AP Psych People

• Alfred Adler


  A Neo-Freudian, focused on parenting styles: also emphasized inferiority. When we are born we start off weak then strive to overcome these deficiencies by becoming superior to those around us - a driving force behind human thoughts, emotions and behaviors- it is possible to develop an inferiority complex.
• Mary Ainsworth


  Most famous for her work in early emotional attachment with "The Strange Situation." Experiment. The child's reactions are observed while playing for 20 minutes while caregivers and strangers enter and leave the room, recreating the flow of the familiar and unfamiliar presence in most children's lives. The effects vary in stressfulness.
• Gordon Allport


  Believed a person's personality could be organized into three levels of traits. Cardinal traits dominate and shape a person's behavior. These are rare as most people lack single themes that shape their lives. Central traits a general characteristic found in some degree in every person. An example of a central trait would be honesty. Secondary traits are characteristics seen only in certain circumstances (such as particular likes or dislikes that a very close friend may know).
• Albert Bandura


  Famous for the Bobo doll study- explained the social learning theory. Aggression is learned through observing and imitating others. The experiment is important because it sparked many more studies on the effects of violent media on children.
• Aaron Beck


  The father of cognitive therapy, specializes in clinical depression. Developed the cognitive triad of depression: people who are depressed have negative thoughts about themselves, their future, and the word in which they live
• Alfred Binet


  A French psychologist that came up with the first widely used intelligence test. He was hired by the French public school system to find children that needed special help. First used the IQ formula: MA/CA * 100= IQ. Influenced today's widely accepted intelligence test, the Stanford-Binet test.
• Paul Broca


  Physician that reported after damage to specific area of the left frontal lobe, known as Broca's area, a person would have trouble forming words but still be able to sing familiar songs and comprehend speech
• Raymond Cattell


  He is best known for his discovery of 16 underlying personality traits and his methods for measuring the traits are known as the 16 personality factor model and the 16 PF questionnaire. Used factor analysis
• Noam Chomsky


  One of the fathers of modern linguistics. His theory of generative grammar emphasizes universal grammar. His view was different from B.F. Skinners because he thought that certain aspects of linguistic knowledge were innate
• Hermann Ebbinghaus


  Famous for creating the forgetting curve. States that we forget the most information within the first 20 minutes, then an hour, then a day. The forgetting curve is exponential, just like the learning curve.
• Paul Ekman


  Studied facial expressions and how they reflected emotions. He believed there were six basic emotions that were universal and expressed in the same way in any culture. They are anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise.
• Albert Ellis


  Developed the psychotherapeutic approach known as rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), which aims to help patients overcome irrational beliefs and unrealistic expectations- taught to eliminate self-defeating thoughts while focusing on those that were beneficial.
• Erik Erikson


  A neo-Freudian; most famous for his stages in psychosocial development, which are based on Freud's five stages. Each of the eight stages includes a crisis that could go one of two ways. Examples include trust vs. mistrust in babies, autonomy vs. shame and doubt, identity vs. role confusion in adolescents, etc.
• Hans Eysenck


  He stated that intelligence was largely inherited and believed that all personality traits could be summarized by these two dimensions, which he called super traits. They are extroversion (introversion) and emotional stability or neuroticism (instability)
• Sigmund Freud


  Often know as the father of modern psychology and psychoanalysis. Believed that the unconscious determines everything we do. His theories include the ideas of the stages of psychosexual development (oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital) and the three parts of the mind- the id, ego, and superego. Believed that dreams, free association, and hypnosis could reveal the unconscious mind.
• Howard Gardner


  Created the theory of multiple intelligences that opposed Spearman's idea of one general intelligence. Believed there are eight 'smarts,' which are language smarts, logic smarts, music smarts, spatial smarts, kinesthetic smarts, intrapersonal smarts, interpersonal smarts, and nature smarts.
• Carol Gilligan


  Believed that Kohlberg's theory of moral development was male-centered and believed that boys are more likely to apply moral rules to all contexts where girls are more likely to consider relationships when making a decision
• Francis Galton


  Developed the idea of "nature vs. nurture". He studied genetics and how they affected people's individualism. Nature means how a person acts because of their genetics and nurture means how a person acts based on their environment. He believed nature is the most important in the debate.
• Daniel Goleman


  Most famous for his work with Emotional Intelligence, Emotional intelligence is how well you handle your feelings and how well you get along with others. He, a long with other psychologists, believes that EQ (emotional intelligence) may be more indicative to a person's success in life than academic IQ.
• Harry Harlow


  Raised monkeys with two artificial mothers. one represented nourishment, the other contact/comfort. Discovered monkeys would feed from harsh mom with the food, but quickly return to soft cloth mom for a safe/secure base. Humans act the same way, we are social creatures who need contact to thrive.
• Ernest Hilgard


  Best known for his research on hypnosis. Creator of the hypnosis theory of a "hidden observer" where a person undergoing hypnosis can observe his or her pain without feeling any actual suffering.
• Karen Horney


  Neo-Freudian, named parental indifference the true culprit behind neurosis and said the key to understanding this phenomenon is the child's perception- children can overcome the Oedipus Complex if they have loving parents.
• William James


  Wrote the first influential textbook on psychology, called Principles of Psychology (1890), a leading psychologist in the Functionalism movement, which emphasized the function (rather than the structure) of consciousness.
• William James and Carl Lange


  Came up with the James- Lange theory of emotion. The theory proposes that emotions occur because of physiological reactions to events. This means that based on how your body physically reacts to an event, your mind will decide the emotion you are feeling. (Smiling makes you feel happy)
• Carl Jung


  A Neo-Freudian, believed with Freud's "personal unconscious" but also though humans have a collective unconscious - a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history. Also studied persona- different "masks" we wear in social situations.
• Garcia and Koelling


  Discovered taste aversion when looking at effects of radiation on rats. Rats became nauseous from the radiation, but since the taste of water from a plastic bottle was accidentally paired with this radiation, the rats developed an aversion for this water.
• Lawrence Kohlberg


  Came up with 3 moral development stages. The first is Pre-conventional (acted whether they would gain rewards or punishment). The second is conventional morality (actions that uphold social rules in intent to be liked by others and gain approval). The third is post-conventional (abstract reasoning for their actions)
• Elizabeth Loftus


  Known for her work in the study of false memory formation and the misinformation effect. Famous for her car crash experiment- After viewing a video, those who were asked the question with the smashed wording were much more likely to "remember" seeing broken glass in a later question (in reality, no glass had been broken in the accident). They also remembered the car as driving much faster.
• Konrad Lorenz

  Rediscovered imprinting (phase-sensitive learning) which famously included Lorenz acting as the mother-figure for Mallard Ducks. There is a critical period for attachment.
• Abraham Maslow


  Founded Humanistic Psychology, which focused on the individual and self directed choices that influenced behavior (humans are basically good). Developed a Hierarchy of Needs that addresses physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.
• Stanley Milgram


  Most famous experiment: The authority figure told the teacher to test the learner word pairs, and if the learner were to answer wrong, the teacher would have to punish the student by electric shocks which got stronger each time. Although no actual shocks were given, more than 60% had 'shocked' the learner up to full voltage. Proved that people will do things mainly because an authority figure had prompted the teacher to do so.
• Ivan Pavlov


  His experiments with dogs led him to discover classical conditioning. Discovered that he could condition dogs to salivate at the sound of a tone when the tone was repeatedly presented with food. He also discovered that if he sounded the bell over and over then the reaction would become extinct, but it may reappear the next day when the bell is sounded- spontaneous recovery.
• Jean Piaget


  Studied the cognitive development of children. Defined four stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor, in which babies develop object permanence and stranger anxiety; preoperational, in which toddlers are egocentric; concrete operational, in which children develop ideas such as conservation; and formal operational, in which people ages 12+ begin to understand abstract concepts.
• Carl Rogers


  Humanistic psychologist who used the theory of self-concept. To help his clients get back on the road to self-actualization, he developed a therapeutic approach called client-centered therapy, in which the therapist offers the client unconditional positive regard by supporting the client regardless of what is said.
• Hermann Rorschach


  Most famous for his Rorschach inkblot test- designed to reflect unconscious parts of the personality that "project" onto the stimuli. Individuals were shown 10 inkblots, one at a time, and asked to report what objects or figures they saw in each of them.
• David Rosenhan


  His experiment tested the validity of psychiatric diagnosis of insanity. He sent fake patients who pretended to have disorders to mental hospitals and they were still treated for months after reporting feeling fine. It showed that clearly doctors can't distinguish between the sane from the insane in such environments.
• Martin Seligman


  He is famous for theorizing about 'learned helplessness'- that one will start to act helpless in a situation if they find that the can't stop the harmful stimulus, even if they actually do have the power to stop it. He found that dogs who had been shocked continuously would not escape even when given the ability to do so.
• Hans Selye


  Responsible for the idea of General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS). First is the "alarm reaction" where we prepare for "fight or flight." Second is resistance, where the resistance of stress is built. After a long duration of stress, the body enters the third stage- exhaustion. This last stage is most hazardous to your health and has the long-term effects.
• Stanley Schachter and Jerome Singer

  Developed the two-factor theory of emotion which simply states that emotions are comprised of physical arousal and a cognitive label. They also said that emotional experience requires conscious interpretation of the arousal. To test this they experimented this with college students by injecting them with epinephrine before placing them in a room with somebody in either a euphoric or irritated state.
• B.F. Skinner


  Associated with operant conditioning and responsible for the Skinner Box, or the operant conditioning chamber. He sought to understand behavior as a function of environmental histories of reinforcing consequences (as all behaviorists do).