this approach was devised when Carl Rogers was conducting therapeutic sessions with his clients. His helper, Elias Porter measured the employment of directiveness and non-directiveness by the counselor in maintaining the effectiveness standard of the therapy. Learner centered teaching was another concept that Roger devised and emphasized upon by concluding that learning occurs in a free environment. He wrote “Freedom to Learn” in 1969 to describe this theory. American Psychological Association recognized his works and bestowed him with an Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions in accreditation for his exemplary works to the field of psychology. Also, he was awarded with Humanists of the Year in 1964 by American Humanist Association. He had the honor of being the sixth prominent psychologist of 20th century.
-
Carol Gilligan
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/carol-gilligan.jpg)
Carol Gilligan is the only child of a lawyer William Friedman and nursery school teacher Mabel Kaminez. Born on November 28th, 1936, brought up by Jewish family in New York City, she is a notable American feminist, ethicist and psychologist. She acquired her BA in English literature from Swarthmore College and Master’s degree in clinical psychology from Radcliffe college, her academic accomplishments does not end here as she obtained her Ph.D in sociology from the prestigious Harvard university.
She started off her career as a teacher in 1967 at Harvard university where she got an opportunity to teach at Harvard Graduate School of Education. She resigned from Harvard in 2002 to start her tenure as a full-fledged professor in New York University at their school of law and school of education. She gained fame while working with Lawrence Kohlberg on ethical relationships and ethical community.
She studied conducted research on women’s psychology and wrote a book based on it and entitled it as “In a different voice” published by Harvard university press in 1982. She also wrote her first novel Kyra in 2008. Carol Gilligan’s work on the theory of moral development holds an important place in the explanation of real life dilemmas. The implication of this theory is based on the fact that there are many important factors than justice which contributes to the development of a human being. She was the first psychologist who considered gender differences in the moral development. She considered the difference in mental processes of men and women as a variable that effects the moral development based on the difference of genders. Carol Gilligan observed that young girls are more inclined towards love, care, affection and meaningful relationships with other humans whereas young boys are more focused on justice. She suggested that this difference in feelings and values is due to different gender makeup and the relationship enjoyed by the person with his or her mother. She also observed that a woman has three transition phases in which she recognizes and adapts to her roles and responsibilities. At the first stage when she is growing up as a child she works for her own survival which is termed as selfishness by Gilligan, at the second stage she starts to become responsible as a young adult caring more for others and becoming less self-centered, this is the stage where she learns to equate goodness with sacrificing and then the final stage is where she takes on the responsibilities of the consequences of her actions achieving the level of self-acceptance. Her works on moral development influenced a lot of other psychologists who opted to work on moral development, which served as a positive outcome of Carol Gilligan’s psychological works and observations on morality or moral development.
She is currently associated as a professor with New York University as well as serving at University of Cambridge as a visiting professor. She earned a name in Time Magazine’s Influential Americans with 25 other people in 1996. Recently, she has been awarded with Mr. L Award 4th period in 2013.
-
Charles Spearman
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/charles-spearman.jpg)
Charles Spearman was well known as the pioneer of factor analysis as a statistical technique to reduce and interpret data. He was the first psychologist who used the application of mathematical models for analyzing and interpreting the complexities present in human mind. He was an English psychologist who gave the concept of General intelligence or more commonly g factor through which he defined intelligence as a cognitive ability which can be measured and expressed numerically. Using the technique of factor analysis, he conducted a study to prove this theory through which he observed and inferred that people with higher intelligence levels did well on series of mental aptitude tests whereas people with lower intelligence did not perform well enough on all these tests. His most famous statistical invention Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient is used to measure statistical dependence between two variables.
Born in London, United Kingdom on 10th September 1863 he showed an unusual talent and ability of becoming a psychologist from childhood. He started off his career by joining the British army. After serving the British army for 15 years he resigned to study for a PhD in experimental psychology. Since Spearman had no previous required qualifications for the degree of his choice he decided to study at University of Leipzig, Germany, which had liberal entrance policies, under the supervision of Wilhelm Wundt. Spearman’s numerous achievements also include his association as a professor of mind and logic in place of William McDougall at University College, London. Mcdougall got so impressed by the aptitude and capabilities of Spearman that he recommended him to teach at University College, London as a substitute for him. Spearman stayed and taught at University College, London until he retired in 1931. He obtained the entitlement of professor of psychology in 1928 when a separate department of psychology was created at the university.
His most influential g factor theory served as a stepping stone for intelligence theories. He identified g as a specific quantity which came out as an outcome of statistical operations. He also divided the intelligence score of a person into two categories, the one which remains constant over the period of time termed as general factor or g whereas the other which changes from time to time classified as specific factor. He also proposed that g factor is composed of two different capabilities that are related to each other very closely. He identified these two abilities as “eductive” and “reproductive” ability. There was another factor observed by Charles Spearman in assessing intelligence which he named as special factor. Individuals who scored higher on tests persistently possessed the special factor in intelligence.
Charles Spearman’s works were influenced by Hans Eysenck, Philip Vernon, Cyril Burt and Arthur Jensen but the strongest influences on his work were from Francis Galton who first developed correlation as a statistical tool in psychology. His notable accomplishments also included becoming the fellow member of the Royal society in London. Spearman breathed his last on 17th September, 1945 in London, United Kingdom.
-
Daniel Kahneman
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/daniel-kahneman.jpg)
“When you analyze happiness it turns out that the way you spend your time is extremely important”- Daniel Khaneman.
Daniel Khaneman is an Israeli-American psychologist who is well known for his ground-breaking works on decision making, behavioral economics, hedonic psychology and judgment of psychology. He was born on March 5th 1984 in TelAviv, Israel. He spent the early years of his life in Paris, France where he was brought up and raised by his immigrant parents. He acquired his PhD in psychology from University of California, Berkeley and previously did his B. Sc in Psychology from University of Hebrew, Israel.
He started his academic career as a lecturer in Psychology at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His first publication was “Pupil Diameter and Load on Memory” in a renowned Journal “Science”. It focused upon attention and visual perceptions. He also served as a visiting scientist at the University of Michigan as well as at the Applied Psychology Research Unit in Cambridge. He developed a cognitive basis for common human errors which is based upon heuristics and biases. He also proposed prospect theory which concentrates on real-world judgments of people in taking decisions and suggests that people choose alternatives when the outcomes of the alternatives they choose are known and use heuristics when making their decisions. The prospect theory earned him the prestigious Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. His theories presented on judgment and decision making is proposed in collaboration with Amos Tversky. Both of them published a series of articles representing their works in the general field of judgment and decision making. “Belief in the law of small numbers” was their first joint paper which got published in 1971. “Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases”, their second paper was also published in “Science” magazine, This paper introduced the concept and idea of anchoring which is the inclination of humans to rely to a great extent on the first information they receive regarding their decision-making. He observed that the phenomenon of anchoring takes place when people use the first available information without any further investigation to make judgments for their decisions.
Daniel Khaneman was bestowed with the Nobel Prize in Economics Sciences. He was also honored with the Grawemeyer Award for Psychology by the University of Louisvelle in 2003. He also received the honor of being the 101th Israeli of all times by a public poll conducted in Israel by a news channel YNET. Currently, he is serving as a professor emeritus of public affairs and psychology at Princeton’s University’s Woodrow Wilson School. He serves as a member of National Academy of sciences and many other prestigious institutions including the likes of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, The Philosophical Society, The American Psychological Society, The Econometric Society and The Society of Experimental Psychologists. He also possesses entrepreneurial skills as he is also a co-founder of a philanthropy and business consulting company known as The Greatest Good. One of his greatest accolades includes Lifetime Contribution Award for the American Psychological Association.
-
David Buss
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/david-buss.jpg)
David Buss is a professor of psychology at University of Texas, Austin. He is known for his evolutionary psychology research on mate selection with the basis on human sex differences. His profound works on human mating strategies defines and distinct his works in the field of psychology. Born on April 14th, 1953 he acquired his PhD in psychology from University of California, Berkeley.
He is most distinguished for his works and in depth researches in human mating strategies and their relationships, conflicts arising between the sexes, prestige, social reputation, status, emotional jealousy, homicide and most recently the issues related to stalking. David Buss along with K. H. Craik has also analyzed and investigated on how certain traits specifically make up a personality. He proposed the idea of Prototype theory into psychology of personality which says that traits are used as a categorization of a personality which means that how strongly a trait defines a certain personality. David buss differentiated between the short term and long term mating strategies. He used the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory (SOI-R) for determining that if the person is in favor of a long term serious relationship or a short term hookup. According to David Buss’s research along with his colleagues he concluded through the experiment that men who showed a woman’s face preferred a long term mating relationship whereas the other category of men who showed woman’s body have an inclination towards keeping a short term mating strategy. The same experiment was conducted with women but they revealed no specific feature to determine their mating strategy for David Buss and his team. According to their researches men and women face different challenges in terms of their role and gender which determines their behavior today. Women face the challenges of pregnancy, bringing up a child effectively enough to ensure his survival giving them the utmost care whereas men face the challenges of providing resources, gene transfers to the off springs and surviving through the uncertainty that becoming a parent brings with it.
David Buss has also devised Strategic Interference Theory (SIT) which states that men and women deal differently with intersexual deception. Women as emotional beings get more distressed over their partner’s involvement with others whereas men get emotionally worked up over their partner’s display of sexual infidelity and lies.
David Buss has the honor of being bestowed with the Distinguished Scientific Award for early career contribution to psychology as well as APA G. Stanley Hall Lectureship along with numerous other awards. He has also penned down numerous books related to his researches. One of his distinguished books, The Murderer Next Door presents an evolutionary perspective of modern theory of homicide. His many other books include The Dangerous Passion and The Evolution of Desire. He has also been involved with cross-cultural researches extensively as well as giving lectures throughout United States. One of his famous books Evolutionary Psychology: The new science of Mind has been published in its fourth edition in 2011.
-
David McClelland
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/david-mcclelland.jpg)
David McClelland was a well-known American psychological theorist who was the founder of Need Theory. Born on May 20th, 1917 in Mt. Vernon, New York, USA. He acquired his PhD in psychology from Yale University in 1941. Before that, he had obtained his bachelor of arts from Wesleyan University in 1938 and following year he had done his MA from University of Missouri. He had also served as a teacher at Connecticut College and Wesleyan University before becoming a faculty member at the prestigious Harvard University in 1956. He served Harvard University for thirty years as a chairman of the department of social relations.
David McClelland most famous theory of needs earned him many prestigious accolades and awards. The theory of needs is found in different degrees in almost all the workers and managers. He categorized the need theory into three sub-categories which are known as the need for achievement (n-ach), the need for authority and power (n-pow) and the need for affiliation (n-affil).The need for achievement defines the type of personality who has an innate desire to achieve, which seeks achievement through the attainment of realistic and possible but challenging goals, the second type of person who has innate need for power and authority. He has the desire to be influential and effective through power and authority. He wants to gain a personal reputation and social status by fulfilling his need for exercising power. The third need is the need for affiliation which says that a person with this need is motivated by maintaining friendly relations and effective interactions with the people. People with this need also possess great team playing capabilities. They have a need to be liked and becoming popular. McClelland also suggested that most of the people have multiple characteristics, the motivational needs or mix determines a person’s behavior and affects to a great deal his working style and behavior. He proposed that a manager who has a strong need for affiliation will eventually fall out in achieving his objective as he will concentrate more on maintaining friendly and cordial relations with his employees whereas a manger who has greater need for power and authority maintains strong work ethics and commitment to his work. They are attracted to attaining leadership roles in the organization but they cannot maintain flexibility and friendliness in dealing with his employees and colleagues. David McClelland also suggested that people having great motivation for achievement can become the best leaders but their setback is that they expect their staff to be driven towards achievement like them which of course, is not possible. McClelland firmly believed that people who have need for achievement make things happen.
He has the honor of being awarded for distinguished scientific contributions by the American Psychological Association. He has penned down several books on his works, observations and researches. Most of his books are related to achievement motivation. The Achievement Motive, and, The Achieving Society are two of the many other books and publications by him. David McClelland died on March 27, 1998.
-
Edgar Schein
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/edgar-schein.jpg)
Edgar Henry Schein is recognized as one of the most prominent psychologists in the field of organizational development. It is not wrong to say that he is well known as an American business theorist due to his extensive works in the field of organizational development has played an important role in the determination of variables that form an important position in the study and procedures of a sophisticatedly developed organization. His educational background comprises of studying at three prestigious universities including University of Chicago, Stanford University and Harvard University, from where he earned his PhD in Social Psychology.
Born on March 5th, 1928 in Zurich, he is an American by nationality. According to the theories of organizational development prepared by Edgar Schein an organization’s culture which is made up of the values and beliefs does not develop instantly, it is a long and intricate process which requires time and adjustments on the part of employees especially to develop and take the organizations to the newer levels. Edgar Schein’s theories in the field of organizational development comprises of the studies conducted on group process consultation, organizational culture and career development. The famous terminology of corporate culture was also coined by him that reflects the collective norms and behavior of people forming an organization. The Schein’s model of organizational culture presented in 1980’s comprises of three different levels an organization culture. Schein identified and categorized them as artifacts and behaviors, espoused values and assumptions. Artifacts and behaviors are defined as elements that sets the behavioral norms and standards in an organization. It includes the dress codes, furniture and architecture, office humor that altogether reflects the culture prevailing in an organization. They are the visible elements that make up the corporate culture of an organization. Espoused values represents the company is represented in terms of its shared values and belief system. The third and the last component shared basic assumptions are known as the norms and behaviors that are embedded deep within the culture of an organization. These behaviors are taken for granted and very well integrated within the office dynamics that are hardly recognizable. The importance of Schein’s model is highlighted to understand the organizational culture prevailing at different levels. To bring about change in the organizational culture is one of the uphill tasks, it has to be managed with dedication and creativity as it is a very intricate process that requires complex interactions with humans and their environment.
As a distinguished psychologist in his field of research, he has won many notable accolades including the lifetime achievement award in workplace learning and performance of the American society for training directors, Award for career scholarship in 2000 as well as the well-deserved Marion Gislason Award for :eadership in executive development presented to him by the BU school of Management Executive Development Roundtable, again in 2002. Currently, he serves as a professional fellow at the prestigious American Psychological Association as well as the Academy of Management.
-
Edward Thorndike
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/edward-thorndike.jpg)
Edward Lee Thorndike was a well known an American psychologist. Born on 31st August 1874 in Massachusetts, United States he worked on animal behavior. He has the honor of laying the foundation for modern educational psychology with the help of his proposed theory on connectionism. Thorndike’s theory on learned behavior is formed on the basis of operant conditioning and classical conditioning. Also, employee exams and testing comprises of his major works based on solving industrial problems. He served as a member of the board of psychological corporation, he also has the honor of serving as the president of the prestigious American Psychological Association.
Edward Thorndike acquired his early education from The Roxbury Latin School. He completed professional degrees of BS and MA from Wesleyan College and Harvard University, respectively. Animal learning was the main area of his interest, while studying in Harvard with William James he set up an experiment to study animal learning. For this experiment he designed a puzzle box and placed the cat in it and the cat was allowed to escape to reach out for the fish. The cat used to stumble upon the lever first accidently but then it became a learned behavior for it through pressing the lever repeatedly. He devised the Law of Effect through this experiment. He soon found his interest in studying man upon which he spent his entire life. He obtained his PhD from Columbia University in 1969. His PhD thesis was supervised by James McKeen Cattell, the pioneer of psychometrics. He got employed at the College for women of Case Western Reserve at Cleveland. He was unhappy at his initial job but things became much better and happier for him when he started teaching psychology at Teacher’s College in Columbia University. This job worked wonders for him as he spent a major portion of his career teaching at this university. He studied mental testing, human learning and education during his lifelong tenure at Columbia University. He was the first psychologist to use nonhuman subjects in his thesis entitled as “Animal Intelligence: An Experimental Study of the Associative Processes in Animals”. He was also known as an expert in designing tests. While working for US Army during World War he designed the Alpha and Beta versions of tests now known as ASVAB. It is basically a multiple choice questions conducted under the supervision of United States military entrance processing command used to assess the qualifications needed to list the eligible candidates for United States Armed Forces.
Edward Thorndike played a remarkable role in contributing to the field of psychology. Animal psychology and behaviorism are his major fields of accomplishments including many others. He has won prestigious accolades as an accomplished psychologist including the designation of the president of American Psychological Association as well as the well deserved membership at National Academy of Arts in 1917. He died on August 9th, 1949.
-
Elizabeth Loftus
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/elizabeth-loftus.jpg)
Elizabeth Loftus is one of those eminent psychologists famous for her ground breaking works and contributions in fields of cognitive psychology and human memory. Born in Los Angeles on October 16th, 1944 she completed BA in Psychology and Mathematics from University of California, Los Angeles. After that she did her MA and PhD in 1970 from Stanford University. She started off her career by becoming a researcher at New School for social research in 1970. Misinformation effect and eye-witness testimony are her major ground breaking works in the fields of psychology.
Her theories also laid solid foundations for solving legal issues. She discovered that memory is amazingly delicate and imaginative which led to her works on malleability of the brains. Her researched on Semantic Information in Long Term Memory during first phase of her career in academics at New School For Social Research in New York City but she realized soon that she needs to work on subjects more relevant and important to social sciences. She became an assistant professor at University of Washington and started a brand new research on the functioning of memory in the real world which formed the basis for empirical studies in eyewitness testimony. Her research work entitled as “Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction” suggested through real life observations that the words of the questions asked changes the memories of the subjects. Then, she further investigated that if questions were asked ahead or if the information provided to the subjects is misguiding then does it affect profoundly on human memory? In order to investigate this research question she designed and developed misinformation effect paradigm which showed that human memory is highly malleable and highly receptive and open to the suggestions presented by the outside world and sources. The incorrect information presented to the subjects will lead them to identifying and revealing the correct information and facts. The misinformation effect gained fame and became one of the most well-known effects in the field of psychology that had a great influence on the later psychological developments in the field of Cognitive Psychology representing the intricacies of human memory. Her work on this theory also generated many follow-up studies that became the examining factors for studying the changing conditions of memory. The eye-witness memory is also one of her highly effective theory that has made her solve numerous legal issues in the courts. She published an article in 1974 discussing the relationship between observations and findings from the analysis of psychological sciences as well as the witness testimony in a trial of a murder case observed by her in the court. She also conducted profound studies and investigations on false memories.
Though some of her research work and experimental techniques has received criticisms but still she has done very remarkable researches concerning human memory and cognitive psychology. She has earned numerous honors and awards including the well known Grawemeyer award in 2005 and National Academy of Arts to name a few. She has also earned fellowship at the Royal society of Edinburgh through her remarkable works. In 2012 she received the William T Rossiter Award from the Forensic Mental Health Association of California.
-
Erich Fromm
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/erich-fromm.jpg)
“Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.” ~Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm was a acclaimed German social psychologist, humanistic philosopher, democratic socialist, sociologist and psychoanalyst. Born on March 23rd 1900 in Germany, this accomplished psychologist was deeply associated with Frankfurt School of Critical Theory. He was the only child of orthodox Jewish parents who spent a rather unhappy childhood. He acquired his academic education from University of Frankfurt am Main for two semesters in the field of jurisprudence. Later, he went on to study at University of Heidelberg where he switched his field from jurisprudence to sociology under the guidance of Heinrich Rickert, Karl Jaspers and Alfred Weber. He obtained his PhD in sociology from university of Heidelberg in 1922 anf began practicing as a clinical psychologist. He also acquired his psychological training from Frankfurt Institute of Social Research.
His first work regarding psychological theory is presented in his paper entitled as Escape From Freedom which highlights his work in political psychology. His second most important paper Man for Himself: An inquiry into The Psychology of Ethics was an extension of his work on the first research paper. Erich Fromm’s theory on human character was based on the theories presented in these two papers. According to him freedom is the most central trait of human nature. Free will or freedom defines a human being but it is a difficult attribute to achieve and incorporate in one’s life because, surprisingly, many people in the society try to escape from freedom. Enrich Fromm categorized the three ways through which human beings try to escape from freedom; these categories are known as authoritarianism, destructiveness and automaton conformity. Authoritarianism signifies the escape from freedom by deliberately avoiding it through accepting an authoritarian system, by becoming a part of it and accepting the authority’s ways whether right or wrong. The other way is becoming the authoritarian power and exercising unjust power over others through imposing a structural system. Both of these ways of escaping from freedom represents authoritarianism. The second category is destructiveness which represents suicides, violence, humiliation, criminal activities, terrorism and other destructive and hateful activities to escape from freedom. The third and last category is automaton conformity which is defined as confirming and accepting of the culture, ways and behaviour to blend within the cultural surroundings.
The three stages of escape from freedom was presented by Erich Fromm in his book in which he suggested that man is born with the nature of freedom but he tries to escape from it mainly because freedom comes with responsibility and people in the society tend to be conformist rather than accepting the responsibility of being free. Erich Fromm was also an accomplished writer. His books include Escape From Freedom and Man For Himself which is a collection of his psychological works and researches. He breathed his last on March 18th, 1980.
-
Francis Galton
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/francis-galton.jpg)
“Men who leave their mark on the world are very often those who, being gifted and full of nervous power, are at the same time haunted and driven by a dominant idea, and are therefore within a measurable distance of insanity” ~Francis Galton
Francis Galton was one of the most accomplished psychologist, anthropologist, explorer, meteorologist and geographer, statistician. He was the first psychologist who applied the use of statistical tools and methods to study human behavior and differences and their level of intelligence in analyzing his theories. He was also the first person who introduced the concept of collecting facts and data from human communities through conducting surveys and questionnaires which used in his studies on genealogy and biographies as part of his anthropometric studies. Galton was considered as a pioneer in eugenics which is the study to analyze and improve the genetic makeup of the population making up the society.
Born on February 16th, 1822 in Birmingham, England he was the cousin of Charles Darwin having the same grandfather Erasmus Darwin. He and his cousin played a significant role in the studies of medicine and science whereas their family occupation was gun manufacturing and banking that earned them great success. Francis Galton was an achiever from childhood. He was an exceptional child with marvelous capabilities and great intelligence. He started reading from age two and started reading Shakespeare for seeking pleasure as well as poetry to entertain himself. He started studying medicine in his teenage because his wanted to become a doctor. He started his medicine education at Birmingham’s General Hospital and King’s College, London but then he left the field of medicine to begin his study for becoming a mathematician at Cambridge University. But with the death of his father he became independent enough to pursue whatever field of study that intrigued his curiosity. He was an ardent traveler and explorer. His first journey was to Africa and Middle-East followed by Egypt and Sudan. Travelling became an inspiration for him to learn and explore about new destinations. He wrote a book named as “The Art of Travel: Or, Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries” in 1855 as an advice to the new travelers on how to travel fully to their advantage. Francis Galton also has the honor of inventing the first weather map depicting distinct climatic conditions over a certain geographical area. He wrote a book on the subject of weather and meteorology “Meteorgraphica”, which defined the methods of mapping the weather. He was strongly influenced by the works of Charles Darwin named as “The Origin of Species” through which Francis Galton analyzed and developed his own theories regarding the inheritance of traits.
He was a very active member of British Association for Advancement of Science. He presented many research papers in their meetings on a wide variety of subjects. His major works comprises of hereditary genius and inquiries into human faculties and development which discusses his theories regarding intelligence and genius. His notable awards were Darwin Wallace medal presented by Linnean society of London and Copley Medal among numerous others. He died on 17th January 1911.
-
Fritz Perls
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/fritz-perls.jpg)
Fritz Perls was a well renowned German psychotherapist and psychiatrist known for his notable works on Gestalt therapy. The interconnection between the individual being and the environment that he interacts with on a daily basis is the main idea behind Gestalt therapy. Born on July 8th, 1893 in Germany Fritz Perls was associated with Esalen institute. During his tenure at the institute he developed the schools of thought related to gestalt psychology and gestalt theoretical psychotherapy. He identified the main idea behind gestalt therapy is self-awareness regarding one’s feelings, emotions, perceptions, sensations and bodily feelings as well as the necessity of learning the association of oneself with the surroundings that he is present in.
He was a medical doctor by profession as he chose to study medicine instead of law which was studied by his uncle. Perls started off his career by serving the German Army during World War I. Soon after this major event in the world history he graduated as medical doctor and began practicing as an assistant to Kurt Goldstein who used to cure soldiers suffering from brain injury. Slowly Fritz got interested towards studying psychoanalysis. He started studying this subject under the supervision of Wilhelm Reich. He got married to Lore Posner in 1930 and after marrige they moved to Netherlands and later to South Africa. He wrote a book entitled Ego, Hunger and Aggression along with his wife, though her name was not mentioned as the author she had contributed to a great deal in writing this book. Fritz Perls also served in South African Army from 1942 to 1946, during his tenure with the South African army he reached the rank of a captain. After this job he left for New York where he published his works and findings on gestalt therapy. The key concept behind gestalt therapy is that it completely solves the problems of the individuals that are affected from sadness and depression to the extent that it hampers their growth and productivity in life.
The idea of gestalt therapy is to cure the problems that are hampering the growth and productivity that is coming in the success and prosperity of an individual’s life. Everyone has a right to live a fulfilled and satisfied life and gestalt therapy is the way of adopting the lifestyle and reforming the lives of individuals to make them ambitious and prosperous in order to get more out of their lives and due to this factor gestalt therapy is also known as humanistic type of psychotherapy. Conflicting ideas were also presented in gestalt therapy which caused rift between the experts practicing the gestalt therapy and led them to part their ways. Isadore Form, who was a teacher in New York assessed and presented about the low potential possessed by gestalt therapy. His views were also shared by the co-founders of Cleveland Institute but many others proposed gestalt as a way of leading a happy and satisfied life. One of the Fritz Perls’ renowned publication is Finding Self Through Gestalt Therapy. He died on march 14th,1970 in Chicago.
-
G. Stanley Hall
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/g-stanley-hall.jpg)
“Man is largely a creature of habit, and many of his activities are more or less automatic reflexes from the stimuli of his environment.” – G. Stanely Hall
G. Stanely hall was a well-renowned American psychologist and educator. Born on 1st February 1844, in Ashfield, Masacheutteus he attended and graduated from William’s college in 1867. After that, he went on to study at the union theological seminary. He got inspired by the exceptional work of Wilhelm Wundt named as principles of physiological psychology. He acquired Ph.D in psychology from Harvard University under the supervision of Professor William James. He has the honor of being awarded with the first doctorate in psychology in America.
He wanted to start his career in academics after graduation but when he graduated there were no vacancy in the university. Then, he went on to study at the University of Berlin in Europe and worked at the Wundt’s Laboratory in 1879 for a short span of time. He started off his career as a teacher of philosophy and English at Antioch College in Ohio. He also taught history of philosophy at William’s College, the same college from where he graduated. He also has the honor of giving a series of valuable lectures at the prestigious John Hopkins University as well as Harvard University. Finally, he got successful in securing an academic position at John Hopkins teaching pedagogy and psychology. Hall also published a book on religious psychology entitled as “Jesus, the Christ, in the light of psychology” which presented the information and knowledge about Jesus in psychological terms. He is the pioneer of the first formal American psychology laboratory.
As an educationist he presented the idea that instead of preparing students for college, the high school should focus on the development of the mental capacity of students. He opposed and criticized on the traditional teaching style of the high schools which has handicapped the minds of the adolescents and has also moved them far away from free learning. He also has the honor of being the first president of APA (American Psychological Association) as well as the pioneer of American Journal of Psychology. He established Clark University and served as its president for 31 years.
G. Stanley Hall proposed a lot of theories on childhood development and worked significantly on gauging the numerous effects of the education system on the minds of adolescents. He phrased the terminology “storm and stress” in defining the phase of adolescence. According to his propositions a child’s mental capabilities develop just like his forefathers and he inherits their behavior and learning style. He also gave the concept of racial eugenics which means the genetic characteristics of certain race has an influence on its population intelligence, behavior and personality traits. Hall has also played a significant role in anomalistic psychology which is the psychology of behavior of humans and their experiences in connection to some paranormal activities. He was a very significant contributor to education literature. Aspects of German Culture, Hints toward a Select and Descriptive Bibliography of Education co-authored with John M. Mansfield and the Contents of Children’s Minds on Entering School are few of the many books penned down by him. He died on April 24th, 1924.
-
George Kelly
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/george-kelly.jpg)
George Alexander Kelly was a well-known American therapist, psychologist, educationist and personality theorist. He was the pioneer of cognitive clinical psychology and was famously recognized for his theory on personality known as Personal Construct Theory. According to the theory different people have different paradigms of viewing the world as the world is a diverse place where people hold different values, morals and cultural upbringing. Born on April 28th, 1905 in a farm close to Perth he received his high school education from Parks College and attended Friends University from where he obtained bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and physics. Later on, he went to University of Kansas to obtain a master’s degree in sociology as he was very keen on studying the social problems prevailing in the society. He proposed thesis was on the topic of worker’s leisure activities where he analyzed the nature and types of interest and activities that keeps the workforce engaged as well as entertained in their free time.
He started his academic career by teaching at various universities and institutions on a wide range of subjects including speech-making, Americanization and many others. He had the honor of studying as an exchange student at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He wrote a thesis as a requirement for completing his bachelor of education degree at the university. The thesis was about the prediction of teaching success. He returned to United States for continuing his doctoral as well as graduate degree in psychology studies at State University of Iowa. His thesis dissertation was related to speech and reading disabilities. George Kelly also worked in school psychology before the horrible event of World War II, designing and developing a program of traveling clinics which served and assisted as a training ground for his students.
He also possessed a very keen interest in learning and applying clinical diagnosis. It was during this phase of t his life that Kelly left behind his interest in psychoanalytic approach to human personality because according to his views people were more troubled and distressed by natural disasters than any psychological issue affecting their mental health negatively. Kelly served as an aviation psychologist where he was responsible for designing and developing the training programs for the local pilots. After that, he served as a professor and director of clinical psychology at Ohio State University for 20 years. It is at this university that Kelly developed one of his well renowned personality theory known as the Psychology of Personal Constructs which was published in 1955. It is a psychotherapeutic approach to help patients analyze their constructs which make up their perception to view and analyze the world and people around them. The constructs are unique to every individual and made up of their social situations and experiences. George Kelly gave the concept of distorted constructs which says that the construction system of an individual has failed to adapt to the new system and does not work appropriately and rationally to predict social events and situations.
George Kelly had the honor of being elected as the president of the Clinical and the Consulting Divisions at the prestigious American Psychological Association and President of the American Board of Examiners in Professional Psychology providing his in depth analysis and valuable knowledge to the field of psychology. He breathed his last on March 6th, 1967.
-
Gordon Allport
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/gordon-allport.jpg)
“So many tangles in life are ultimately hopeless that we have no appropriate sword other than laughter.” – Gordon W. Allport
Gordon Allport was a very well-known American psychologist who laid the foundations for personality psychology. According to his personality theories every individual is unique and so his personality and his personality should be analyzed in the present circumstances and context rather than the past as personality continuously evolves rather than remaining stagnant throughout the lifetime.
Born on November 11th, 1897 in Montezuna, Indiana he acquired his early education from the public schools of Cleveland, Ohio after moving there with his family. His father was a country doctor and his mother was a school teacher. They practiced the protestant religion as well the “protestant work ethic” which stresses upon the importance of hard work and diligence. Gordon Allport was known a studious but shy child who often remained isolated in his early years cause to his nature. He completed high school from Glenville high school with outstanding grades and obtained scholarship to study at the prestigious Harvard University. It was difficult for him to adjust into the environment of Harvard University but nevertheless, he earned his A.B in economics and philosophy from there in 1919. Regardless of the degree earned he was always interested in studying social and personality psychology so he pursued that interest informally by running a boy’s club in Boston as well as volunteering as a probation officer helping out foreign students and war workers. He started off his career by teaching economics and philosophy at Robert college in Istanbul, Turkey for a year and then he came back to Harvard to study for his Ph.D degree in psychology. He published his first research paper entitled “Personality Traits: Their Classification and Measurement” co-written by his brother Floyd Henry Allport in 1921. Gordon Allport completed his master’s degree in 1921 under the supervision of Herbert S. Langfield followed by Ph.D in 1922.
Gordon Allport’s profound and excessive interest in studying personality led him to study every single trait that define and make up a unique persona. He selected every single word from the dictionary that defined a person and categorized those 4500 words into three levels. These words defined individual differences based on three levels known as cardinal traits, central traits and secondary traits. Cardinal traits are a set of traits that defines and molds up a person’s long term behavior which would assist him in pursuing what he wants. Central traits is the basic innate characteristic of a person which is learned or adopted like honesty. Secondary traits defined the complexity of a personality as it is revealed in certain situations. Allport proposed some well known theories and approaches to study the complex structures and traits that make up a person. He gave the concept of value scales and strongly negated the concept of psychoanalytic approach for studying the personality because he suggested that psychoanalytic approach is a behavioral approach that cannot be used to study a personality. He died on October 9th 1967 leaving behind an unmatched legacy in the field of personality psychology.
-
Hans Eysenck
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/hans-eysenck.jpg)
“I always felt that a scientist owes the world only one thing, and that is the truth as he sees it” – Hans Eysenck.
Hans Eysenck was a German psychologist known for his works in the field of psychology regarding the development of intelligence and personality theories. Besides that, he has also worked in numerous fields of psychology proposing various ideas and theories. Born on 4th march 1916 in Berlin, German Empire. He was from a Jewish family who opposed the Nazi’s rule in Germany so he moved to England. Initially, he was unable to gain employment in England due to the fact that he was a German citizen but then he was able to acquire his PhD degree from University College, London in 1940. After that, he worked at the same university where he studied in the department of psychology under the supervision of Cyril Burt with whom Eysenck enjoyed a long term and cordial professional relationship. Eyseneck is well known for his works in personality, intelligence, psychiatry, differential psychology as well as building up a personality questionnaire known as “Eysenck personality Questionnaire”. He served as a professor at the Institute of Psychiatry in the well renowned King’s College, London. His tenure at this prestigious college started form 1955 and ended in 1983.
He made a significant contribution to the modern scientific theory regarding personality by designing and developing the “Distinct Dimensional Model of Personality” based upon the factor analytic summaries. He was a brilliant teacher who treated and cured mental illnesses very effectively and efficiently. He played a significant role in studying the relationship between genetics and IQ differences. His debate over this issues raised controversies that led him to being threatened by a woman protestor. Nevertheless, he was sure of the connection between genetic factors leading to intellectual differences in people. Eysenck did not back out but persisted and strongly believed on this connection and said in reply to the controversy “All the evidence to date suggests the . . . overwhelming importance of genetic factors in producing the great variety of intellectual differences which we observe in our culture, and much of the difference observed between certain racial groups”. In another research paper entitled as “The Inequality of Man” he highlighted his belief by saying that, “The whole course of development of a child’s intellectual capabilities is largely laid down genetically, and even extreme environmental changes . . . have little power to alter this development”.
Hans Eysenck was highly criticized for his racist beliefs and theories and these theories presented in his book “Race, Intelligence and Education (Towards a new society)” led to disrespect and insult of the community in general because they were of the view that intelligence is not genetic and developed over the course of life with learning and expanding one’s mind. He also developed psychometric scales known as Eysenck personality questionnaire and sensation seeking scales for studying various traits making up a personality. He penned down numerous books including Dimensions of Personality, The Scientific Study of Personality and The Structure of Human Personality to name a few. He died on 4th September 1997 in London.
-
Harry Harlow
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/harry-harlow.jpg)
“So far as love or affection is concerned, psychologists have failed in their mission. The little we know about love does not transcend simple observation, and the little we write about it has been written better by poets and novelists.” – Harry Harlow, “The Nature of Love” ,1958.
Born on October 31st, 1905, Harry Harlow was an American by nationality. He was a famous psychologist best known for his works on social isolation, maternal separation and dependency needs which he proved through experiments on rhesus monkeys. These experiments highlighted the significance of motherly love, care and affection in social and cognitive development in children. He acquired his college education from Reed College in Oregon. After that, he got a chance to study at Stanford University where he opted to study English. He did not perform so well at that subject, so he switched over to psychology, and, declared that he would be majoring in psychology. Harlow studied under the supervision of Lewis Terman who was recognized for the development of Stanford- Binet IQ test. He received his PhD in 1930 and then obtained the designation of professorship at University of Wisconsin in Madison. When the university failed to give him a separate laboratory for conducting psychological experiments he, with the assistance of his graduate students, made his own laboratory known as Primate laboratory.
Harry Harlow conducted several experiments on apes and monkey for proving his theories on memory, cognitive processes and learning in infants. Harlow set up a nursery for rearing rhesus monkeys as part of his experimental studies. He separated the infant rhesus monkeys from their mothers and put them in that nursery setup in Primate lab. This method of bringing up the infant monkeys was called maternal deprivation. He inferred through these experiments that there is a lack of social development and normal behavior in new born monkeys who suffered from the phenomena of maternal deprivation. Harlow’s studies highlighted the importance of mother child bond in the healthy social and cognitive development of a child. His research studies were entitled “Maternal Care and Maternal Health” which got published in 1950 in John Bowlby’s report sponsored by World Health Organization. Bowlby’s study also concluded that a mother is essential to a child’s physical and mental development. This study stirred up a lot of debate, so Harlow proceeded to study further by creating substitute inanimate mothers made of wires and cloth, respectively. He provided the wired inanimate mothers with food in bottles whereas the cloth inanimate mothers were provided with nothing. Harlow observed that the infants would get attracted towards clothed inanimate mothers, despite, that the wired mothers had food. This experiment proved that an infant monkey’s physical contact with his mother was essential for nurturing his social, cognitive and physiological health.
Harlow had been bestowed with numerous honors and awards, including the National Medal of Science, Howard Crosby Warren Medal as well as the gold medal awarded by the prestigious American Psychological Association. Harry Harlow died on December 6th, 1981, in United States.
-
Henri Wallon
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/henri-wallon.jpg)
“It is dialectics that has given psychology its stability and its meaning, and which has delivered psychology from the alternatives of elementary materialism or vapid idealism, of crude substantialism or hopeless irrationalism. Through dialectics psychology is able to be at once a natural science and a human science, thus abolishing the division between consciousness and things that spiritualism has sought to impose on the universe. Marxist dialectics has enabled psychology to comprehend the organism and its environment, in constant interaction, as a single, unified whole.”- Henry Paul Wallon, Psychology and Dialectical Materialism, 1942.
Henry Paul Hyacinthe Wallon was an accomplished French psychologist, philosopher, teacher, neuro-psychiatrist and an active politician. Born on June 15th, 1879, in Paris he was a thorough Marxist whose major works were in the field of child psychology and development. His theories were greatly influenced by Marxism’s interpretations in relation to the individual, social, emotional and cognitive development of children. He was the first psychologist who applied the concept of dialectical materialism in his psychological studies.
According to the theories of Henry Wallon, child development is not a single step process. It takes place in continuous stages over a period of time. These stages are generally characterized by intelligence and affectivity. He also presented the concept of social and environmental factors impacting on the development of a child. He proposed his analysis on a dialectical model which comprised of concepts defining interpersonal bonds, attitudes and emotions in the development of a child. According to Wallon’s theories the primary stages concerning child development comprises of the impulsive and emotional stage, the sensorimotor and projective stage, the personalism stage, the categorical stage and the adolescence stage. Each of these stages has been characterized by the unique aspects essential to the development of a child. The first stage is the impulsive stage that starts from the time when a baby is born and lasts up to twelve months. This stage is characterized by affectivity where the infant develops his internal feelings through his environment. Then, the personalism stage is dominated by affectivity in which a child learns through an adult whom he assumes to be his role model. The next stage is known as projective stage characterized by intelligence. It lasts from one to three years and is dominated by intelligence. The child gets stimulated by the external world by developing his practical and discursive intelligence. The third stage is the categorical stage in which a child develops the capabilities of acquiring knowledge through memory and voluntary attention. The last stage is the adolescence stage which is characterized by affectivity.
Henry Paul Wallon was also an active politician. He started his political career by joining the Socialist Political Party (SFIO) of French in 1931 as well as acquiring the membership of French Communist Party in 1942. He was also elected as Secretary of National Education in 1944.His literary works includes Psychological And Dialectical Materialism (1942), The Origins Of Thought In The Child (1947), Genetic Psychology (1956). He died on December 1st, 1962, in Paris.
-
Herbert Simon
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/herbert-simon.jpg)
“There are no morals about technology at all. Technology expands our ways of thinking about things, expands our ways of doing things. If we’re bad people we use technology for bad purposes and if we’re good people we use it for good purposes” – Herbert Simon.
Herbert Alexander Simon was a notable and learned personality. He was an accomplished psychologist, economist, sociologist as well as an American politician. Born on June 15th, 1916, he was also a well-known professor at Carnegie Mellon University. His published works consists of over one thousand research papers on various fields comprising of sociology, management, economics, cognitive science and philosophy of science. He is also regarded as one of the most prominent social scientists of the 20th century. Herbert Simon was also known for creating the terms of satisficing and bounded rationality
Simon was a very intelligent child. He acquired his early education from a public school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As a school student, he was very interested in science. He also enjoyed doing schoolwork. He became interested in studying social sciences through reading his uncle’s books of economics and psychology at an early age. His uncle was a student of economics at University of Madison, Wisconsin at that time. Simon acquired his BA and Ph.D. in political science from University of Chicago in 1936 and 1943, respectively. He studied there under the supervision of Charles Edward Merriam and Harold Lasswell. Later, he was also awarded an honorary doctorate degree in law from Harvard University. He started his academic career from University of California, Berkeley by attaining the position of a director in a research group. After that, he served as a professor of political science at the Illinois Institute of Technology where he taught from 1942 to 1949. He was also the chairman of political science department of the institute during the same period. He studied mathematical economics with David Hawkins and created Hawkins-Simon theorem through which he proved the conditions for the existence of positive solution vectors for input-output matrices. This accomplishment led him to creating the best way of studying problem solving. He proposed that that simulating problem solving with computer programs is the most innovative method to study it. He also became interested in developing computer simulation to study human cognition. Following that, he became one of the founding members of The Society for General Systems Research. Simon’s profound works on decision making was also the foundation stone of his research works. He invented Logic theory machine and general problem solver in 1956 and 1957, respectively. He was also the pioneer of “Artificial Intelligence”.
He had been bestowed with numerous honors and awards including the “ACM’S Tuning Award” for his valuable contributions in the psychology of human cognition, artificial intelligence and list processing. Other awards include the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, National Medal of Science as well as the Award for outstanding contributions to psychology from the prestigious American Psychological Association. He died on February 9th, 2001, at the age of 84.
-
Hermann Ebbinghaus
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/hermann-ebbinghaus.jpg)
“Mental states of every kind, – sensations, feelings, ideas, – which were at one time present in consciousness and then have disappeared from it, have not with their disappearance absolutely ceased to exist.”- Herman Ebbinghaus
Herman Ebbinghaus was a known German psychologist. He was the pioneer in the experimental study of memory as well as discovering spacing effect and the forgetting curve. Born on January 24th, 1850, in Barmen, Germany he was the son of a rich merchant. He acquired his early education from town gymnasium ant then attended University of Bon in 1867 at the age of 17. He studied philology and history as his main subjects at this university at which time he became interested in studying philosophy. He wasn’t able continue pursuing philosophy as a proper degree because Franco-Prussian war broke out. He served in the Prussian army during this war. After serving for a brief time span in the army, he completed his thesis on “Philosophy of The Unconscious”. He acquired his doctorate at the age of 23 on August 16th, 1873. After the completion of his PhD he started tutoring students in England and France to earn his living.
Herman Ebbinghaus made a profound impact on study of memory and intelligence testing. He used the experimentation to study higher mental processes. He also studied learning curve and analyzed that maintenance rehearsal and acoustic encoding should be applied for effective learning though he faced certain limitations in the process of conducting his ground-breaking research on memory. The major limitation was that he was the only subject in the study. Naturally, this was an obstacle in studying the trends of the whole population. Also, this was a major shortcoming in proving the external validity of the study, despite, the fact that it was internally valid. Ebbinghaus tried to restrict his personal significance to keep the experiment free from biases but failed to do so. This also proved that it is a tough job to be the researcher as well as the subject at the same time. It is next to impossible in experimentation to maintain neutrality in this situation. The studies on the learning curve conducted by Ebbinghaus proved that the learning pattern of individuals showed a sharp decline after their first attempt. An individual’s capacity to retain information begins to slow down after the first trial. The learning curve shows an exponential increase similar to the forgetting curve. Ebbinghaus also gave the concept of serial position effect which consists of recency and primacy as its major ideas. The recency effect described the recalling of the latest information stored in the short term memory, whereas, the primacy effect is related to information retrieval from long term memory
Ebbinghaus was also the pioneer of sentence completion exercises. It was developed by to gauge the mental abilities of schoolchildren in sentence structuring. He also discovered optical illusion which occurs due to the relative size perception. This concept is used in conducting studies on cognitive psychology. Ebbinghaus was an accomplished psychologist who laid firm foundations for intelligence testing through his ground breaking researches on memory. He died on February 26th, 1909.
-
Hugo Münsterberg
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/hugo-munsterberg.jpg)
Hugo Munsterberg was the pioneer of applied psychology. He was a prominent German-American psychologist whose ground-breaking works in applied psychology comprised of various researches on legal, medical, clinical, educational and industrial fields. Born on June 1st, 1863, into a Jewish family, as a child he showed interests in various fields including music, poetry, literature, foreign languages and acting. He acquired his early education from gymnasium of Dazing from where he graduated in 1882. He obtained his PhD in physiological psychology from University of Leipzig in 1885, under the supervision of Wilhelm Wundt. He then decided to study medicine following the advice of Wilhelm Wundt. He studied at University of Heidelberg for his medical degree and graduated in 1887 from there. He started his academic career at the University of Freiberg as a P.D. lecturer. He initiated a psychology laboratory at the University of Freiberg as well. Then, he began publishing research papers on various topics comprising of learning, perception, memory and attention processes. He got promoted to the designation of assistant professor at the University of Freiberg in 1891. He attended of the first international congress of psychology in the same year where he met the famous American psychologist, William James. William James invited him to Harvard University to serve as a chair of psychology for a term of three years. Hugo Munsterberg accepted his invitation. He attained the responsibility of supervising the psychology graduate students as well. He became a remarkably renowned teacher in the university who was liked by most of his graduate psychology students. He came back to Freiberg in 1895 due to the love of his homeland.
Hugo Munsterberg was a well-known personality among the scientific community, academic world and general public due to his extensive range of works in the field of applied psychology. He studied and researched the implications of practical situations through the field of applied psychology. According to the views of Munsterberg it is the foremost responsibility of psychologists to reveal the applications of psychological aspects in the real life situations. Hugo Munsterberg was also the first psychologist to apply the concepts of psychology to the legal field. This led him to the development of forensic psychology. His contributions to psychology also included the application of psychological principles to clinical psychology.
Hugo Munsterberg published a book entitled as “On the Witness Stand” in 1908 which stirred a lot of controversies. This book is a collection of his previously published researches related to forensic psychology. He analyzed different psychological factors that are responsible for altering the outcomes of trials, in this book. His work on clinical psychology consisted of theories regarding psychophysical parallelism. Munsterberg proposed the parallel connection between brain process and physical processes. He asserted that certain types of mental illnesses occur through cellular- metabolic causation. These illnesses were diagnosed through Munsterberg’s behavioristic observations which were formed by conducting interviews from the subjects. He also worked on industrial psychology and penned down books including ‘Vocation and Learning’ and ‘Psychology and Industrial Efficiency’ in 1912 and 1913 respectively. He died on December 19th, 1916, at the age of 53.
-
Ivan Pavlov
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/ivan-pavlov.jpg)
“It goes without saying that the desire to accomplish the task with more confidence, to avoid wasting time and labour, and to spare our experimental animals as much as possible, made us strictly observe all the precautions taken by surgeons in respect to their patients.” -Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Pavlov was one of the most eminent Russian physiologists. He was known for his ground breaking works in classical conditioning, transmarginal inhibition and behavior modification. Born on 26th September, 1849. He was intellectually gifted since his childhood. He was the father of modern Russian physiology. His intellectual giftedness was accompanied with the very unusual energy that he possessed known famously as “the instinct for research”. He decided to leave behind his career in a religious center and decided to study science. After that, he decided to study mathematics and physics and enrolled himself at the University of St. Petersburg for studying the field of natural science. He discovered many aspects of sciences and physiology through his keen observations that were transferred from one generation to the next generation. Pavlov also has the honor of winning Nobel Prize for physiology as well as medicine in the year 1904.
He did his early schooling from Ryazan church school. After which, he attended the local theological seminary but left it without completion to attend the University of St. Petersberg. He got a job as a laboratory assistant to with professor Ustimovich at the veterinary institute in the physiological department. Ivan Pavlov examined the human circulatory system as a requirement to complete his medical dissertation for a time period of two years. Following that, he was invited by a very well-known Russian clinician in 1878 to work as the chief of the clinic in his physiological laboratory. Ivan Pavlov graduated with a first class distinction and a gold medal from the medical military academy achieved by his research work. Then, he also earned a fellowship at the Academy for his postgraduate work. He researched extensively in the fields of neurological and physiological sciences.
Many of his research works were in the field of involuntary reflex actions, temperament and conditioning. The experiments for his research works were conducted on the digestive system of animals to examine keenly the anatomy and functioning of different parts making up the digestive system. Pavlov’s studies and observations on reflex actions were his major accomplishments in his research works, but the concept which was originally developed by Pavlov and his assistant Ivan Filippovitch Tolochinov is “conditioned reflex”. Pavlov learnt this concept about conditioned reflex while experimenting on the phenomena of salivation rate among dogs. He learnt that when the dog was given food he would actually salivate when he saw the food despite the fact that the bell was rung. Later, due to the phenomena of conditioned reflex the dog started salivating with the bell ring rather than the sight of the food. Ivan Pavlov was the pioneer of ground breaking discoveries in the field of physiology. He had an energetic personality that helped him develop his intellectual brilliance in research. He died on 27th February, 1936.
-
Jacques Lacan
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/jacques-lacan.jpg)
Jacques Lacan is considered as one of the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud. He was born on April 13, 1901. He remained one of the most influential figures in Parisian academic circles for most part of the twentieth century. His ideas have had a major influence on critical theory, literary theory, 20th-century French philosophy, sociology, feminist theory, film theory and clinical psychoanalysis. Lacan went to medical school and later studied psychoanalysis. He studied patients suffering from automatism, a psychological ailment in which the patient believes that his movements and speech are being controlled by an external force. For his doctorate in 1932, he wrote a paper drawing a connection between psychiatric medicine and psychoanalysis which became his practice throughout his lifetime.
In the early stages of his career, from 1926-53, Lacan progressed from conventional psychiatric treatment to gradual inclusion of clinical psychoanalysis. Published in 1936, the “Mirror Stage” was Lacan’s first formal contribution to the field of psychoanalysis. The essay concerns infants aged 6 to 18 months and notes that when an infant recognizes its own image in the mirror, it does not see the image as merely a reflection but as a unified being instead of “bits and pieces” that it perceives itself to be, due to motor incapacity. This, Lacan believes, leads to the formation of ego and acts as a stimulant to the child’s development.
Jacques Lacan came up with the “Theory of Three Orders”: the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real. The theory formed the backbone of the psychical subjectivity according to Lacan and his whole career revolved around developing this theory. The Imaginary consists of how we perceive others and how we perceive what they mean when they communicate with us and how we perceive from someone else’s perspective. This idea is central to the “ego formation” in the “Mirror Stage”. Symbolic order was the second idea in the theory. Lacan described it as the order of symbols, illustrations and imagery, where the individual is formed as a subject. He argued that the subconscious is governed by the order of the signifier as opposed to suppressed desires which was a common belief at the time. The Real is much more difficult to grasp. Throughout the 1960s until his death, the Real took on ever increasing number of aspects and associations. It is that which is excluded from Imaginary- Symbolic reality, elusive by nature, impossibility.
Although Jacques Lacan claimed: “It is up to you to be Lacanians if you wish. I am a Freudian”, in the years 1964-73, he drifted further from Freud and traditional psychoanalysis. His dissertation became distinctively “Lacanian”, as he became known for his neologisms and complex diagrams. Lacan endeavored to form a more exact mathematically based theory in his last years: A “meta-theory” of psychoanalysis using mathematics, casting the trio he conceived earlier (the Real, Symbolic, and Imaginary) in the language of mathematics rather than linguistics. By the time of his death in 1981, Lacan had become one of the most dominant and controversial intellects in the world. His work has a profound impact not only on philosophy and psychoanalysis but even on literature and film studies.
-
Jean Piaget
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/jean-piaget.jpg)
“The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done.” – Jean Piaget, The Origins of Intelligence in Children, 1953.
Jean Piaget was a well-known Swiss psychologist. Born on 9th August, 1896, he was a philosopher as well as a developmental psychologist who laid great emphasis on educating children. He emphasized that education is the savior of the future generations as well as a necessity for healthy upbringing of the entire society. He studied natural history and philosophy. While working with Alfred Binet, developer of Binet intelligence tests, Piaget noticed a pattern in a set of questions that young children consistently answered wrong. This inspired him to delve further into children’s mind. Having realized the limitations of traditional research methods when conducting psychoanalysis on children, Piaget came up with a new method of examination. He conducted interviews where he would ask a series of standard questions and then based on their response, some non-standard questions. He reached the conclusion that the chain of reasoning in children and adults differs significantly. He observed that the knowledge that children acquire is grouped into schemas. Each new piece of information is either merged into the same schema, modifies the existing schema or creates a new schema altogether. He is mostly remembered for his contribution to research in children’s cognitive development.
Piaget observed the cognitive development of his own children and came up with a model to describe the stages that children pass through in the development of intelligence and reasoning. The theory consists of four stages; (1) the sensorimotor stage (2) the preoperational stage, (3) the concrete operational stage, and (4) the formal operation stage. He concluded that children’s reasoning was not faulty but when compared to adults it was erroneous due to the limited experiences of the children about the natural and social world. Jean Piaget believed that knowledge didn’t mean to learn some facts and be able to repeat them but to make connections and to understand how it all fits together. Thus he concluded that efforts to introduce abstract concepts to children at a young age would not result in conceptual learning but would only lead to memorization (rote learning). Although Piaget did not know how to apply his theories to education, he was a proponent of hands-on learning.
Numerous teachers have adopted his philosophy, moving on from traditional teaching methods to more interactive tactics for subjects such as science, math, languages and social studies. Overall, his work in child cognition transformed how children, their mental capabilities and their reasoning are perceived. Piaget died at the age of 84, having given birth to new fields in science including genetic epistemology, cognitive theory, and developmental psychology among others. During his lifetime, Piaget authored numerous books and papers including The Child’s Conception of the World (1926), The Origin of Intelligence in Children (1936), and The Early Growth of Logic in the Child (1958).
-
Jerome Bruner
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/jerome-bruner.jpg)
Jerome Seymour Bruner is a well-known psychologist who has made immensely meaningful contributions to cognitive learning theory and human cognitive psychology in the field of educational psychology. His other fields of interest include general philosophy of education as well as history. Born on 1st October, 1915 in New York, he did B.A in psychology from Duke University. After that, he completed master’s degree in psychology followed by a doctorate degree from Harvard University. Jerome Bruner’s first article was published in 1939 which discussed the effect of thymus on the rat’s behavior. His academic career started as a professor of psychology at the Harvard University where he served as an ardent researcher in the fields of educational and cognitive psychology. After serving at Harvard for 15 years he was offered to teach at University of Oxford in England. He accepted the offer and taught there for ten years. He came back to the United States to conduct researches in the field of developmental psychology in 1980. After that, he got an opportunity to join the faculty at the prestigious New York University. He still teaches at the university.
Bruner is one of the most influential psychologists who has laid the foundation for ground-breaking researches in cognitive psychology. He identified that sensation and perception are active processes rather than passive ones conducting a series of experiments on perception which posed a challenge to psychologists in terms of interpreting the organism’s response to stimulus externally as well as internally. The obvious result of cognitive development is thinking. The intelligent mind creates itself from experience “generic coding systems that permit one to go beyond the data to new and possibly fruitful predictions” (Bruner, 1957, p. 234). Bruner presented the view that children must adapt to the “recurrent regularities” present in their surroundings. So, according to Bruner the significant outcomes of learning must incorporate the ability to adapt and learn through personal experiences in an individual besides the formal education. After working on these experiments he shifted his attention and time towards studying actual cognitions in the perception studies. Bruner presented his research that sheds light on the cognitive development of children in 1966 which suggests three phases of representation in cognitive development.
He has awarded with many awards and honors in recognition of his profound works in the field of psychology. Most prominently, he was awarded with distinguished scientific research award by the American Psychological Association. He has also published numerous books that reflect his varied accomplishments as a researcher and psychologist. His literary works consist of several books on cognitive psychology, educational psychology and language development. Currently he is serving as a research fellow at the New York University School of Law.
-
John Bowlby
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/john-bowlby.jpg)
John Bowlby was a notable British psychologist, psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, well known for his works on child development and the development of attachment theory. He strongly believed that behavioural problems as well as mental health issues have its deep roots in problematic early childhood. Born on 26th February, 1907 in London, he was raised by a nanny. He belonged to an upper middle class family, so he did his schooling from a boarding school as was very common for the boys of his social status. He spent a particularly hard time at the boarding school where he suffered from lack of parental care and affection. It was this childhood suffering that led him to develop the theories on child development.
Bowlby attended Trinity College at Cambridge where he studied pre-clinical sciences and psychology. He graduated from there winning the title for outstanding intellectual performance. After that, he started studying at University College Hospital in London at the age of twenty-two. He gained his degree of medicine at the age of twenty-six. While studying medicine he enrolled at the Institute of Psychoanalysis. He graduated from there in 1937 as a qualified psychoanalyst. He was also trained in adult psychiatry from Maudsley Hoapital.
John Bowlby was the pioneer behind the development of attachmenmt theory. He presented his work entitled as “A Secure base” in 1988 in which he emphasized on the need of parental love and care for a child. Besides that, he also developed understandings in the field of evoloutionary biology, cognitive science, control systems theory, developmental psychology and biology. He worked with renowned scientists such as Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen in the field of ethology. He developed explanatory hypothesis about human attachment behaviour by researching extensively on the ethology literature. He gave the concepts of human behavior that are environmentally stable and rejected the cupboard love attachment theory. John Bowlby described the concept of attachment as the lasting psychological connectedness between human beings. He shared his psychoanalytic view that early childhood experiences have a significant impact on the development and behavior of children in their later life. He believed that attachment also helps in survival, suggesting that children are biologically pre-programmed to create attachments with others around them in order survive in this world. He believed that attachment behaviors are present in instincts that are activated when a child faces any threatening conditions to his survival like fear, insecurity and separation.
Bowlby’s attachment theory is very crucial in understanding social development in early childhood as it highlights factors that relate to the formation of a child’s relationships. His attachment theory consists of monotropy which reflects a child’s inborn need to form a primary bond with his mother. He also suggested that there should be a deep and intimate attachment between a child and his mother for the first two years so that the child does not face maternal deprivation in his later life. Bowlby’s last work consisted of a biography of Charles Darwin. He died on 2nd September 1990.
-
John Dewey
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/john-dewey.jpg)
“The good man is the man who, no matter how morally unworthy he has been, is moving to become better.”- John Dewey
John Dewey was a well-known American psychologist, western philosopher as well as an education reformer whose ideology is of exceptional significance in the social and educational reforms. He was one who laid down the foundation for the development of functional psychology. Also, he was a significant representative of the liberalism and progressive educational philosophy. Born on October 20th, 1859 in Burlington, Vermont he attended and graduated from the University of Vermont in 1879. After that, he served as a teacher at a high school in oil city in Pennsylvania. He completed PhD. from the School of Arts & Sciences at Johns Hopkins University and later accepted a position as faculty at the University of Michigan with the assistance of George Sylvester Morris. His unpublished and missing dissertation was entitled as “The Psychology of Kant.” After serving there for ten years, Dewey joined University of Chicago. He served at the university till 1904.
John Dewey was a reflective thinker. The major locus of Dewey’s philosophical pursuits throughout his research career was epistemology. This subject of philosophy is alternatively known as theory of knowledge. John Dewey was the foremost proponent of the American school of thought known as pragmatism. It is an ideology that dismisses the theory of dualistic epistemology as well as metaphysics concerning modern philosophy in approval of a naturalistic approach. The naturalistic approach viewed knowledge as coming from an active transformation of the human species to their environment. According to this view, a person should inquire about his environment and observe the world actively to drawing ideas and check if their ideas correspond to reality or not. The naturalistic approach is a process which starts off with a check or an impediment to fruitful human action, proceeds to active manipulation of the environment to test hypotheses. After the hypothesis is tested a re-adaptation of organism is issued to actively participate in the environment that permits once again for the beginning of human action. John Dewey designed and developed a wide body of work that encompasses virtually all of the major areas of philosophical concern of his time, with this ideology as his beginning point. He also wrote extensively on social issues in popular publications such as the New Republic, eventually gaining a distinction of being a top-notch social commentator.
John Dewey earned notable honors due to his flawless works in various fields. There is a school in Brooklyn named after him known as John Dewey High School. There is another charter school named after him known as the John Dewey Academy of Learning in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Dewey published several books and researches in the fields of psychology, philosophy and education. This great intellectual left the world on June 1st, 1952 at the age of 92.
-
John Watson
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/john-watson.jpg)
Born on 9 January 1878 in North-Carolina, John Broadus Watson was an American psychologist who popularized behaviorism as an approach to psychology. As a student, Watson was not particularly gifted having been through a rough childhood after his father left him. His teacher, Gordon Moore, at Furman University helped him get his life back together. John moved on to University of Chicago for his doctorate. At that time, University of Chicago was a hotbed of psychology and this was where the foundation for John’s ideas about behaviorism was laid. He studied philosophy with giants like John Dewey, Moore and Tufts and became interested with psychology and animal behavior. Watson wanted to transform psychology into a science; he wanted to introduce a methodology that would make it more exact. After completing his PhD, he was offered a faculty position at the prestigious John Hopkins University where he was elevated to the chair of psychology department.
In 1913, John Watson published an article “Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It”. In it he argued that psychology had become stagnant because the psychologists were focusing at inappropriate subject matters: introspection and consciousness. He proposed objective psychology of behavior that studied people’s actions or behavior and the ability to predict and manipulate it. The article came to be known as “The Behaviorist Manifesto”. Watson believed behaviorism would take psychology to the same level as other sciences. He maintained that external behavior and reaction to a particular stimuli, rather than internal mental state, provided an insight into a person’s actions. Although the article did little to sway conventional psychologists, it paved way for further development in the field.
In his early ears, Watson studied behavior of animals. Later, he turned to human behavior and emotions. One of his most controversial experiments is the “Little Albert” where he conditioned an 11 month old boy to fear a white rat by accompanying the rat with a loud clanging sound every time. The experiment was morally objectionable because the child was never deconditioned. The result of the study would have strengthened Watson’s theories but it came to light that “Albert” portrayed as a young, healthy boy was in fact mentally ill. Questions arose whether Watson knew the child’s disabilities would skew the result.
In 1915, John Watson served as the president of American Psychological Association (APA) and in 1957, he was awarded APA’s award for contribution to psychology. By 1930s, Behaviorism became the dominant approach to psychology. However, by then it was too late for John Watson who, in 1920, was caught having an affair with one of his students and was forced to resign from his post at John Hopkins. After leaving academia, John started working in an advertising agency where he applied his theories of Behaviorism and quickly rose to the ranks of vice-presidency at the agency. Although by 1950, Behaviorism began to lose its hold on psychology but some of it ideas and principles are used even today. Conditioning is still very popular for treatment of destructive behavior and to learn new skills.
-
Julia Kristeva
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/julia-kristeva.jpg)
Julia Kristeva was born on 24 July 1941 in Sliven, Bulgaria. Completing her early education in Bulgaria, Kristeva moved to Paris when she was offered a research fellowship in 1965 and has lived there ever since. Although her original interests lay in linguistics, she was deeply moved by the texts of Roland Barthes, Lacan, Todorv and Goldmann. In 1965, she became an active member of the “Tel Quel” group, publishing political interpretation of historical events. She became interested in psychoanalysis, earning her degree in 1979. Kristeva studied the analysis of Freud and Lacan and, like her contemporaries, began working as an analyst and an academic.
One of the most important contributions of Julia Kristeva is her ideas about the two components of signification in language: semiotic and symbolic. Kristeva’s semiotic, distinct from the “semiotics”, is similar to pre-Opedial infantile of Freud or pre-Mirror stage of Lacan. She believed that emotions lie in the stress, rhythm and intonation of speech or text rather than the meaning of words. As the earliest source of rhythm and tones is the maternal body, the semiotic is considered “feminine” and is associated with poetry and music. When the child enters the “Mirror Stage”, he learns to distinguish between the self and other, forming a sense of identity distinct from his mother. This is the process of separation and entry into the world of culture and language or the “symbolic”. The symbolic is associated with grammar and syntax of the language. It is the symbolic which gives the words meaning. Kristeva, moving away from Lacan’s discourse, maintains that even after entering the symbolic; the subject continues to oscillate between the two states. Moreover, she argued that female children usually identify more closely with maternal figure and in turn may retain a closer connection with the semiotic.
Kristeva’s unique background also sets the base for her work: being a Bulgarian woman in male-dominated French intellectual society drew her interest in the politics of marginalization. Her ideas had a major impact on feminism. She claims that there are three phases of feminism. The first phase, which she rejects, seeks equality of sexes disregarding the inherent sexual differences. She also rejects the second phase which terms language and culture as masculine and calls for their total abandonment. In her defense, Kristeva maintains that language and culture are what makes us speaking beings and women, being part of this group, have no need for this abandonment. The third phase, which is endorsed by Kristeva, seeks to reconceive identity and difference and their relationship.
Julia Kristeva’s contributions were recognized in the fields of psychoanalysis, linguistics, political and culture analysis and culminated in her being awarded the Holberg International Memorial Prize in 2004 and Hannah Arendt Award for Political Thought in 2006. She accepted the chair of linguistics at University of Paris and remains visiting faculty at Columbia University in New York. She was also bestowed with the title of “Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters” by the French government in 1990.
-
Karen Horney
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/karen-horney.jpg)
Karen Horney, a leading German psychoanalyst, was born 16 September 1885. She graduated from University of Berlin in 1913 with a degree in medicine. This was a time when higher education for women was not common and Karen had to face a lot of opposition in order to join the program. She had a difficult childhood. By nine, she did not consider herself pretty and decided she would have to rely on her intellect, rather than her looks, to prove herself. This made her ambitious and rebellious. She was attracted towards her brother who rebuffed her advances, sending her into first of her many bouts of depression. In 1909, Karen married Oskar Horney and had three daughters. In 1920, Karen started teaching at the Institute of Psychoanalysis in Berlin. In 1926, Oskar suffered losses in his business. He soon came down with meningitis and became quite embittered. As Karen’s marriage fell apart, she fell into depression again and even considered committing suicide. By 1930, she, along with her children, moved to Brooklyn due to its large intellectual community. By this time, Karen had proven herself to be a gifted psychoanalyst, and she was offered Associate Directorship for Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis which she accepted.
Horney’s deviation from Freudian psychology led to her resigning from the post. She took up teaching at New York Medical College. Karen Horney’s theories about neurosis are considered the best that exist today. She said that neurosis was not a medical ailment, which it was considered at the time, rather a continuous process occurring occasionally during one’s lifetime. She thought it was greatly dependent on the childhood and behavior of parents towards the child, as perceived by the child, determined his/her neurosis. From her clinical practices, she identified three broad categories of a person’s neurotic needs: compliance, aggression and detachment. In “compliance” stage, a person sought affection and approval of his peers. He may also seek a partner, someone he could share his feelings with. A person in “aggression” stage may display anger or hostility to those around him. He seeks power and control. A person in “detachment” category may strive to become self-dependent, considering isolation and independence as the only way forward.
She although agreed with many of Sigmund Freud’s theories, deviated from some of them. She laid the foundations of Neo-Freudian discipline. Horney believed that sex and aggression were not the primary determinants of one’s personality, a view held by Freud. Rather, she believed in the holistic approach, maintaining that environment and social differences played a major role in the development of one’s personality. She also developed the “Self theory” to explain neurosis: a person suffering from neurosis splits himself into a despised self and an ideal self. Ideal self being unrealistic, the neurotic becomes alienated from himself and fails to reach his true potential. She founded American Institute for Psychoanalysis where her own views on psychoanalysis were taught. She kept on teaching and writing until her death in 1952. To honor her contributions to the field of psychoanalysis, Karen Horney Clinic was established in New York in 1955.
-
Kay Redfield Jamison
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/kay-redfield-jamison.jpg)
Kay Redfield Jamison, an American psychologist and leading authority on bipolar disorder, was born on June 22, 1946. She completed her Master’s from University of California, Los Angeles in 1971 and her Ph.D. in 1975. She is credited with founding the Mood Disorders Clinic at UCLA. After teaching for several years at UCLA, she went to the John Hopkins University School of Medicine where she was offered a post as Professor of Psychiatry, the first time such a post had been offered to a psychologist.
Unbeknownst to her colleagues, Jamison herself was suffering from manic-depressive illness or bipolar disorder. It was her disorder in part that motivated her to choose this occupation. She co-authored the standard medical text on bipolar disorder, titled Manic-Depressive Illness which the American Association of Publishers nominated in 1990 as “Most Outstanding Book in Biomedical Science”. In 1995, Kay Redfield Jamison published An Unquiet Mind: Memoirs of Moods and Madness detailing her own personal experiences with the illness. The book stayed on The New York Times Bestsellers List for five months and was translated into 15 languages. By revealing her condition, Jamison took a huge professional and personal risk. She was aware that it would raise questions about her competence and professional responsibility, but she wanted to inform and educate the people. The book’s success lay in part with the simple and straightforward narrative style that she used, describing in graphic detail what it was like to live with the illness, her initial denial, resistance to treatment and spells of mania and depression and sometimes, even psychosis.
What makes Jamison stand out is not her perseverance during the affliction but her effort to overcome and reach out to others who are undergoing similar disease and giving them hope. She also authored Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and Artistic Temperament in which she studies the relation between bipolar disorder and creativity. She speaks of various great minds who, by today’s standards, would be considered bipolar or mentally ill. She talks about the seductiveness of manic state: the energy and intensity it brought. Despite the negative consequences, she said that if given a choice, she would not live without it.
Although being a psychologist herself, she often talks about her experiences with the disorder and reluctance to take lithium sometimes. It is this frankness and self-disclosure, along with her work in the field, which has made Jamison well-loved in the bipolar community and respected all over the world. Kay Redfield Jamison penned more than 100 scientific papers on mood disorders, creativity and pharmacology. She is the recipient of various national and international scientific honors and awards, and has been visiting faculty at Harvard University and University of Oxford. She is a John P. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow. She was selected by Times Magazine as “Hero of Medicine” and was one of the five people selected for the public television series “Great Minds of Medicine”. Even for an ordinary person, her accomplishments are amazing but for a person suffering from bipolar disorder, she is a living inspiration, a beacon of hope.
-
Ken Wilber
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/ken-wilber.jpg)
“What is it in you that brings you to a spiritual teacher in the first place? It’s not the spirit in you, since that is already enlightened, and has no need to seek. No, it is the ego in you that brings you to a teacher.”- Ken Wilber
Kenneth Earl ”Ken” Wilber II is a well known American writer, public speaker and neoplatonic. Born on January 31st, 1949, he is a lecturer in a variety of versatile fields. These fields range from philosophy, developmental psychology, ecology to mysticism. He is also the pioneer behind “integral theory”, founding the Integral Institute in 1998.
Born in Oklahoma city in 1949, he started his professional education as a student of medicine at duke university. Later,during the course of his medical education he got inspired by the mesmerizing eastern literature. He left Duke to change his path and got enrolled in the University of Nebraska. He completed his bachelor’s in the fields of chemistry and biology as well as master’s in biochemistry. Wilber wrote his first book “The Spectrum of Consciousness”. The book is based on information and knowledge from various fields of study combined together. The book got published in 1977 by the company known as Quest books. Wilber also launched his journal ReVision in 1978.
Ken Wilber is an accomplished writer. He became one by keeping and maintaining a personal journal all his life. He wrote on a wide variety of topics. He wrote about sex, ecology and spirituality in 1995. The other books penned by him includes One Taste, A Theory of Everything as well as a novel entitled as Boomeritis. Wilber shifted to Boulder, Colorado, in 1987 where he worked on his Kosmos trilogy and supervised the work and functioning of the Integral Institute.
One of the most famous phenomenon developed by Wilber is AQAL. AQAL denotes the foundation of Wilber’s work. AQAL is an abbreviation for “all quadrants all levels”. It is also used as a connotation for ‘all lines’, ‘all states’ and ‘all types’. Basically, these represent the five categories of Wilber’s model of manifest existence. Wilber believes that this model must include each of these five categories to represent completeness. He is also persistent on the idea that only such an account can be accurately called “integral”. In his essay, “Excerpt C: The Ways We Are in This Together”, Wilber elaborates AQAL as “one suggested architecture of the Kosmos”. The theory of AQAL is based on two truths doctrine that represents Buddhism. Wilber’s ideology is based on the idea, “the simple feeling of being”. Ken Wilber has a special interest in studying holons. According to Wilber’s theory, all holons have multiple lines of development or intelligence. They are comprised of cognitive, musical, spatial,aesthetic , spiritual, kinesthetic, ethical, logical-mathematical and karmic intelligence.
Ken Wilber has also developed the concept of levels based on the lines of development . According to this theory the more highly developed you are in a particular line, the higher level you are at in that line. Wilber’s concept of the level is based on the theories of developmental psychology, including theory of cognitive development by Piaget, Kohlberg’s stages of moral development and among others. He currently works at integral spiritual center.
-
Konrad Lorenz
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/konrad-lorenz.jpg)
Nobel Prize Winner, dubbed the Father of Ethology, Konrad Zacharias Lorenz was an Austrian zoologist born in the November of 1903. From an early age, Lorenz fell in love with animals and by the time he reached high school, he was infatuated with the theory of evolution and wanted to pursue a career in zoology and paleontology. However, it was at the insistence of his father that Lorenz started pursuing medicine at Columbia University. It was later that he realized that embryology and comparative anatomy provided better access to the problems of evolution than paleontology ever could. During his research, Lorenz recorded observations about animal behavior of a jackdaw that he kept. The diary of his animal observation was published in 1927 in the prestigious Journal für Ornithologie. Seeing his interest, Professor Karl Buhler encouraged him to read books on animal behavior by two contradicting schools of thought: MacDougall and Watson. The study made him realize that none of these people were experts in the field of animal behavior, and it fell on him to take up the responsibility of devolving it into a new branch of science. He completed his degree from University of Vienna in 1928 and later completed Doctorate in zoology in 1933.
One of his seminal works in the field of Ethology is his studies on imprinting, an irreversible learning process early in life where visual and auditory stimuli from caregiver induces the young to emulate their guardian. Lorenz demonstrated the phenomenon by appearing before new-born ducklings and quacking like mother duck, upon which the ducklings regarded him as their mother and began tailing him. Konrad Lorenz was also responsible for putting forward an innate releasing mechanism theory. He maintained that some instinctive behavior patterns of an animal remain dormant until an external stimulus triggers it. In 1940, Lorenz joined the faculty of University of Konigsberg as Chair of Psychology. But as World War II engulfed Europe, Lorenz joined the army as a military psychologist in 1941. In 1944, he was sent to the Russian Front where he was arrested and held captive for 4 years. In 1958, he was appointed as the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Behavior Physiology.
In 1973, Konrad Lorenz was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology, along with two other early ethologists, for their discoveries in individual and social behavior patterns. At the award ceremony, Professor Borje Cronholm of Royal Karolinska Institute lauded the work done in Ethology. He said that while the understanding of lower organisms, animals and insects were significant, the new approaches to the study of the human mind and behavior that this would result in was the main reason for the Prize. It was in 1960s that Konrad’s career underwent a shift from solely study animal behavior to including human social behavior. In his book Civilized Man’s Eight Deadly Sins, he wrote that while the human race underwent development and progress, the technology did nothing to ease the suffering of mankind. He was one of the earliest scientists to point out the problem of overpopulation and its implications. His other works include King Solomon’s Ring and On Aggression. He died of kidney failure at the age of 85.
-
Kurt Lewin
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/kurt-lewin.jpg)
Kurt Zadek Lewin was a German-American psychologist who is recognized as the father of modern social psychology. Born to a Jewish family in Prussia in 1890, Kurt studied medicine from University of Freiburg and later biology from University of Munich. He enlisted in the German army during the World War I, obtaining an iron cross for his services. He completed his Ph.D. from the University of Berlin. In 1921, he was appointed as a lecturer at the Psychological Institute of the University of Berlin. Lewin attended the International Congress of Psychologist at Yale in 1929 where he presented his work on barriers and field forces. Edwin Boring, Director of Psychological Laboratory at Harvard at that time was so impressed that he recommended Kurt for the post of visiting professor at Stanford. Kurt was one of the many Jewish psychologists who were persecuted by the Nazis and he immigrated to the United States becoming its naturalized citizen in 1940.
Kurt Lewin took a different approach to the nature versus nurture debate. He proposed that nature and nurture both interacted to determine the personality of each person. He came up with the Lewin’s equation for behavior B=f(P, E), which is a heuristic formula rather than a quantifiable value, showing that the behavior is a function of the person and his or her environment. Kurt also worked on Force field analysis, which provides an outline for studying the factors that influence a situation, either driving towards a goal or hindering it. In United States, Lewin started working at Cornell University and Iowa Child Welfare Research Station at University of Iowa. He also became the director of the Center for Group Dynamics at MIT. He conducted trainings to combat racial and religious prejudices, known as the “Change Experiment” or the “Sensitivity Training” which led to the founding of the National Training Laboratories. Lewin developed a model for change which consisted of three stages. The first stage dubbed as the “unfreezing” involved overcoming the momentum and shifting the mindset. The second phase consisted of the actual change which was a period of transition and confusion. The third phase was the “freezing” where people adjust to the change and their confidence in the new system starts to rise. Kurt Lewin also conducted a study to understand the different organizational management styles. He defined the types of leadership as authoritarian, democratic or laissez-faire. Groups of school children were assigned to each leadership style. As predicted, the more rigid and authoritarian the structure, the less innovative and creative the decision making is likely to be. Lewin was the one who came up with the term “group dynamics”. He proposed “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. He applied his interactionism formula B=f(P,E) and stated that the behavior of the group was determined by the member’s individual personal traits (P) and the environmental factors of the group (E).
Kurt Lewin died of heart attack at the age of 57. His sensitivity training was considered by many as “perhaps the most significant social invention of this century”. He served as a mentor for many prominent psychologists of the twentieth century.
-
Lawrence Kohlberg
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/lawrence-kohlberg.jpg)
Lawrence Kohlberg was a distinguished psychologist. He was well known for developing the theory about the stages of moral development. Born on October 25th, 1927, he graduated from University of Chicago. He identified his area of interest in moral development despite the fact that it was a rare subject to study and research in that era. His area of interest created a new field of psychology known as moral development. He started his career by teaching at Yale University as an assistant professor.
Lawrence Kohlberg major works comprised of the theory of moral development. This theory was developed through an inspiration by the works of Jean Piaget. Kohlberg created this theory while studying at the University of Chicago for his bachelor’s degree. His contribution to the field of psychology took him in the league of the most renowned psychologists that the 20th century has produced. That league comprised of 30 most prominent psychologists of the 20th century. The works of Lawrence Kohlberg were responded and supported by the greatest scholars of his time such as James Rest and Elliot Turiel through their valuable contributions. Kohlberg started off his academic career as an assistant professor with Yale University. He worked there from the time period of 1958 to 1961. After that, he joined the University of Chicage as an assistant in the psychology department. He spent one year working as an assistant and then he was appointed as an associate professor for teaching social psychology and education. He wrote a thesis on his findings for the research on the stages of moral development. This research is entitled as Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. The theories proposed by Lawrence Kohlberg is based on the evolution of moral reasoning. His thesis was inspired by the works by Jean Piaget as well as the behavior dilemmas faced by children. According to the theory of moral development, the purpose of education should be to nurture and develop minds.
Lawrence Kohlberg developed his theory on the basis of the assumption that human beings are internally motivated to learn and broaden their horizons by experiencing through the environment they interact with on a daily basis. This phenomenon is known as social development. According to Kohlberg’s theory, there are certain common patterns observed in the society that constitutes the general social life of the peer groups, families as well as decision making and cooperation for sustenance and mutual defense. Humans in a particular society maintain the same cognitive patterns and action based activities to maintain and develop the society individually and collectively. These common patterns of social behavior also play a significant role in maintaining fruitful relations with others in the society. Moreover, the experience of each others in the society also motivates them to accept their roles and function smoothly with the society. Eventually Kohlberg frimly embedded the idea that moral development can be incorporated effectively in the society through moral reasoning. He developed six stages of moral development that addressed to the varying levels of ethical behavior in the society. Kohlberg died on January 19th,1987.
-
Leon Festinger
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/leon-festinger.jpg)
Leon Festinger was a well-known American social psychologist. Born on 8th May, 1919, he was the pioneer of social comparison and cognitive dissonance theory. He has the honor of establishing the experimentation techniques in social psychology to an advanced level. He is also very well-known for developing social theory for the proximity effect. Kurt Lewin influenced Leon Festinger as he studied psychology under his supervision at the University of Iowa. Leon Festinger graduated from there in 1941. However, he developed a keen interest in psychology after becoming a faculty member at the Lewin’s Research Center for Group Dynamics based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1945. Although, he was a scholar of high superiority in social psychology, Festinger switched over to research in visual perception. Despite high accomplishments in social psychology, Leon Festinger left this field to seek intellectual stimulation by pursuing different fields of study including the likes of archeology and history.
Leon Festinger has contributed significantly in the field of social psychology. He gave the idea of propinquity which is regarded as one of the vital factors forming the basis for interpersonal interaction. According to the study conducted by Festinger and his team, Propinquity is the foundation for the theory behind proximity effect. According to the concept behind proximity effect, the physical connection between people living close together determines the bond of relationship ties between them. Leon Festinger and his team observed that people who come in contact regularly by travelling together or living on the same floor of an apartment develop long lasting friendships.
One of Festinger’s most effective works also includes the formulation of social comparison theory. According to social comparison theory, social realities are relied upon to a great extent for evaluating various opinions and attitudes according to the social capabilities of an individual. Festinger developed the postulate that people often analyze their attitudes and behaviors by comparing themselves with others whom they consider of equal status. Festinger also wrote a paper on informal social communication in which he postulated that uniformity present in a group gives way to force start communication. According to his theory, uniformity in a group arises from group locomotion and social reality. Leon Festinger also argued that social reality had a significant impact on the formation of opinions and attitudes in people. This phenomenon is known as subjective validity. The social comparison theory presented by Festinger claimed that people continually compare themselves with their compatible for altering their attitudes and behaviors to the highest level possible.
One of the significant works by Festinger is developing the theory of cognitive dissonance. The theory of cognitive dissonance was developed through studying a series of rumors followed by an earthquake in India in 1934. The hypothesis of cognitive dissonance was that a person will try to achieve consistency or consonance when he faces psychological uncomfort as in cognitive dissonance. Leon Festinger was a true legend in the field of social psychology. He died on February 11th, 1989 in New York City.
-
Lev Vygotsky
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/lev-vygotsky.jpg)
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist who made a great contribution in the fields of child development and cognitive psychology. He was born in Western Russia (present day Belarus) in 1896, same year as another famous psychologist, Jean Piaget. He is often known as the “Mozart of Psychology” because, just like the famous composer, Vygotsky came up with several different theories in a short span of time, demonstrating his ingenuity. However, his life was cut short by tuberculosis and he died at the age of 38 leaving many of his theories incomplete. Vygotsky graduated with a degree in law in 1917 from Moscow State University. There he studied a range of subjects including psychology, sociology and philosophy. Vygotsky formally started his career in psychology when he became a research fellow at the Psychological Institute in Moscow.
To understand Lev Vygotsky’s theories, we need to understand the political situation in Russia at the time. When he began working on his theories, Marxism had just replaced dictatorship. Individuals were expected to sacrifice their personal gains for the greater good of the nation; success of an individual was considered a success for the culture. It was in this environment that Vygotsky came up with the Sociocultural Theory. This theory stressed the fundamental role of social interaction in the development of cognition. He believed that since the development was greatly influenced by the culture, it varied from society to society, contradicting the beliefs of Jean Piaget, who maintained that the elementary steps in cognition development were universal. Two of the main principles of Vygotsky’s theories were the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). MKO refers to someone who has a greater understanding or a higher skill level than the learner. This may be an adult or a teacher or it might be the child’s peer. In recent times, MKO can be taken to be a machine or even a software. The concept of More Knowledgeable Other is integrated with the Zone of Proximal Development. There is a difference between what a child can achieve independently, called actual development, and what he can achieve with the guidance of an adult, called the level of potential development. The distance between the two development levels is called ZPD. He realized that what a person could be taught mattered more than what the person actually knew. Furthermore, Lev Vygotsky was the first psychologist to document the importance of self-talk for cognitive development. Although psychologists at the time agreed of its existence, they assigned no cognitive value to private talk, or inner speech as it was known. Vygotsky, however, believed that, through inner speech, a child regulated its activity and these children were more competent socially than those who did not indulge in it.
Lev Vygotsky is considered an influential thinker in psychology, and much of his work is being discovered and translated even today. Though he was a contemporary of Piaget and Freud, he failed to gain prominence partly because of his early death, and because the Communist Party tried to suppress his work, which became accessible to the West only in the 1960s. Still, his work is considered an important contribution in the fields of education and development psychology.
-
Margaret Mahler
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/margaret-mahler.jpg)
Hungarian psychoanalyst, Margaret Schonberger Mahler, was born in a Jewish family in 1897. After completing High School, she went to Vaci Utcai Gimnazium in Budapest though it was fairly uncommon for women to continue studies. There a friend introduced her to Sandor Ferenczi, a renowned psychoanalyst, who was responsible for developing Schonberger’s interest in the concept of the unconscious and also encouraged her to read Sigmund Freud. In 1917, Schonberger joined a Medical School in Budapest. After a few semesters, she transferred to University of Munich for clinical trainings. She had to face discrimination due to her religion and her sex and had to transfer from Munich to Jena. She graduated magna cum laude from Jena in 1922. Before her graduation however, Margaret witnessed something that later defined her career. She was working late at a clinic one night when a man brought his son who was terminally ill. The man left his child at the clinic who died later that night. This propelled Margaret to study the symbiotic relationship between children and their parents. This marked her transition from pediatrics to psychoanalysis, and she started training at Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute from where she graduated in 1933.
At the age of 39, she was married to Paul Mahler and to escape the horrors of World War II they moved to England and later, to the United States. There she was invited to the faculty of Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Institute and also offered to be chair of the Child Analytic Program. It was at this time that Margaret Mahler made her most valuable contribution to the field of psychoanalysis and child development: Separation-Individuation Theory. According to this theory, the development of psychological “self” for a healthy infant occurs in three phases:
1. Normal Autistic Phase – This period lasts for first few weeks where the infant is detached and oblivious to the world. Most of its time is spent sleeping.
2. Normal Symbiotic Phase – This phase lasts until about five months when the child recognizes the mother but does not consider itself separate from the mother.
3. Separation – Individuation Phase – The child breaks out of its “autistic shell” and begins to interact with the people around him. This phase can be divided into the following sub-phases:
a. Hatching – The period lasts from 5 to 10 months. Using the mother as a point of orientation, the infant becomes interested in the environment.
b. Practicing – The period lasts from 10 to 16 months. The child starts crawling or walking, and explores the world independent of his mother.
c. Reproachment – The period lasts from 16 to 24 months. The child becomes anxious due to being distant from the mother and tries to bond with her again. However, as the child gains language skills, this phase dies down.
Although Margaret Mahler faced many hurdles in life, she persevered and was able to make a significant contribution to her field. She laid the foundations of Masters Children’s Centre in New York. She received several accolades during her career including Barnard College’s highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction, in 1980. She died at the age of 88 in New York City.
-
Martin Seligman
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/martin-seligman.jpg)
“The defining characteristic of pessimists is that they tend to believe that bad events will last a long time, will undermine everything they do, and are their own fault. The optimists […] tend to believe that defeat is just a temporary setback […] they perceive it as a challenge and try harder.” – Martin Seligman, Learned Optimism, 1991.
This is the crux of the life-long research and study conducted by Martin Seligman, a leading American psychologist, father of positive psychology, motivational speaker and pioneer of the “learned helplessness” theory. Born in Albany, New York in 1942, Seligman graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1964, earning an A.B. degree. He received his Ph.D. in Psychology in 1967 from University of Pennsylvania. He became a part of the faculty at Cornell University as Assistant Professor and later returned to teach at the University of Pennsylvania. During and after his doctorate, he worked on a theory of “learned helplessness” which he explained to be a psychological ailment wherein a person perceives himself powerless in a situation. They usually give up rather than fight for control. This, he found, was the root of depression and his research led to prevention and treatment of depression.
In 1995, Martin Seligman had a chance conversation with his daughter that changed his perspective and the focus of his research. While weeding the lawn, Seligman became irritated and shouted at his daughter. Her daughter told him that she had stopped whining since her fifth birthday, and if she could give it up, he could stop being grumpy. Seligman at that time realized that clinical psychology only focused on treatment of unhappy state of mind. Psychology was also needed for fostering and propagation of healthy minds. He wanted to find out what makes people content and happy. His work with Christopher Peterson led to the founding of Positive Psychology, a field of study that examines healthy traits in a person, positive emotions such as happiness, strength of character and optimism. He gave six basic virtues namely wisdom, valor, kindness, righteousness, temperance, and transcendence whose cultivation in a person boosted mental well-being. At first, it was a very inexact science with few experimental evidence, but his efforts has led to its growth over the past two decades.
Dr. Martin Seligman is the 13th most frequently quoted psychologist in elementary psychology texts. In 1996, Dr. Seligman was selected as President of American Psychological Association by the highest number of popular votes in the history of the organization. Presently, he is Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania as well as Director of the Positive Psychology Center. His writings have been translated into more than fifteen languages and have been best sellers both in US and abroad. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Time Magazine, Newsweek, the Reader’s Digest, Parents, Fortune, Family Circle, and many other popular magazines. He has appeared on numerous television and radio shows speaking on topics related to science and practice of psychology. In addition to psychology, he has written articles on such wide-ranging issues as education, violence, and therapy. He has addressed and inspired educators, industrialist, parents, military veterans and mental health professionals around the world.
-
Mary Ainsworth
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/mary-ainsworth.jpg)
Mary Dinsmore Salter Ainsworth is an American child development psychologist known for her work on emotional attachment of infants to their caregiver using “The Strange Situation” experiment along with her work in development of Attachment Theory.
Born in Glendale, Ohio in 1913, Ainsworth was the eldest of the three daughters of the Salter family. When she was 15, she read William McDougall’s Character and Conduct of Life which stirred her life-long interest in psychology. Ainsworth enrolled in the psychology program at the University of Toronto in 1929 and was one of only five students to be offered admission to the program. She completed her BA in 1935, MA in 1936 and PhD in 1939, all from the same university. Ainsworth started teaching at University of Toronto until 1942 when she decided to join Canadian Women’s Army Corps. After four years in the Army, where she was promoted to the rank of a Major, she returned to University of Toronto as Assistant Professor. There she became emotionally involved with a graduate student, Leonard Ainsworth, whom she later married. Though the marriage lasted only ten years, her subsequent trip to London for Leonard’s doctoral research proved to be monumental in her career.
During her time in England, Mary Ainsworth started study at Tavistock Clinic with psychologist John Bowlby. There she studied the effect of maternal separation on child development. She also went to Africa and conducted a study there to prove that these effects were universal. Bowlby believed that attachment was an all or nothing process. Ainsworth, with her colleagues, was able to prove through “The Strange Situation” experiment that there are individual differences in attachment, offering an explanation for these differences. This experiment was her most significant contribution to the field of child development and paved the way for future research in the field. In this experiment, an infant between one and two years of age is left in a room to explore some toys while their caregiver and a stranger enter and leave the room and tries to communicate with the child. The reaction of the child helped classify him into one of three categories: secure attachment -the child feels safe with the mother and interacts with the stranger only in the presence of the mother, ambivalent attachment – the child cannot decide whether to forgive the mother for leaving him alone with the stranger and avoidant attachment – the child shows no distress when mother leaves or re-enters and does not interact with the stranger. This strength of attachment, according to Ainsworth, correspond to whether the mother is available to meet the child’s needs which gives the child sense of security and confidence about his future needs being met.
Mary Ainsworth taught at the John Hopkins University and later at the University of Virginia. She headed the Society for Research in Child Development from 1977 to 1979 and was a fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the British Psychological Association. She received the Award for Distinguished Professional Contribution to Knowledge and G Stanley Hall Award from APA. She was also awarded the Gold Medal for Scientific Contributions from American Psychological Association in 1998. Mary Ainsworth breathed her last on March 21, 1999 at the ripe age of eighty six years.
-
Max Wertheimer
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/max-wertheimer.jpg)
Max Wertheimer was a well-known psychologist. He was born in Prague on April 15th, 1880. He was famous as one of the founding members of Gestalt psychology. He opened his eyes in am extremely intellectual family receiving his early education from home where he took part in educational and political discussions with his parents. His father was an educationist by profession and his mother had received her doctorate degree from University of Wurzburg. Max Wertheimer studied at the Psychological Institute at University of Frankfurt where he made an observation on flashing lights at a railway station to study the illusion created by train movement. He had also worked as a professor at the University of Frankfurt where he taught for several years. He migrated to United States in 1933, where he worked as a professor at the New York School for Social Research in New York City. He taught at the school for a period of ten years. It was due to his remarkable academic skills and efforts that New York schools became one of the top notch schools of psychology in the beginning period of twentieth century.
Max Wertheimer was one of the founding members of Gestalt psychology. According to his theory on Gestalt psychology, “There are wholes, the behavior of which is not determined by that of their individual elements, but where the part-processes are themselves determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole. It is the hope of Gestalt theory to determine the nature of such wholes.” He developed an interest in studying perception at the age of 30 when he viewed a stroboscope at a children’s toy store. This evoked his interest in theories relating to perception. The theory on Gestalt psychology is the basis on which human beings understand and react to the world around them. He wrote one of the best books on psychology entitled as “Productive Thinking.” This book was later published by his son, Micheal Wertheimer, who was an accomplished psychologist, himself.
Max Wertheimer was the pioneer of Gestalt psychology. It is due to this prestige that he exercised huge influence over other facets of psychology involving the theories of perception, sensation and experimental psychology. One of the well-known psychologist Solomon Asch wrote, “thinking of Max Wertheimer has penetrated into nearly every region of psychological inquiry and has left a permanent impress on the minds of psychologists and on their daily work. The consequences have been far-reaching in the work of the last three decades, and are likely to expand in the future.” The formation of Gestalt psychology was due to the reaction towards structuralist school of thought. Structuralism focused on disintegrating mental thoughts and processes into small parts whereas Gestalt psychology focuses on mental processes and thoughts as a whole so the holistic approach was adopted by Gestalt psychology. The Gestalt school of psychology founded by Max Wertheimer gave emergence to Gestalt laws of perceptual organization. These laws explains that how insignificant and small objects are joined together to make larger objects. Max Wertheimer gave the field of psychology one of his best works. He died on October 12th, 1943.
-
Melanie Klein
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/melanie-klein.jpg)
“One of the many interesting and surprising experiences of the beginner in child analysis is to find in even very young children a capacity for insight which is often far greater than that of adults.”- Melanie Klein
Melanie Klein was a true legend in the field of developmental psychology. Born on 30th March, 1882, in Austria she was a psychoanalyst known for devising therapeutic techniques for children. She studied in depth about the relationship between a mother and child in order to devise play therapy technique in the field of developmental psychology. Melanie Klein was also the pioneer of formulating object relations theory.
She spent her early life in Vienna, Austria. She wanted to attend medical school initially, but later she developed an interest in towards the field of psychoanalysis. Her first subjects were her own children in the field of psychoanalysis. She moved to Berlin in 1921, where she studied psychoanalysis under the supervision of Karl Abraham. Karl Abraham also performed psychoanalysis on her. Her impressive work performance in the field of psychoanalysis led him to Ernest Jones who was a British psychoanalyst. He invited her to London to work for him in 1926. She worked there until her death in 1960.
Besides, Karl Abraham, Sigmund Freud also played a significant role as an influencer on Melanie Klein. During the period of her research association with Sigmund Freud and her psychoanalyst daughter, Anna, Klein developed ideas that conflicted with the views of continental analysts. These controversial views forced the British Psychoanalytical society to split into three schools of thought known as Kleinian, Anna Freudian and independent.
Klein was the first psychologist who performed psychoanalysis on children. She was very innovative in applying her versatile techniques in working with children. This also assisted her in formulating theories related to infant development. Klein is also one of the pioneers of object relations theory. This theory depicts the process of establishing a psyche surrounding the growth of an individual as compared to an individual’s surroundings and environment. The foundation of the psyche consists of Eros and Thanatos. Eros denotes the “life instinct”, whereas, “Thanatos” denotes the “death instinct”. According to the theoretical framework developed by Melanie Klein all the living organisms are continually flowing towards an inorganic state. This inorganic state is known as Thanatos or “death instinct”. This also proved that humans are driven towards death. Melanie Klein and Sigmund Freud regarded the forces of Eros and Thanatos as the biomental forces that form the base of the psyche. She observed that children do their emotional communication while playing. After studying and observing numerous children playing with dolls, plasticine, paper and other toys, Klein developed a sense in interpreting the behavioral pattern of children while playing.
Melanie Klein was a thoroughly accomplished psychologist. It was due to the hard work of Melanie Klein that kleinian psychoanalysis became one of the major schools of thought within the field of psychoanalysis. She breathed her last on 22nd September, 1960, in London, England.
-
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi.jpg)
“Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason.”- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Milhay Csikszentmihalyi was a Hungarian psychology professor. He was born on September 29th, 1934 in Fiume, Itlay. When he was 22, he moved to the United States of America. He has a very thriving academic career. Formerly, he served as a chairperson of the psychology department at the University of Chicago. Before that, he had also served at the department of anthropology and sociology at the Lake Forest College. Currently, he is serving at the Claremont Graduate University. He studied from University of Chicago receiving his B.A. and Ph.D. in 1960 and 1965, respectively. He also taught at the University of Chicago from 1969 to 2000. He was honored with the Clifton Strengths Prize in 2009 as well as Széchenyi Prize in Budapest in 2011.
One of the significant works of Milhaly Csikszentmihalyi was on the idea of happiness. He presented his theory on the notion of happiness or satisfaction in his seminal work entitled as Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. He analyzed that people are at their optimum level of happiness when they are in a state of flow. He defined “flow” as a state of complete absorption with the action that the person is occupied with at hand. It can also include a situation rather than an activity. Happiness is a state in which people do not get bothered about what’s happening around them due to the activity or situation they are involved with at the point in time. He depicts the concept of flow as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost”. This theory about happiness is related to the fact that he spent a part of his life in a camp where he used to play chess. He found chess so exciting and absorbing that he could not notice what was happening around him. This is how his theory about happiness as a state of flow is related to his experience. His work on the theory of flow has been appreciated by a broad range of people from different fields. Two of the most influential personalities that appreciated his work on his unique theory of happiness are former US president Bill Clinton, as well as, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is also a productive writer. He has published several articles on diverse topics as well as book chapters in the field of psychology. His profound research and writings on the theory and state of joy and happiness and creativity have played a vital role in developing an interest towards the field of positive psychology.
-
Milton Erickson
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/milton-erickson.jpg)
“The best way of learning, to use folk language, is by getting the feel of it. You get the feel of a poem, the feeling of a picture, the feeling of a statue. Feeling is a very meaningful word. We do not just feel with the fingers, but with the heart, the mind. You feel with the learning of the past. You feel with the hopes for the future. You feel the present”.-Milton Erickson
Milton Erickson was an eminent American psychiatrist born on 5th December, 1901. His specializations were family therapy and medical hypnosis. He had the honor of being the founding president of the American Society for clinical hypnosis. He was also the fellow at the American Psychological Association as well as the American Psychopathological Association. Milton’s approach to observing the unconscious mind was very profound and creative. The studies he conducted on the unconscious mind led to a greater degree of problem solving related to the problems of an unconscious mind. Milton Erickson also played a significant role in the field of strategic family therapy, neuro-linguistic programming, solution-focused brief therapy, brief therapy and family systems therapy. Milton Erickson is one of the most significant figures in the field of modern hypnosis as he had a personal history regarding this field. When Milton Erickson was young he suffered from polio. He used the techniques of self-hypnosis to heal his pains and sufferings caused by polio.
According to the study of Milton Erickson, hypnosis is systematic utilization consisting of experiential learning or learning by experiences. Milton Erickson also inferred that hypnosis is not a mystical procedure at all. Erickson is most popular for his approaches to psychotherapy that are somewhat unconventional. Jay Haley, one of the pioneers of family therapy, acknowledges “Erickson’s unconventional approach” in his book entitled as Uncommon Therapy. This book written by Jay Haley discusses the wide usage of hypnosis to as well as story and therapeutic metaphor. Erickson conceived the term “brief therapy” as a method to address therapeutic change in comparatively few sessions. Milton Erickson had a unique ability to alter a person’s neurotic habit, cultural backgrounds, favorite words and even beliefs to cure the person out of his or her sufferings through the therapy of hypnosis. According to Erickson’s belief, the unconscious mind is always working, even when an individual is in his sleep. He coached to his students that the unconscious mind can be separated from the conscious mind by instilling the very concept. The unconscious mind can develop its own learning, training, responses, interests and awareness by training to separate itself from the conscious mind. According to the teachings imparted by him, an unconscious mind is solution-generating, creative and positive. As a famous and well-learned and experiences hypnotherapist, Erickson discovered that people who are resistant towards going into a state of hypnosis or trance are resistant to adopt change in themselves. Erickson has transferred his knowledge to a lot of eminent persons. He died on 25th March, 1980.
-
Nathaniel Branden
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/nathaniel-branden.jpg)
“There is overwhelming evidence that higher the level of esteem, the likely one will be to treat others with respect, kindness and generosity.”-Nathaniel Branden
Nathaniel Branden is one of the most well-known psycho-therapist famous for his works in the psychology of self-esteem. Born on 9th April, 1930, in Canada he acquired his BA in psychology from University of California, Los Angeles. After that, he did his MA from New York University. He earned a Ph.D. in psychology from California Graduate Institute.
Nathanial Branden’s close association with Rand developed his interest in her philosophy of objectivism. He worked to propagate her philosophy of objectivism. Ayn Rand was a Russian-American writer who used the concept of objectivism in her novels. This philosophy is based on the fact that the existence of reality is independent of consciousness. Branden founded the Nathanial Branden Institute (NBI) in 1958 to spread the Rand’s concept of objectivism. NBI flourished widely till 1968 offering a wide variety of courses across 80 cities. The institute also established an office in the Empire State building. The association of Rand and Branden did not last long, and Rand split apart from him in 1968. One of the most ground breaking works on the concept of self esteem is done by Nathaniel Brandon. According to his concept of self-esteem it is one of the most significant human psychological needs and the lack of adequate self-esteem results in anxiety, depression, defensiveness as well as difficulty in maintaining relationships. According to his definition of self esteem it is,” “the disposition to experience oneself as competent to cope with the fundamental challenges of life and as worthy of happiness.”
Braden proposed six most important pillars of self-esteem that are living consciously, self-acceptance, self-responsibility, self-assertiveness, living purposefully and personal integrity. Living consciously is one of the most vital aspects of a healthy level of self-esteem. It is the concept of living mindfully, the concept of becoming aware in mind of the things that one is doing in present. Living consciously also means letting go the past and start living and doing things in the present. The other most important part of a healthy self-esteem is self-acceptance. It is the second stage of building up a good level of self-esteem. Self acceptance means being true to oneself in terms of a person’s emotions, thoughts, behaviors as well as respecting oneself in terms of treating oneself kindly and respectfully. Self-responsibility is the third most important aspect of self-esteem. It incorporates taking responsibility for one’s actions, behavior, thoughts as well as outcomes. Self-assertiveness is the fourth factor that contributes to a healthy self-esteem. It is the ability to express oneself in terms of needs and interest in better ways. The fifth foundation for a healthy self-esteem is living purposefully with impressive and massive goals. The last factor is maintaining personal integrity in one’s behavior and actions.
Nathaniel Branden is considered the father of the self-esteem movement. He has also written numerous books on self esteem and other areas of psychology
-
Otto Rank
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/otto-rank.jpg)
“Life in itself is a mere succession of separations. Beginning with birth, going through several weaning periods and the development of the individual personality, and finally culminating in death – which represents the final separation. At birth, the person experiences the first shock of separation, which throughout his life he strives to overcome.”- Otto Rank
Otto Rank was a renowned Austrian writer, teacher and psychoanalyst. Born on April 22nd, 1884, in Vienna, he was a very ardent writer on concepts and theories of psychoanalysis. He served as an editor of two of the most significant analytic journals as well as managing director of the publishing house run by Sigmund Freud. Rank was also a creative therapist and theorist. He was influenced by the likes of Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, Henrik Ibsen and Arthur Schopenhauer. He acquired education in the field of psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and University of Vienna. Otto Rank’s association with Sigmund Freud began when he presented a brief manuscript to him on his study entitled as “Artist”. Freud became so impressed with Otto Rank that he invited him to Vienna and offered him work as secretary at the famous Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Rank accompanied as Freud’s “right hand man” as well as the first paid associates of the Psychoanalytic movement.
Otto Rank was the first psychoanalyst to view therapy as an experience of learning and unlearning. According to his concept, the relationship formed with a patient during a therapy allows them to learn ways through which they can incorporate creative thinking, making them realize the present. They also learn to let go of self-destructive thinking and feeling in order to remain in present. Neurosis is a pattern related to self-destruction that denotes thinking in a destructive manner, as opposed to Freud’s assumption related to sexual retreat. Otto Rank’s psychological concepts of creativity have been implemented on action learning to incorporate group problem-solving, leadership development, organizational learning and team building. The aim behind action learning is to inquire fiercely through asking evil and blasphemous questions that will allow patients to let go their negative shells by eradicating their negative beliefs and assumptions. These questions assist the group members in stepping out of their destructive ideologies to see and experience the world in a more positive manner. This process forms new perspectives that allow patients to delve into discovering a different world that no one has ever seen and experienced before. In short action learning is the therapy of learning to unlearn.
Otto Rank played a vital role in creating an impact on the works of different psychologists including Carl Rogers, Rollo May, Jessie Taft, Ernest Becker, Henry Miller, Mathew Fox, Irvin Yalom, Paul Goodman and many others. Otto Rank is regarded as a great pioneer in the fields of existential psychotherapy, transpersonal psychology, gestalt psychology as well as humanistic psychology. He died on 31st October 1939 in New York at the age of 55.
-
Paul Ekman
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/paul-ekman.jpg)
Paul Ekman is an American Psychologist who was born on February 15, 1934 in Washington DC, however, he grew up in New Jersey, Washington, Oregon and California. He is regarded as one of the best psychologists of 20th century. He was the first person to study human emotions and how it could be related to facial expressions.
Ekman’s research was based on how human traits, emotions and deception developed over time through empirical research. He negated the belief of anthropologists such as Margaret Mead who implied that facial expressions are determined culturally but instead remained forthright on the fact that it is developed universally and is biological in origin. These included expressions such as disgust, fear, anger, shame, surprise, sadness and happiness. Although, there are not much findings on contempt but it can be said that this emotion is universally recognized.
In 1957, his first publication contained all the findings for developing methods for measuring nonverbal behavior. His work gained inspiration from renowned psychologist, Silvan Tomkins. He also used oral signs of lying in his profession. In the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he claimed that Bill Clinton was lying because he used distancing language. Paul Ekman didn’t manage to graduate from high school and at the age of 15, he got admission in the undergraduate program at the University of Chicago. In 1954, he studied at New York University and got his BA. Moreover, in 1958 at the Adelphi University, he received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology which led him to doing a one year internship at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute. His classmates at the University of Chicago included Susan Sontag, Mike Nichols and Elaine May. In 1971, he received a Research Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental Health which later got renewed in 1976, 1981, 1987, 1991 and 1997.
National Institute of Mental Health supported Paul Ekman’s research through fellowships, grants and awards for over forty years. In 1985, being encouraged by his college friend and teacher Silvan Tomkins, he wrote a very famous book called Telling lies. Ekman teamed up with John Cleese for the BBC documentary series The Human face in 2001. He retired from the post of professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California in 2004. From there onwards, he worked at the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute. He currently serves on the Editorial board of Greater Good magazine which encompasses scientific research in compassion, altruism and peaceful human relationships. On the other hand, he is also working with Computer Vision researcher Dimitris Metaxas on a visual lie detector. In the May 11, 2009 edition of Time magazine, he was named one of the top 100 most influential people.
-
Paul Watzlawick
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/paul-watzlawick.jpg)
Paul Watzlawick was an Austrian American psychologist and philosopher born on July 25, 1921. His hometown was Villach, Austria; he graduated from high school in 1939. At the University of Venice, he earned a doctor of philosophy degree in 1949. In 1954, he studied at the Carl Jung University in Zurich and received a degree in analytical psychotherapy. He continued his researching career at the University of El Salvador in 1957. Paul was one of the most influential and renowned figures at the Mental Research Institute. In 1960, he was invited by Don D Jackson to do research at the Mental Research Institute and apparently in 1967, he started teaching psychiatry at the University of Stanford. Over there, he followed the footsteps of Gregory Bateson and the other research team and introduced the theory of schizophrenia knows as the “double bind” which describes when a person is trapped under mutually exclusive expectations. His other work in 1967 i.e. the Pragmatics of Human Communication based on Bateson’s theory made an indelible mark in the work of communication theory. Many other scientific contributions were made by him such as the radical constructivism, the theory of communication and also family therapy. His theory had great impact on the work of Friedemann Schulz von Thun and his theory of four side models. Moreover, Paul did extensive research on the effect of communication on families. He defined five axioms in his theory on communication which is known as the Interactional View Theory which is essential so that there is communication between two individuals in a family. As far as theory is concerned, miscommunication can always happen because communicators are not speaking the same language most of the time. Generally, it happens because people hold different perspectives while speaking and therefore the axioms explain how miscommunication occurs if the communicators are not on the same page. If however, the axioms are disturbed then there are likely chances of the communication failing. Much of the axioms are derived from the work of Gregory Bateson collected in “Steps to an Ecology of mind”. Paul Watzlawick has 18 books to his credit in 85 foreign language editions and more than 150 book chapters and articles. Some of his books are Pragmatics of Human Communication (1967), Change (with John Weakland and Richard Fisch) (1974), How Real Is Real? (1976), The Language of Change (1977), Gebrauchsanweisung für Amerika (1978), The Situation Is Hopeless, But Not Serious: The Pursuit of Unhappiness (1983), The Invented Reality: How Do We Know What We Believe We Know? (Contributions to Constructivism) (1984) and Ultra-Solutions, or, How to Fail Most Successfully (1988). Paul Watzlawick lived and worked in Palo Alto, California, until his death at the age of 85.
-
Phil McGraw
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/phil-mcgraw.jpg)
Philip McGraw who is an American television personality, author, psychologist and the host of the show Dr. Phil that made its mark in 2002 was born in Vinita, Oklahoma on September 1, 1950 to Jerry and Joe Mc Graw. He had two older sisters whose names were Deana and Donna and a younger sister by the name of Brenda. His father was an equipment supplier and he mainly grew up in the oil fields of North Texas. However, his family later moved during Mc Graw’s childhood and his father dreamt of becoming a psychologist. In Overland Park Kansas, Philip attended Shawnee Mission North High school. At the University of Tulsa, he was awarded a football scholarship where he played middle linebacker but unfortunately on November 23, his team was defeated by the University of Houston. Phil’s coach Glen Dobbs retired after that and thus he was shifted to Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas.
In 1975, Phil McGraw graduated with a Bachelor of Arts psychology from the Midwestern State University. In 1976, he acquired a Master of Arts in experimental Psychology and in 1979, he earned a doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology from the University of North Texas where he submitted a dissertation titled as “Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Psychological Intervention”. After much ado, he was guided by Frank Lawlis for the doctoral program who eventually also became a regular contributor of psychology to the Dr. Phil television show. McGraw later joined his father in Texas and became a part of his father’s clinic after acquiring his Ph.D.
Phil McGraw and his father presented “Pathways seminars” in collaboration with Thelma Box, a successful texas businesswoman in 1983 to provide training that basically allows individuals to create their own results. Majority of the critics were of the view that Phil and his father had used the same terminologies, phrases and quaint sayings in the seminar that were created by Thelma Box and Dr. Phil had also used them during his show and the Oprah Winfrey show. Phil McGraw on the other hand maintained that his first best seller i.e. Life Strategies was taken from the Pathways seminar although he had never made any contribution to Box in either his TV shows or books. After eight years, McGraw signed an agreement to sell the Pathways Seminar Stock for $325,000 without informing his father or Box about it. Box after that founded her own seminar titled as “Choice”.
In 1990, Phil McGraw had celebrity attention when he made an appearance on Oprah Winfrey show. He has also drawn considerable criticism for his approach to psychology. On October 22, 2003, he announced the formation of Dr. Phil foundation that raises funds to fight child obesity. The foundation also supports other charitable organizations.
-
Philip Zimbardo
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/philip-zimbardo.jpg)
Philip George Zimbardo who is a psychologist and professor at Stanford University was born on March 23, 1933 in the New York City to a family of Sicilian immigrants. In 1954, he completed his BA with a triple major in psychology, sociology and anthropology from Brooklyn College.
In 1955, he completed his M.S. in psychology and in 1959; he did his Ph.D. in psychology from Yale University advised by Neal E. Miller. From 1959 to 1960, he taught at Yale University and from there onwards, he taught psychology at the New York University. He taught at Columbia University from 1967 to 1968. In 1968, he became a part of the faculty at Stanford University. Philip is also the president of Heroic Imagination Project and is well reputed for his prison study in Stanford and the author of several popular psychology books and textbooks for college going students which comprises of The Time Paradox and The Lucifer Effect.
Philip Zimbardo accepted the offer of a tenured position at the University of Stanford in 1971. After acquiring permission from U.S. Office of Naval Research, he carried out his study in which some mentally right individuals were assigned the role of being prisoners or guards in the Psychology basement at the Stanford. Although it was a two week study but it ended in six days as the participants had undergone considerable amount of emotional trauma. Moreover, the students rapidly quirked their roles as guards becoming sadistic and prisoners showed signs of depression and passivity. Although the volunteers had a preconceived idea that the study would take place sometime but because it took place so suddenly in the prison, it put them in a state of shock. The volunteers on the other hand were degraded, shaved and searched and were given their ID numbers and uniforms and the volunteer prison guards escorted them to the cells which isolated them to a large extent that they were unable to let out their individual characteristics. The guards themselves did not have any prior experience of their treatment towards the prisoners but were given freedom by the psychologists to what they please towards the prisoners. Indeed, they wore similar uniforms and were dressed in a thorough professional manner, wore a whistle around the neck and carried a stick which they used in the night. When the experiment commenced, Philip started off with nine guards and nine prisoners and in backup were kept the original volunteers and 3 prisoners and simultaneously the 3 guards occupied the prison at a time.
Philip Zimbardo is greatly recognized for his work and has received the Dagmar and Václav Havel Foundation Vision 97 Award in Prague. He was also awarded the sarcastic IG Nobel Award for Psychology for his report “Politicians’ Uniquely Simple Personalities in 2003”.
-
R. D. Laing
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/rd-laing.jpg)
Ronald David Laing (R. D. Laing), a Scottish psychiatrist was born on 7th October 1927 in the Govanhill district of Glasgow. He father was David Park MacNair and his mother was Amelia Glen Laing and he was the only child of his parents. Ronald description of his parents especially his mother’s attitude was somewhat odd. He wrote greatly about mental illness especially in relation to psychosis. His father had served as an electrical engineer in the Royal Arms force and often came home very depressed due to strained relations with his very own brother during Ronald’s teenage years. His mother on the other hand was described as someone who was “psychologically peculiar”. According to his self diagnosis, R. D. Laing had his fair share of problems too suffering from clinical depression and episodic alcoholism which he spoke about in the 1983 BBC Radio interview with Anthony Clare however he was free of these problems before his death. Furthermore, these problems had serious repercussions for him which consequently led to his clinical practice being ceased by the General Medical Council.
R. D. Laing was greatly influenced by existential philosophy as far as causes and treatments of serious mental dysfunction were concerned. With him it was like that he took the feelings the individual client or patient expressed as valid interpretations of lived experience instead of mocking it as some kind of mental disorder. Although he rejected the label but he was associated with the anti-psychiatry movement. Additionally, he was also known to be a thinker of the New Left. Initially, he was educated at Sir John Neilson Cuthbertson Public school and four years after that; he was transferred to Hutchesons’ Grammar School. At school, he was considered to be very clever, sharp, and competitive. Apart from that, Ronald was involved in reading various types of classics and philosophy and he read them from the local library. Due to his taste for music, he was made the associate of the Royal college of Music. At the University of Glasgow, he went on to study medicine and also for several other reasons. Firstly to face life and death and secondly was to become more scientific. From the age of 18, he started to engage into heavy drinking.
At the time of his medical period, he established “Socratic Club” and the philosopher Bertrand Russell agreed upon becoming the president. In 1950, he failed his exams but after a second attempt and spending 6 more months working on a psychiatric unit, he cleared them in 1951. In 1965, he established the Philadelphia Association which he also chaired.
At the age of 61 he died of a heart attack while playing tennis with his friend and colleague Robert W. Firestone.
-
Rensis Likert
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/rensis-likert.jpg)
A big name in the field of Conflict Management, Rensis Likert was born on August 5, 1903 in Cheyenne, Wyoming. His father, George Herbert was an engineer. Likert graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1962 and in 1964, he married Jane Gibson who worked as a consultant and editor. The couple had two daughters, Elizabeth and Patricia.
Continuing his studies in New York, Rensis Likert graduated from Columbia University in 1932 with a Ph.D. Around this time, he also began his teaching career as an instructor at New York University, New York. By 1935, Likert had become and an assistant professor. For a year after this, Rensis Likert was a member of the faculty at the Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. He was then titled the head of the Division of Program Surveys, Bureau of Agricultural Economics in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. It was also during this time that Likert served as the research director for Life Insurance Agency Management Association (1935-1939). During World War II he was director of the Morale Division of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey (1944-1946). In 1946, Likert returned to the University of Michigan where he was a professor of sociology and psychology until 1970. In 1971, Rensis Likert was named professor emeritus. During his time at Michigan University, Likert also served at the Survey Research Center as its director (1946-1948). Also around this time, Likert formed his own company in Ann Arbor, Rensis Likert Associates. The company’s work was mostly related to management styles and systems in relation to survey research.
Not only did Rensis Likert led a successful teaching career, he was also a writer, contributing to substantial publications such as the Internatinal Encyclopedia of Neurology, Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology. His writing career produced six books mostly about the subject of management. Some of his most widely read books include Morale and Agency Management, 4 volumes, with J.M. Willits, 1940-41, and The Human Organization: Its Management and Value, 1967. Rensis also co-authored with his wife, New Ways of Managing Conflict (1976), published by McGraw-Hill.
Some prestigious positions held by Rensis Likert include being on the board of directors of the American Psychological Association, past president of the American Statistical Association, and a member of the national Academy of Public Administration. During the course of his career, Rensis has been subject to many prestigious awards including the Paul D. Converse Award from the University of Illinois (1955), the James A. Hamilton Award (1962), awards from the Organization Development Council and the McKinsey Foundation for his book New Patterns of Management (1962), a human relations award from the Society for the Advancement of Management (1968), a professional achievement award from the American Board of examiners of Professional Psychologists (1968), outstanding achievement awards from the American Society for Training and Development (1969) and the American Association for Public Opinion Research (1973).
-
Robert Cialdini
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/robert-cialdini.jpg)
Robert Cialdini is the author of one of the most important publications on the subjects of psychology and persuasion, Influence: Science and Practice and Influence: Psychology of Persuasion. The book has made its way to the New York Times Business bestsellers List. In addition to this, Cialdini’s famous publication has been translated into twenty-seven language and has sold over two million copies. Influence: Science and Practice and Influence: Psychology of Persuasion appeared on the Fortune Magazine’s list of 75 Smartest Business Books and on CEO Read’s list of 100 Best Business Books of All Time. The book is a result of years of study into the reasons that people comply with requests in business settings. It ranks consistently within the top one half of one percent of books sold on Amazon.com
Cialdini is an expert on how cutting-edge persuasion techniques can be used to encourage environmentally-responsible behavior. Cialdini has been through extensive scholarly training in the psychology of influence. With over 30 years of research and study on the subject, Robert Cialdini is considered an expert internationally in the fields of negotiation, persuasion and compliance. He spent his entire career on researching why people comply with requests. Because of his international reputation in the field and ethical business and policy application, Robert Cialdini is often referred to as the Godfather of Influence. Dr. Cialdini is the most cited social psychologist in the world today in the fields of influence and persuasion. According to Dr. Cialdini, there are six key principles of persuasion. These principles are reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, authority and liking.
Dr. Robert Cialdini earned a PhD from the University of North Carolina and post doctoral training from Columbia University. His credentials include visiting scholar appointments at Ohio State University, the University of California, the Annenberg School of Communications, and the Graduate School of Business of Stanford University. At present, he is the Regents’ Professor of Psychology and Marketing in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. He also serves as Member of Scientific Advisory Board at OPOWER, Inc. In addition to this, Robert Cialdini is the president of Influence at Work, an organization focusing on ethical influence training, corporate keynote programs, and the CMCT (Cialdini Method Certified Trainer) program. His list of clients includes many big names such as Google, Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Bayer, Coca Cola, KPMG, AstraZeneca, Ericsson, Kodak, Merrill Lynch, Nationwide Insurance, Pfizer, AAA, Northern Trust, IBM, Prudential, The Mayo Clinic, GlaxoSmithKline, Harvard University – Kennedy School, The Weather Channel, the United States Department of Justice, and NATO.
-
Robert Hare
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/robert-hare.jpg)
An expert on the nature and implications of psychopathy, Robert Hare is the creator of the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL) and its revision, the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), for the reliable and valid assessment of psychopathy. For more than four decades, Robert Hare has taught and conducted research at the University of British Columbia where he now serves as Emeritus Professor of Psychology.
An expert researcher in the field of criminal psychology, Robert Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist is used to predict the likelihood of violent behavior and diagnose cases of psychopathy. Hare possesses a strong academic career dedicated to the investigation of psychopathy, its nature, assessment, and implications for mental health and criminal justice. He has authored several books, of which the most widely read is Without Conscience: the Disturbing World of the Psychopaths among Us. He has also written more than a hundred scientific articles on psychopathy.
Robert Hare provides consultation to various British and North American prison services. He also advises the FBI’s Child Abduction and Serial Murder Investigative Resources Center and RCMP. He is also a member of the FBI Serial Murder Working Group. In addition to this, Robert Hare is the president of Darkstone Research Group Ltd., a forensic research and consulting firm. Hare has also served as a member of the Advisory Panel established by Her Majesty’s Prison Service to develop new programs for the treatment of psychopathic offenders. In collaboration with Paul Babiak, Robert Hare has extended the theory and research on psychopathy to the business and corporate world by publishing the book, Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths go to Work (2006). Hare spends a lot of his time lecturing on psychopathy and on the use and misuse of the PCL-R in the mental health and criminal justice systems.
For his exceptional services to the study of psychopathy, Robert Hare has received a number of prestigious awards. Some of these awards include the Silver Medal of the Queen Sophia Center in Spain; the Canadian Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Applications of Psychology; the American Academy of Forensic Psychology Award for Distinguished Applications to the Field of Forensic Psychology; the Isaac Ray Award presented by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law for Outstanding Contributions to Forensic Psychiatry and Psychiatric Jurisprudence; the B. Jaye Anno Award for Excellence in Communication, presented by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care; the Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy; the CPA Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology; the CPA Donald O. Hebb Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology as a Science, and the Order of Canada.
Robert Hare was born in 1934 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He earned a Ph.D in experimental psychology from the University of Western Ontario in 1963.
-
Robert Sternberg
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/robert-sternberg.jpg)
The American psychologist and psychometrician, Robert Jeffrey Sternberg is currently a provost at Oklahoma State University. He formerly served as the the Dean of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University, IBM Professor of Psychology and Education at Yale University, and the President of the American Psychological Association.
Robert Sternberg was born on December 9, 1949 in New Jersey. From an early age, Sternberg developed an interest in the study of psychology. He suffered from test anxiety. After performing poorly on an exam, Sternberg realized that tests could not be an accurate measure of one’s intelligence, knowledge and abilities. Upon retaking the same test in a different room with younger students, Sternberg felt more confident and performed better, gaining a higher score. A year later, Sternberg developed his own intelligence test which was named the Sternberg Test of Mental Ability (STOMA).
Sternberg’s academic experience clearly showed that most standard tests were poor tools of measuring mental abilities of a person. In light of Sternberg’s poor performance in his Introductory Psychology class, Sternberg was advised to pursue a different major by his professor. However, Sternberg was determined to study psychology. He went on to complete a B.A in psychology from Yale and then earned his PhD from Stanford in 1975.
He returned to Yale after earning his PhD and became a professor of psychology after which he went on to becoming the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University and Provost and professor of psychology at Oklahoma State University.
Robert Sternberg is an expert researcher in the areas of creativity, intelligence, cognitive styles and love. He is the founder of the triarchic theory of intelligence which focuses on the concept of successful intelligence. The theory consists of three main elements; analytical intelligence, creative intelligence and practical intelligence, where analytical intelligence refers to problem solving abilities, creative intelligence means making use of prior knowledge to deal with new situations and practical intelligence is all about the ability to adapt to a changing world.
Another fame winning credit of Robert Sternberg is his famous triangular theory of love. Sternberg has spent a large portion of his career researching love. According to this theory, commitment, passion and intimacy are the three main components of love. The combination of these three elements in different ways results in different types of love.
Sternberg’s contributions to the world of psychology are many. In addition to serving as the President of the American Psychological Association(2003), Robert Sternberg has written more than 1200 articles, book chapters and books. He has been awarded ten honorary doctorates and has won numerous prestigious awards including the Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Association for Gifted Children in 1985, the James McKeen Cattell Award from the American Psychological Society in 1999 and the E.L. Thorndike Award for Achievement in Educational Psychology from the APA in 2003. In addition to this, the American Psychologial Association listed Robert Sternberg as one of the top 100
psychologists of the twentieth century.
-
Roger Sperry
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/roger-sperry.jpg)
Roger W. Sperry was an American Psychobiologist who discovered that the human brain is actually made up of two minds. He found out that both the left and right parts of the human brain have specialized functions and that the two sides can operate independently.
Roger Sperry was born on August 20, 1913 in Hartford, Connecticut. Sperry was raised by his mother since his father died when he was only 11 years old. Up till high school, Sperry was educated at local public schools after which he obtained a scholarship to Oberlin College in Ohio where he majored in English. However, his interest developed in undergraduate psychology courses taught by R.H. Stetson, an expert on the physiology of speech. After completing a BA in English in 1935, for two years, Sperry worked with Stetson as a graduate assistant moving on to earning an MA in psychology in 1937.
Extremely dedicated to his field, Sperry began working on research projects at the University of Chicago where he worked under the wing renowned biologist Paul Weiss, Sperry conducted research on the organization of the central nervous system. Scientists of that time held the belief that the connections of the nervous system had to be very exact to work properly. Weiss negated the theory by surgically crossing a subject’s nerve connections after which the subject’s behavior did not change. Weiss concluded that it was not necessary for a nerve to connect to any particular location to function correctly. Sperry tested Weiss’s claim by performing his own experiment. He surgically crossed the nerves that controlled the hind leg muscles of a rat. According to Weiss’s theory each nerve should eventually learn to control the muscle to which it was now connected but when this did not happen, Sperry was able to disprove Weiss’s research. This became the basis of Sperry’s doctoral dissertation, ‘Functional results of crossing nerves and transposing muscles in the fore and hind limbs of the rat’. In 1941, Roger Sperry earned a PhD in zoology from the University of Chicago. Sperry conducted more experiments to prove that genetic mechanisms determine some basic behavioral patterns.
In 1941, Sperry began working in the laboratory of the famous psychologist Karl S. Lashley. In 1942, Lashley became director of the Yerkes Laboratories of Primate Biology in Orange Park, Florida where Sperry joined him on a Harvard biology research fellowship. During this time, Sperry disproved some Gestalt psychology theories as well as some theories of Lashley.
In 1946, Sperry became an assistant professor at the University of Chicago. In 1954 he transferred to the California Institute of Technology where he conducted research on split-brain functions that he had first investigated when he worked at the Yerkes Laboratory. Over the years, through his research and findings, Sperry shattered many important beliefs of scientists and neurosurgeons. By late 1960s, Sperry had begun publishing technical papers on his split-brain findings. His work and the importance of his findings were recognized and he was given the prestigious Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award along with $15,000 grant in 1979. In 1981, Roger Sperry was awarded the Nobel Prize for his contribution to the fields of medicine and psychology. He shared it with two other scientists, Torsten N. Wieseland David H. Hubel.
-
Rollo May
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/rollo-may.jpg)
The extential psychologist, Rollo May was born on in Ada, Ohio on April 21, 1909. Unfortunately, May did not experience a very happy childhood. Never getting along, his parents got divorced and his sister suffered a psychotic breakdown.
Rollo May studied English at Michigan State and graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College after which he went to Greece and taught English for three years at Anatolia College. During this time, May spent some time as an itinerant artist studying briefly with Alfred Adler. Upon returning to the US, May entered a seminary where he made friends with Paul Tillich, an existentialist theologian who heavily influenced May’s thinking. In 1938, May received his BD.
May’s health declined significantly when he suffered tuberculosis due to which he had to spend three years in a sanatorium. Facing the possibility of death, this period was a turning point in May’s life. He spent most of his time during these days reading various pieces of literature. Among the authors he read was Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish religious writer. Kierkegaard’s work heavily inspired the extential movement and also became the basis of inspiration for Rollo May’s theory.
May eventually completed his education in 1949 at Columbia University earning a PhD in clinical psychology from Teachers College. May’s PhD was the first that Columbia University awarded in clinical psychology. After becoming a PhD doctor, May set out to teach at some of the top schools in the country. In 1958, along with Ernest Angel and Henri Ellenberger, May edited the book Existence. This book is known to introduce extential psychology to the United States.
Rollo May very rightly established the fact that a person develops through stages. According to him, all individuals experience a number of stages throughout their lifetimes. He identified these stages as Innocence, the stage of pre-self-consciousness, Rebellion, when a person believe in their free will without understanding the responsibilities that accompany freedom. This is followed by the stage of Decision, where a person grasps his/her independence from one’s parents and makes decisions about what to do with his/her life. Next comes the Ordinary stage where individuals experience a developed sense of ego and responsibility. During this point in life, people feel overwhelmed when they are unable to meet responsibilities. This is when they give in to socially acceptable norms and values. Finally, an
individual identifies their authentic self in Extential or Creative stage where he/she experiences self actualization. May’s stages do not necessarily come one after the other. Different people can experience these stages at different times in their lives.
Although May was an extential psychologist, he was also highly under the influence of other philosophical theories and humanism. He often studied the works of Freud and also believed Otto Rank to be a genius. May’s own contributions to extential psychology are many. He founded the Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center in San Francisco and also published numerous articles. Some of his best works include The Courage to Create and Love & Will. Spending the last years of his life in Tiburon, California, Rollo May passed away in the October of 1994.
-
Sigmund Freud
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/sigmund-freud.jpg)
Sigmund Freud was born in Freiberg, Austria on May 6, 1856. Freud is mainly associated with neuropsychology. He contributed a lot to the field through his theories and practice. Freud began by studying hysteria and then sexuality. Sigmund Freud was a very controversial personality of the 20th century. His studies have a lot to do with dreams. Freud defined what he named the Oedipus complex and also presented the three stages of immature sexual development.
When he was four years old, Freud’s family moved to Vienna, where he would live and work for the most of his life. In 1881, Freud received his degree in medical and got engaged to be married a year later. He had six children. His youngest daughter Anna went on to become a prominent psychoanalyst. Upon graduation, Freud set up his own private practice treating a variety of psychological disorders. However, Sigmund Freud preferred and considered himself to be a scientist first and then a doctor. He therefore, set out to comprehend human experiences and knowledge.
Since early on in his career, Freud was highly influenced by the work of his colleague and friend, Josef Breuer who discovered the fact that upon encouraging a patient of hysteria to talk candidly about the earliest signs and incidents of hysteria, the symptoms slowly fade away. Taking inspiration from Breuer, Freud hypothesized that neurosis originated from intensely distressing experiences that had happened in the patient’s past. According to Freud, the original incidents are forgotten and concealed from consciousness. Freud treated his patients by encouraging his patients to think about and remember the experience in order to bring it back to the conscious and while recalling the experience, the patient would confront it coming to terms with it both emotionally and intellectually. Freud believed this way, the patient can let it out and get rid of his/her neurotic condition. The findings and theories of Freud and Breuer together were published in 1895 in Studies in Hysteria.
After working for a long time together, Breuer decided to discontinue working with Freud because he thought Freud stressed overly on the sexual implications and origins of a neurotic patient and was not willing to consider other factors. Freud on the other hand, supported his own argument and published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900 followed by The Psychopathology of Everyday Life in 1901 and Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality in 1905. Most of his contemporaries saw Freud’s work to be overplayed and disreputable. Freud was invited to the United States in 1909 to deliver a series of lectures. It was after these lectures that Sigmund Freud gained immense fame. Also contributing to his fame was his book, Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1916).
Freud Sigmund’s life of curiosity and inquiry ended on September 23, 1939 when he committed suicide. Freud had requested a lethally high dose of morphine from his doctor during exiling in England. Freud had been fighting oral cancer.
-
Simon Baron-Cohen
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/simon-baron-cohen.jpg)
A Cognitive Neuroscientist, Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen was born on August 15, 1958. He is a professor of Developmental Psychopathology at Cambridge University, United Kingdom in the departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry. Dr. Simon is also the Director of the University of Cambridge’s Autism Research Center and a Fellow of Trinity College. His exceptional work on autism has gained him much recognition. He is also best known for his theory, according to which, autism involved degrees of mind blindness. In other words, delayed development of theory of mind. In another famous theory, Cohen states that autism is an extreme form of the male brain.
Highly educated in his field of study, Baron-Cohen received a BA degree in Human Sciences from New College, Oxford. He also holds an MPhil in Clinical Psychology from the Institute of Psychiatry from King’s College, London. Baron-Cohen earned his PhD in Psychology from the University College London under the supervision of Uta Frith.
Simon Baron-Cohen has conducted a number of extensive research projects. He co-authored the first study showing that children with autism experience delays in the development of a theory of mind (1985). His research over the next 10 years provided plenty of evidence for the Theory of Mind deficit. Based on more findings, Baron-Cohen proposed a model of the development of mindreading. His work also includes conducting brain imaging to examine the autistic brain. His 1990s hypothesis claimed that typical sex differences may provide a neurobiological and psychological understanding
of autism proposing the autism is an extreme form of the male brain. He believes that autism may be a result of hyper-masculinization. Baron-Cohen’s book, The Essential Difference (2003) explains gender differences and its relationship to autism. In late 1990s, Baron-Cohen launched the Cambridge Longitudinal Foetal Testosterone, a research program for children of mothers who had amniocentesis. Baron-Cohen also created software for the special education of children with autism. The software is used to teach autistic children to learn and understand emotions. Synasthesia is another research area Baron-Cohen is linked with. Synathesia is a neurological condition in which a sensation in one modality triggers a perception in another modality. Baron-Cohen and his colleagues are the first ones to prove the existence of synathesia using neuroimaging. In addition to this, Simon Baron-Cohen holds position as the co-editor in chief of the journal, Molecular Autism. He is also Chairman of the NICE Guideline Development Group for adults with autism.
Baron-Cohen has been recognized for his contributions to psychology through many prestigious awards including the Spearman Medal from the British Psychological Society (BPS), the McAndless Award from the American Psychological Association, and the May Davison Award for Clinical Psychology from the BPS, and the President’s Award from the BPS.
-
Solomon Asch
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/solomon-asch.jpg)
The pioneer of Gestalt psychology and Social psychology, Solomon E. Asch was born in Warsaw, Poland on September 14, 1907. Asch migrated to the United States in 1920 at the age of 13. He lived with his family in the Lower East Side of Manhattan learning English language by reading Charles Dickens. In 1928, Solomon Asch earned his bachelor’s degree from the College of the City of New York after which he went to Columbia University. At Columbia, Asch was mentored by Max Wertheimer who highly influenced Asch’s views on Gestalt. Asch received his master’s degree in 1930 followed by PhD in 1932.
When Hitler was in full power during World War II, Asch studied the impact and consequences of indoctrination and propaganda. During this time, Asch was a professor at the psychology department of Brooklyn College. Solomon Asch also taught at Swarthmore College for 19 years. Also at Swarthmore College, Asch worked with Wolfgang Köhler, a renowned Gestalt psychologist. Asch later received the prestigious title of Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
It was during the 1950s that Solomon Asch became famous due to his series of experiments better known as the Asch conformity experiments. These experiments showed the effects of social pressure on conformity. During this time, Asch became widely recognized for his theories on social psychology. Many of his ideas left a permanent impact on psychology. Solomon Asch served as the director and professor of psychology at the Institute for Cognitive Studies at Rutgers University from 1966 to 1972.
While Solomon Asch left many lasting impacts on the field of psychology, his studies on conformity also known as Asch Paradigms are by far his most recognized achievement. The purpose of these experiments was to prove the significance of conformity in social settings. Many following researchers were heavily influenced by Asch’s research and studies. Among these was Stanley Milgram who was supervised by Asch during his PhD at Harvard University.
Also among his greatest achievements is Solomon Asch’s textbook, Social Psychology (1952) which is an embodiment of his theories. More publications by Asch include, Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgment (1951), Opinions and social pressure (1955), Studies of independence and conformity: A minority of one against a unanimous majority (1956) and Social psychology (1987).
Solomon Asch passed away on February 20, 1996 in Haverford, Pennsylvania at the age of 88.
-
Stanley Milgram
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/stanley-milgram.jpg)
Stanley Milgram was born on August 15, 1933 in the New York City to a Hungarian father and Jewish mother. He was excellent in his studies and a great team leader among his friends. He studied in James Monroe High School. Due to his diligence and hard work, he acquired his Bachelor degree in Political Science from Queen’s college, New York in 1954 which was tuition free. Although initially being rejected from an underground programme at Harvard, he was later accepted after enrolling himself as a student in Harvard’s office of special students. Thus in 1960, he received his Ph.D in Social Psychology from Harvard University.
In general, Milgram preferred to handle subjects that were related to common man. For example, he was questioned by his mother-in-law once as to why people don’t quit their seats on the subway to which he replied that these people were unable to act against each other. Much later, his students went out to investigate and it was proved that his theory was accurate.
In 1974, he published Obedience to Authority, an experiment to analyze the willingness of the participants to obey a figure that was authoritative to them. This was in alliance with their personal conscience. In July 1961, the experiments started when the German Nazi War criminal Adolf Eichmann was tried. Stanley Milgram made use of his psychological study to find out whether Eichmann and his accomplices did it for their own mutual purposes? However, his testing proved that the millions of accomplices were following orders and at the same time go against their moral beliefs. These experiments have been carried out across many cultures, societies and globes. Apparently, these experiments have been termed physically and psychologically abusive and perceive a very controversial aspect of Psychology.
Besides, an anti-social behavior experiment was carried out by Stanley Milgram to find out the relation between media consumption and anti-social behavior. It also gave the opportunity of stealing money or donating it to charity. On the other hand, Milgram also developed the lost letter experiment which entails the co-operation and extending hand of people towards strangers and their attitude towards other groups. It happens so when they planted sealed and stamped letters in public places which were for important units such as individuals and favorable organization such as medical and research institutes and for stigmatized organization such as Friends of the Nazi Party. Strangely, letter to the favorable organizations and individuals were mailed where as those to stigmatized organizations were not.
For his achievements mainly for his work on obedience, he was awarded Annual Social Psychology Award by the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1974. He died in New York city in 1984 at the age of 51 leaving behind his widow and two children.
-
Steven Pinker
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/steven-pinker.jpg)
A Canadian, Steven Arthur Pinker was born on September 18, 1954 in Montreal, Canada to a middle class Jewish family. His father was a lawyer who initially worked as a manafacturer’s representative and his mother was a homemaker, a guidance counsellor and then a high school vice principal. Pinker has two younger siblings too. His sister Susan Pinker is a psychologist by profession and author of the book The Sexual Paradox whereas his brother designs policies and analyzes them for the Canadian government. Known to be a popular psychologist, linguist, scientist and author, Pinker is a professor of Harvard University having completed his BA degree in Psychology at McGill University and then earned his PhD degree in experimental Psychology from Harvard University. He is the one who advocated the computational theory of mind and evolutionary psychology. Steven has six books to his credit; Work and rules, the blank slate, the stuff of thought, the better Angels of our nature, how the mind works and the language instinct. His latter book has been criticized by Jeffrey Elman’s in his book, Rethinking innateness where he defended the connectionist approach. The other books are a combination of cognitive science, evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics. Steven Pinker has many researches related to language and cognition. Famous for his work on the theory of language acquisition, he says that the human mind is not complex and comprises of various adaptive mental facilities. Another important element of his theory is the human cognition that works not only among sensory features but also combinatorial symbol manipulation. In the language instinct written by Noam Chomsky, he modified his work by saying that evolution was due to natural selection. Pinker has had many influences in his life namely Thomas Sowell, Noam Chomsky, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, Richard Dawkins and Thomas Schelling. Pinker has written various other books such as Language Learnability and Language Development, Connections and Symbols, Visual Cognition, Lexical and Conceptual Semantics and Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language.
Pinker has also received many awards for his contribution such as Troland Award, Henry Dale Prize, Walter P Kistler Book Award, Humanist of the Year award and George Miller Prize. He got married in 1980 to Nancy Etcoff and they divorced in 1992. He married again in 1995 to Ilavenil Subbiah and they divorced too. He got married again to Rebecca Goldstein who is a philosopher and novelist and has two stepdaughters.
In 2004, Steven Pinker was listed in the Time Magazine of the 100 most influential scientists in the world. He has won the Early Career Award for his research in Cognitive Psychology and the Troland Research Award from the National academy of Sciences.
-
Søren Kierkegaard
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/soren-kierkegaard.jpg)
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, a Danish religious author, theologian and philosopher was born on 5th May 1813 to a wealthy family in Copenhagen. Before marrying his father Michael Pedersen Kierkegard, his mother Ane Sorensdatter Lund Kiekegard had served as a maid in the same household. Her mother was not very pretty or educated in fact she was quite plain. On the contrary, her father was a strict person and appeared as someone who was very dull and dry and managed to hide his imagination that was so active with his great age. In 1830, he attended school and then went to the Copenhagen University to study theology. Søren is regarded to be the father of existentialism which consisted of three spheres i.e. human existence, knight of faith and infinite qualitative distinction. His other interests were Christianity, metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, psychology and philosophy. During his time, he criticized the works of Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel, Fredrick Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Not only this, but he was also not in favor of the state and the practice of Christianity carried out in the church of Denmark.
Søren Kierkegaard was the first existentialist philosopher. All his working pertaining to this field dealt with how one lives single handedly as an individual giving more importance to human reality rather than abstract thinking focusing on commitment and personal choice. As far as his theological work is concerned, it is oriented towards Christian ethics i.e. the institution of the Church and the difference regarding the proof of Christianity. He also mentioned about the individuals subjective relationship with Jesus Christ. Basically, most of his work is in relation to Christian love. His psychological work which was inspired by Socrates and the Socratic Method discovered the emotions and feelings that an individual goes through while having to make difficult choices in his life. Søren’s previous work was written with pseudonyms which presented dialogue about viewpoints that were complex in nature. He also did that for critique. Many books were written by him such as Upbuilding Discourse dedicated to the single individual under his own name who wanted to explore the meaning of his work.
Generally, scientists were of the view that they can learn about the world through observation but Søren Kierkegaard completely rubbished saying that it could not explore the insight of the spiritual world. He really liked the comedies of Ludvig Holberg, philosophy of Christian Wolff and the writings of Georg Johann Hamann especially those with reference to Plato and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. He died on 11th November, 1855 at the age of 42. Many of the 20th century philosophers have drawn inspiration from Søren and his work valuing the importance of individual.
-
Timothy Leary
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/timothy-leary.jpg)
Timothy Francis Leary, an American psychologist and writer renowned for his persuasion towards psychedelic drugs was born on October 22, 1920 in Springfield, Massachusetts. He was the only child of his parents. His father was of Irish-American descent and a dentist by profession. At the young age of 13, his father left his wife Abigail Ferris.
After graduating from Springfield’s Classical High School, Leary attended the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. This lasted from 1938 to June 1940. Due to increasing pressure from his father, he enrolled himself as a cadet in the United States Military Academy at West Point. His performance was very low during the initial months as he failed to report infractions while on duty. Apparently, he violated the Academy’s honor code and was found to be engaging in drinking which he did not admit to. Thus he was told to resign by the committee which he refused. Because of this, he was completely ignored by his fellow cadets which were a trick on their part to make him resign. This treatment continued till the second year which finally made his mother appeal to a family friend named Senator David I Walsh head of the Senate Naval Affairs Committee who conducted a personal investigation to reveal the truth. However, the Honor Committee decided that it would abide by the court orders which ultimately left Leary with no choice but to resign. Moreover, he claimed that it was the most honest trial ever. Leary caught himself into many legal troubles because of his work. He conducted experiments such as Concord Prison Experiment and Marsh Chapel Experiment under the Harvard Psilocybin Project in Harvard University at a time when drugs such as LSD and psilocybin were legal. The Concord Prison experiment analysed the effects of psilocybin on prisoner who were rehabilitated. 36 prisoners promised to give up their criminal activities having undergone this experience. Although the results produced were quite useful, nonetheless Leary and his colleague Richard Alpert were expelled from the university. Leary was of the view that LSD was of potential use in psychiatry. Many such catch phrases were popularized by him such as set and setting, think for yourself, turn on, turn in, drop out and question authority. In addition, his book Exo-Psychology developed the eight circuit model of consciousness. Besides, he spoke and wrote about transhumanist concepts involving life extension, space migration and intelligence increase.
He was described as the most dangerous man in America by President Richard Nixon. Leary was also arrested on regular basis during the 1960’s and 1970’s and held as prisoner. At the age of 75, Leary died on May 31, 1996. His last word to his son was “beautiful”.
-
Urie Bronfenbrenner
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/urie-bronfenbrenner.jpg)
A Russian American psychologist, Urie Brofenbrenner was born on April 29, 1917 to Dr. Alexander Brofenbrenner and Kamenetski Brofenbrenner. At the age of his 6, his family relocated to United States. For a short period of time, they settled Letchworth village in Pittsburgh where his father worked as a research director and clinical psychologist. Broferbrenner attended Cornell University after his graduation from Haverstraw High School and by 1938; he completed his double major in psychology and music. Then he completed his M.A at Harvard University and in 1942, completed his PhD from the University of Michigan. Just shortly after that, he was hired as a psychologist in the army doing many assignments for the Office of Strategic Services and the Army Air Corps. In the administration and research, he worked as an assistant chief psychologist before he accepted the offer from the University of Michigan to work as an assistant professor in Psychology. In 1948, he accepted an offer from Cornell University as a professor in Human development, family studies and psychology. He also served as a faculty member in the board of trustees in the late 1960’s and 1970’s. Urie is admired all over the world to develop the innate relationship between research and policy on child development. He was of the view that child development is better applicable when institutional policies motivate studies in a natural environment and theory is best suited in a practical application when it is relevant.
He is most renowned for his Ecological System Theory and co-founder of the Head Start programme situated in United States that provides education to under privileged children. He has segregated four types of systems in the ecological theory i.e. microsystem that deals with family or classroom, mesosytem that consists of two types in interaction, the exosystem which are the external environments that have an impact on the development and the macrosystem that involves a socio-cultural context. In addition, he incorporates a fifth system which is the Chronosystem which are the external systems that evolve over time. Each of these systems has some defined norms, role, and rules that bring about the shape in development. These systems have a striking resemblance to the approach of social networks by James Comer who the pioneer to put forward the idea of social reform that came out as the Social Development Program which describes how children are taught and nurtured in environments that are nested.
Urie Bronfenbrenner received many awards for his work and dedication such as The James McKeen Catell Award from the American Psychological Society and award for lifetime contribution to Developmental Psychology in the service of science and society. His wife was Liese Urie Borfenbrenner with whom he had 6 children. At the age of 88, he died on September 25, 2005 in Ithaca, New York at him home due to diabetes.
-
Viktor Frankl
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/viktor-frankl.jpg)
The founder of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis, Victor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist. Also a survivor of the Holocaust, Frankl belonged to the Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy.
Viktor Frankl was born into a Jewish family on March 26, 1905. With an early interest in psychology, some of Victor’s earliest works include a paper about the psychology of philosophical thinking which he wrote for the final exam in Gymnasium. Frankl studied medicine at the University of Vienna later specializing in psychiatry and neurology focusing on studies of suicide and depression. While in medical school, Frankl organized and offered a special program to counsel high school students free of charge. As a result of this popular program, not a single student in Vienna committed suicide.
After completing his residency in Neurology and Psychiatry at the Steinhof Psychiatric Hospital in Vienna, Frankl became responsible for the Selbstmörderpavillon where he treated over 30,000 women prone to suicide. He established his own private practice in Psychiatry and Neurology in 1937. Viktor Frankl was deported to the Nazi Theresienstadt Ghetto on September 25, 1942 along with his parents and wife. Here Frankl worked as a general practitioner and was later assigned to the psychiatric care ward. Becoming the head of Neurology and Psychiatry clinic, Frankl established a successful camp for mental health care.
On October 19, 1944, Frankl and his wife were transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp moving on to a Nazi concentration camp called Kaufering where he spent five months as a slave laborer. He moved to camp Türkheim in March where he worked as a doctor before finally being liberated by the Americans on April 27, 1945. Frankl lost all his immediate relatives including his wife, mother and brother to the Holocaust.
Having spent three years in concentration campts, Viktor Frankl returned to Vienna in 1945. It was during this time that Frankl wrote his most famous book Trotzdem Ja Zum Leben Sagen: Ein Psychologe Erlebt das Konzentrationslager, known in English by the title Man’s Search for Meaning (1959). The book revolved around the life on an ordinary concentration camp inmate from the eyes of a psychiatrist. Carefully and deeply analyzing the suffering of other people and himself in the camps, Viktor Frankl concluded that even suffering is meaningful despite the most painful and absurd situations. His experiences have overtime shaped the therapeutic approach and philosophical outlook of many people who have read his works.
In 1946, Frankl began running the Vienna Polyclinic of Neurology where he remained till 1971. 1n 1955, Frankl became a visiting professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Vienna, In addition this, Frankl also resided at Harvard University (1961), Southern Methodist University, Dallas (1966), and Duquesne University, Pittsburgh (1972). Viktor Frankl spent a lot of time lecturing and conducting seminars all over the world and wrote and published more than 32 books. He has also been awarded 29 honorary degrees. For his significant contributions to religion and psychiatry, Frankl was awarded the Oskar Pfister Award in 1985.
A heart failure caused the death of Viktor Frankl on September 2, 1997.
-
Virginia Satir
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/virginia-satir.jpg)
The mother of family therapy, Virginia Satir was an American author and psychotherapist known for her significant works to the cause of family therapy. Her most well known and widely read books include Conjoint Family Therapy (1964), Peoplemaking (1972), and The New Peoplemaking, (1988). Virginia Satir is also the creator of the Virginia Satir Change Process Model, a psychological model developed through clinical studies. The model is still widely used by organizational gurus to define the impact of change.
A very bright child, Virginia Satir was born on June 26, 1916 in Neillsville, Wisconsin. She died on September 10, 1988. Virginia learned to read and write herself. She spent a curious childhood and from very early on in life understood that many people were not what they appeared to be. After moving to Milwaukee with her family, Satir undertook training at the Milwaukee State Teachers College while working side by side at Gimbel’s Department Store. Satir began her own private practice right after graduation. In a short span of a few years, Virginia was offered a position at the Illinois Psychiatric Institute where she addressed and taught the importance of dealing with the whole family during treatment instead of the individual client. Satir believed that problems of an individual stretched to the whole family and also stemmed from the family.
After spending several years at the Illinois Psychiatric Institute, Virginia Satir settled in California where she continued to work and focus on family therapy with like-minded colleagues. In California, Satir also founded the Mental Research Institute. Continuing to work for the cause of family therapy, Satir pioneered in conducting training sessions to specifically teach family therapy techniques. This led Virginia Satir to become the Training Director. Virginia used her expertise and experience to coordinate and deliver teachings of the program to psychologists throughout the United States.
All of Virginia Satir’s work is classified under the umbrella of Becoming More Fully Human. Virginia conceived the process and concept of Human Validation. Her approach to therapy was unique and from a new perspective. She did not believe in seeing a client’s issue as a problem. According to Virginia, a problem is the result of how a client copes with a particular issue, whether it is current or from the past. Based on the courses she delivered at the Mental Research Institute, Satir published the book, Conjoint Family Therapy. The book gained popularity and recognition all over the world making Virginia and her theories popular. Her achievements were also recognized by the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and the Academy of Certified Social Workers.
Virginia Satir also created the Satir Change Process Model, a method of change derived from her own clinical experiences and trials. The model is widely used in the corporate world today to understand the effects of change. Devoting her life to helping people with mental problems, Virginia Satir created many organizations to bring people with similar issues together. These organizations include Beautiful People and the Avanta Network. The influence of Satir’s research and work can be seen even today in modern psychotherapy, neurolinguistics and family constellations.
-
Wilhelm Wundt
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/wilhelm-wundt.jpg)
The father of experimental psychology, Wilhelm Wundt was a German psychologist, physician, physiologist and professor. He is still known today to be amongst the founders of modern psychology. He was also the founder of the first formal psychological laboratory in 1879 at the University of Leipzig. He used the laboratory to identify abnormal behaviors, mental disorders as well as explore the nature of religious beliefs and find damaged parts of the brain. His research established psychology as a separate science. Wilhelm Wundt is also associated with founding the first psychological research journal in 1881. The asteroids 635 Vundita and 11040 were named after Wilhelm Wundt to honor him.
Wilhelm Wundt was born on August 16, 1832 in Neckarau, Baden. Wilhelm was the fourth child of Maximilian Wundt, a Lutheran minister and Marie Frederike. At four years of age, Wilhelm moved with his family to a small town known as Heidelsheim. From 1851 to 1856, Wundt studied at the University of Tübingen,University of Heidelberg, and the University of Berlin. After graduating with a degree in medicine from the University of Heidelberg, for a brief period of time, Wundt studied with Johannes Muller and later with the physicist Hermann von Helmholtz. His work during this time later cast a heavy influence in experimental psychology. In 1874, he published the Principles of Physiological Psychology which helped establish experimental procedures in psychological research. He then established the very first two experimental psychology labs while working at the University of Liepzig. Wilhelm Wundt died on August 31, 1920.
According to Wundt, psychology was a science of conscious experience and that if you became a trained observer, you could tell precisely about emotions, thoughts and feelings through a process he called introspection. Wilhelm Wundt’s name is also associated with structuralism, a theoretical perspective that describes the structures that compose the mind.
An extensive writer Wundt wrote keenly on a variety of subjects including physiology, philosophy, psycholinguistics, psychology and physics. Modern psychology has undoubtedly benefitted a lot from the works of Wilhelm Wundt produced from his 65 years long career. Some selected publications by Wilhelm Wundt include Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung (1862), Vorlesungen über die Menschen und Thierseele (1893) and Völkerpsychologie, 10 volumes (1900-1920). In recognition of Wundt’s work, the American Psychological Association established the Wilhelm Wundt-William James Award for Exceptional Contributions to Trans-Atlantic Psychology, which recognizes a significant record of trans-Atlantic research collaboration.
An exceptional teacher, Wundt taught many bright students. Many of his students including Edward Titchener, James McKeen Cattell, Charles Spearman, G. Stanley Hall, Charles Judd and Hugo Munsterberg became eminent psychologists in their own right.
-
William Glasser
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/william-glasser.jpg)
The American psychiatrist William Glasser introduced to the world of psychiatry the concepts of reality therapy and choice therapy. However, his ideas and thoughts about personal choice, personal transformation and personal responsibility are considered controversial by many mainstream psychiatrists who prefer prescribing psychotropic medications in order to treat mental disorders. William Glasser worked not only to treat individuals but also applied his theories to wide array of social issues including, marriage, education, management etc. Although being a psychiatrist himself, Glasser openly warned the general public to beware of traditional psychiatry because of its goal to diagnose people with mental illnesses and prescribe drugs when in reality the patient may only be behaving in a certain way out of unhappiness and not a mental disorder. Glasser suggested that mental health should also be considered a concern as a public health issue.
William Glasser was born on May 11, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio. He went to Case Western Reserve University where he earned BA and MA degrees. Continuing his education, Glasser attended UCLA in California earning his MD. He began his professional career by working as a psychiatrist for the VA. During this time, Glasser met his mentor, Dr. G.L. Harrington. Glasser focused on and spent much of his time on the development of his own theories, specifically the Choice Theory. He studied the relationship between control and psychology as well as the effects of control which he observed during his own private practice with clients over decades. He investigated and analyzed how choices made by individuals affected other people and how every person has the power to make his/her own decisions and choices independently.
His contributions to the world of psychiatry include many influential books he co-authored. Many of these books focus on mental health, counseling, and the improvement of school teaching. Some other publications by Glasser advocate a public health approach to mental health versus a medical model. By the 1970’s William Glasser had compiled and named his body of work, Control Theory. By 1996, the theoretical structure evolved into a comprehensive body of work renamed Choice Theory.
William Glasser opened the Institute for Reality Therapy in 1967. The institute was renamed after its founder, Glasser three decades later. The institute still operates with many branches worldwide offering education and training and also latest advancements in Glasser’s theories and therapies. Today, the Glasser institute is is organized with regional groups in New England, the Sunbelt, and the West Coast in the United States. In July, 2010, the William Glasser Association International was set up which consists of an interim governing body responsible for setting up and coordinating activities and conferences worldwide. Outside the USA, the Glasser Institute has active independent national organizations in Canada, the UK, throughout Europe, Asia, Central and South America, Australia and New Zealand.
Today, William Glasser’s Reality Therapy has become a globally recognized, accepted and effective technique for improving relationships and satisfying needs in relationships.
-
William James
(http://www.famouspsychologists.org/psychologists/william-james.jpg)
William James was an American philosopher and psychologist. He was also a trained physician. James was the first educator in history to offer a course in psychology in the United States. He once said, “The first lecture on psychology I ever heard being the first I ever gave”. He also authored many influential books on the still young and developing fields of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism.
James was born into a family that encouraged cosmopolitanism in education. His father, Henry James Sr. was a noted and independently wealthy Swedenborgian theologian. His brother, Henry James was a novelist and their sister Alice James, a diarist. William James enrolled at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University to pursue an education in science. In 1864, he began medical studies at Harvard Medical School. Later, in the spring of 1865, William took a break from studies to join the naturalist, Louis Agassiz on a scientific expedition through the Amazon River.
However, he had to withdraw from the trip after 8 months due to seasickness and smallpox. He then travelled to Germany searching for a cure to an illness he encountered in April 1867. It was during this period that he started publishing his early works. Also during his time in Germany, William James realized that his true interests lay in psychology and philosophy instead of medicine. Although he finally completed his M.D in 1869, James never practiced medicine. In 1878, William James married Alice Gibbens.
Spending almost his entire academic career at Harvard, James also took up teaching courses of anatomy, psychology, physiology and philosophy. He taught at Harvard for 35 years. After retiring from Harvard in 1907, James continued to write, publish and lecture mostly on Pragmatism, A Pluralistic Universe, and The Meaning of Truth. During his last years, James suffered cardiac pain. He sought treatment in Europe but they were unsuccessful. On August 26, 1910, William James died of a heart failure. He was buried in the family plot in Cambridge Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
William James was a huge advocate of the concept of Pragmatism on which he wrote considerably. He believed that the truth of an idea can never be proven. James proposed we instead focus on what he called the cash value, or usefulness, of an idea. Opposing structuralism, William James believed in functionalism. He did not agree to the concepts of introspection and breaking down mental events to the smallest elements but believed in the wholeness of an event, taking into the impact of the environment on behavior. In addition to this, William James also proposed and approved the James-Lange Theory of Emotion.
While his contributions to the field of psychology are many, his classic textbooks including The Principles of Psychology (1890) and Psychology: The Briefer Course (1892) were and still are studied widely by psychology students all over the world. Many of James’ students including Mary Whiton Calkins, Edward Thorndike, G. Stanley Hall and John Dewey all went on to become influential names in the field of psychology.