Notable Psychologists
The Hospital of Bethlem (Bedlam) at Moorfields, London: seen from the north, with lunatics capering in the foreground
- BedlamFrom Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Originally, a lunatic asylum or madhouse, and hence a place of hubbub and confusion. The priory of St Mary of Bethlehem outside Bishopsgate, London, was founded in 1247 and began to receive lunatics in 1377. - Key Dates in Psychology, 1846-2002From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather guide
1846 E H Weber reports on his pioneering quantitative investigations of touch in On Touch and Common Sensibility... - Psychology Before PsychologyFrom Handy Answer: The Handy Psychology Answer Book
The study of mental processes as a science is relatively new because it is dependent on the scientific revolution. Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) is credited with first establishing psychology as an independent science. - Psychology in the 19th CenturyFrom Curriculum Connections Psychology: History of Psychology
As a result of changing attitudes to mental illness, madhouses were renamed asylums during the early 1800s. The idea was emerging that mental illness originated within the person, possibly in the brain.
- Alexander Bain (1818 - 1903): TopicEmpirical philosopher and psychologist, born in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, NE Scotland, UK. He became professor of logic at Aberdeen University (1860–81), and founded the journal Mind in 1876.
- Alfred Binet (1857 - 1911): TopicPsychologist, the founder of intelligence tests, born in Nice, SE France. Director of physiological psychology.
- Christine Ladd-Franklin (1847-1930): TopicPsychologist and logician, born in Windsor, Connecticut, USA. She studied mathematics at Johns Hopkins University, where she married faculty member Fabian Franklin (1882).
- Edward Titchener (1867 - 1927): TopicEdward Bradford Titchener, described as the dean of experimental psychology in America during his lifetime, was influential in bringing the ‘new psychology’, the experimental psychology of Wilhelm Wundt and others, to the United States.
- Emil Kraepelin (1856 - 1926)From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia
German psychiatrist who was at the forefront of establishing experimental psychiatry as a research method. His studies led to a new classification of mental illnesses; he identified ‘dementia praecox’ and ‘manic-depressive insanity’ as distinct diseases. - Ernst Weber (1795 - 1878): TopicGerman physiologist and psychologist who studied sensory response and is considered a founder of experimental psychology.
- Gustav Fechner (1801 - 1887): TopicFechner was one of a small number of German scientists whose work in the nineteenth century laid the foundation for modern experimental psychology.
- Havelock Henry Ellis (1859 - 1939): TopicHavelock Ellis, while writing extensively on other subjects also, was a major pioneer in the endeavour to dispel the rigidity and secrecy regarding sexual matters which held sway in Western Europe, not least in Britain, during the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
- Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850 - 1909): TopicGerman experimental psychologist who undertook the first systematic and large-scale studies of memory and devised tests using nonsense syllables.
- James Mark Baldwin (1861 - 1934): TopicBaldwin represents the rather interesting case of a researcher whose early career neatly tracked the empirical path that American psychology took during the years bridging the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but who then seemed to revert to the more philosophical interests and approaches of an earlier time.
- Jean Charcot (1825 - 1893): TopicFrench neurologist known for his research into diseases of the nervous system. Sigmund Freud was one of his pupils.
- John Bowlby (1907 - 1990)From Cambridge Encyclopedia of Child Development
The son of a London surgeon, the British psychiatrist John Bowlby studied Medicine and Psychology at Cambridge University. After service as an army psychiatrist, he took up an appointment at the Tavistock Clinic in 1946, where he remained for the rest of his working life. - Pierre Janet (1859 - 1947): TopicPsychologist and neurologist, born in Paris, France. He studied under Jean Martin Charcot, lectured in philosophy, and became the director of the psychological laboratory at La Salpêtrière hospital in Paris (1899), and professor of psychology at the Sorbonne.
- Sigmund Freud (1856-1939): TopicSigmund Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis and proved to be the most influential writer about the unconscious mind in the twentieth century. In 1900, he published The Interpretation of Dreams, which became a seminal work in the history of psychoanalysis. Not only did it include his ideas about the unconscious and the conscious, it also revealed Freud’s tendency to view many psychological conflicts as rooted in sexuality.
- Wilhelm Wundt (1832 - 1920): TopicWundt created and developed the first school of psychological thought, structuralism, the basic building block of which was sensation.
- William James (1842 - 1910): TopicWilliam James has an interesting (and possibly confusing) family tree, being the son of Henry James, the religious philosopher, and brother of another Henry James, the novelist. He himself was a philosopher and psychologist who taught at Harvard.
- Abraham Maslow (1908 - 1970): TopicUS psychologist. A professor at Brooklyn College (1937-51) and Brandeis University (1951-61), he is regarded as the founder of humanistic psychology.
- Albert Bandura (1925 - ): TopicAlbert Bandura grew up in Mundare, Northern Alberta, Canada. He spent his elementary and high-school years in the village's one and only school. At the University of Iowa he studied with Kenneth Spence (an associate of Clark Hull) and earned a doctorate in clinical psychology.
- Albert Ellis (1913 - 2007): TopicPsychologist and writer, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He studied at Columbia University (1947 PhD), taught at Rutgers University (1948–9), and practised clinical psychology from 1950.
- Alfred Adler (1870-1937): TopicPioneer psychiatrist, born and educated in Vienna. He first practiced as an ophthalmologist, but later became a prominent practitioner of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytical theories.
- Anna Freud (1895-1982): TopicAnna Freud (1895-1982) was the youngest of Sigmund Freud's six children and the only one among them who made her father's ideas into her own life work and mission.
- Anne Anastasi (1908 - 2001): TopicPsychologist, born in New York City, New York, USA. She taught at Barnard College (1930–9), Queens College (1939–46), and Fordham University (1946–79). In 1933 she married psychologist John Porter Foley Jr, a fellow graduate of Columbia University.
- Arnold Gesell (1880 - 1961): TopicPsychologist, born in Alma, Wisconsin, USA, the brother of Gerhard Gesell. He studied at Clark and Yale universities, became Director of the Clinic of Child Development at Yale in 1911, and also taught at Yale School of Medicine (1915–48).
- Arthur Jensen (1923 - 2012): TopicAfter obtaining his PhD from Columbia, the first decade of Arthur Jensen's life was spent applying Hullian theory to verbal learning. When this theory entered its death throes, Jensen moved fields to the psychology of individual differences, where he concentrated on the field of general intelligence and scholastic performance.
- Carl Jung (1875 - 1961): TopicSwiss psychiatrist and psychologist; he offered an alternative to Freudian psychoanalysis, developing concepts such as the collective unconscious, with its archetypes, the complex, and personality types.
- Carl Rogers (1902 - 1987): TopicAmerican psychologist. A founder of humanistic psychology, he developed client-centered therapy, in which the client directs the focus and pace of each session.
- Clark Hull (1884 - 1952): TopicBorn in Akron, New York, he studied at Michigan and Wisconsin, then taught at Wisconsin and (from 1929) in the Institute of Human Relations at Yale, where he conducted experimental research into behaviour and learning processes.
- Cyril Burt (1883 - 1971): TopicFollowing contact with Francis Galton early in his life, Cyril Burt's first academic appointment was to Charles Sherrington's Department of Physiology in the University of Liverpool. In 1913 he moved to London as psychologist to the London County Council: the first educational psychologist appointment in Britain.
- David McClelland (1917 - 1998): TopicThe founder and chairman of the Board of MoBer and Co. and Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. His research resulted in an internationally recognized theory of human motivation.
- Donald Hebb (1904 - 1985): TopicDonald Hebb committed himself to psychology late, at the age of 30. After graduating from Dalhousie University without special distinction, except in maths and physics, he became a high school teacher in his home village.
- Edouard Claparede (1873 - 1940): TopicEdouard Claparède was born and spent most of his life in Geneva. After studying science and medicine he concentrated on psychology, studying, and later collaborating, with Theodore Fluornoy, to whom he was closely related.
- Erich Fromm (1900 - 1980): TopicFirst educated by Jewish teachers and Talmudists, Fromm studied sociology with Alfred Weber at Heidelberg, then studied psychoanalysis in the 1920s.
- Erik Erikson (1902-1994): TopicGerman-born US psychoanalytic theorist who contributed to the understanding of human mental development.
- Fred Fiedler (1922 - 2017): TopicAlthough his training at the University of Chicago was in clinical psychology, Fiedler was also interested in industrial and organizational psychology.
- Gabriel Alexander (1891 - 1964): TopicThe most prominent representative of the neo-Freudian Chicago School of psychoanalysis, he worked in the areas of psychoanalytic research, psychotherapy and psychosomatics.
- Gordon Allport (1897 - 1967): TopicGordon Allport was the youngest of four brothers. His father was a country physician, and the family moved to Ohio shortly after Gordon's birth.
- Hans Eysenck (1916 - 1997): TopicBorn in Berlin, he studied in France and London University, and was professor of psychology at London University (1955–83). Much of his work was psychometric research into the normal variations of human personality and intelligence.
- Harry Harlow (1905 - 1981): TopicHarlow's contributions to psychology comprise a series of empirical findings in three main areas: the learning of problem solving, curiosity and manipulation, and the development of affectional systems.
- Hermann Rorschach (1884 - 1922): TopicRorschach's stature has been obscured by the development and partial eclipse of the projective test that bears his name. The only firm links between the two are the reduced set of ten inkblots, accepted by the publisher from the fifteen he had carefully selected, and his theoretic stance.
- James Gibson (1904 - 1979): TopicPsychologist, born in McConnelsville, Ohio, USA. He studied at Princeton and Edinburgh universities, and taught psychology at Smith College (1928–49) and at Cornell (1949–72).
- Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980): TopicSwiss psychologist, noted for his work on the development of the cognitive functions in children.
- Jerome Bruner (1915 - 2016): TopicJerome Bruner's contributions can be anchored in three concepts which are concerned with how we learn to mean and to understand others’ meanings. These are intentionality, thinking and culture.
- Karen Horney (1885 - 1952): TopicGerman-born US psychoanalyst best known for her concentration on the importance of the environment in the development of character.
- Karl Jaspers (1883 - 1969): Topic
German psychiatrist, philosopher, and theologian. A founder of modern existentialism, he was concerned with human reactions to extreme situations. - Kenneth Clark (1914 - 2005): TopicPanamanian-born American psychologist and author who demonstrated the psychological effects of racial segregation and ghetto life.
- Lawrence Kohlberg (1927 - 1987): TopicLawrence Kohlberg was the son of a wealthy businessman. He went to prestigious schools but instead of continuing on the path of privilege he joined the Merchant Marines after leaving high school.
- Leon Festinger (1919 - 1989): TopicWhat have each of the following got in common: decision making, communication, level of aspiration, food deprivation, persuasion, deindividuation in groups, pursuit eye movement and the technology of prehistoric hunting tools? The answer is Leon Festinger.
- Lev Vygotsky (1896 - 1934): TopicLev Semeonovich Vygotsky grew up in Gomel, near Belarus's borders with Russia and with the Ukraine. His early life and education were those of a well-to-do Jewish family of the time.
- Melanie Klein (1882-1960): TopicOriginally as a nursery-school teacher, she became an influential and controversial psychoanalysts in Britain. A current analytic school is named after her.
- Raymond Cattell (1905 - 1998): TopicBorn in Staffordshire, England, he studied at London University, taught at Harvard, Clarke, and Duke universities before World War 2, and after the war became director of the Laboratory of Personality Assessment at Illinois University.
- Rudolf Arnheim (1904 - 2007): TopicWhen he completed his PhD (an experimental investigation of visual perception) Arnheim worked for five years (1928-33) as assistant editor of a cultural affairs magazine published in Berlin.
- Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957): TopicPsychiatrist and writer. After studying medicine in Vienna, he became associated with Freud’s Psychoanalytic Polyclinic.
Schools of Psychology
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/psychology-schools-of-thought-2795247-01-76764cce15bd46118efb8779260aa571.png)
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: TopicCBT is an extremely successful and popular method of psychotherapy, loosely based on cognitive principles.
- FunctionalismFrom The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
The view that mental states are defined by their causes and effects. As a metaphysical thesis about the nature of mental states, functionalism holds that what makes an inner state mental is not an intrinsic property of the state, but rather its relations to sensory stimulation (input), to other inner states, and to behavior (output). - Gestalt: TopicSchool of psychology that interprets phenomena as organized wholes rather than as aggregates of distinct parts, maintaining that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
- Moral PsychologyFrom The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
The subfield of psychology that traces the development over time of moral reasoning and opinions in the lives of individuals. - Organizational PsychologyFrom The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology
A branch of applied psychology covering organizational, military, economic and personnel psychology and including such areas as tests and measurements, the study of organizations and organizational behaviour, personnel practices, human engineering, human factors, the effects of work, fatigue, pay, consumer surveys and market research. - Positive Psychology: TopicPositive psychology’s first focal area, positive subjective experience, is characterized by the study of such topics as well-being, personal happiness, life satisfaction, optimal human experience, exceptional performance, states of flow (total involvement), the importance of meaningful activity, and the good life. The second focus concerns the study of positive individual traits, and the field has already identified 24 “character strengths and virtues.”
- Post-traumatic Stress Disorder: Topic(PTSD), mental disorder that follows an occurrence of extreme psychological stress, such as that encountered in war or resulting from violence, childhood abuse, sexual abuse, or serious accident.
- Psychoanalysis: TopicName given by Sigmund Freud to a system of interpretation and therapeutic treatment of psychological disorders.
- StructuralismFrom The Concise Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science
As a school or system of psychology, structuralism had its antecedents in British philosophy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.