Famous Psychologists from the United States
- Phil McGraw, widely recognized as Dr. Phil, is a prominent figure in the field of psychology and television hosting. Born on September 1, 1950, in Vinita, Oklahoma, McGraw pursued a career that combined his skill set remarkably, leveraging his academic depth to bring psychological concepts closer to the masses. After earning a bachelor's degree in psychology from Midwestern State University, McGraw continued his studies at the University of North Texas. There he achieved a master's degree followed by a PhD. in clinical psychology. He began his professional journey as a psychologist, setting up a private practice with his father, who was also a psychologist. Although successful, McGraw eventually transitioned his career towards the media sector, where he found an innovative way to merge his interests. He first gained national exposure for his work with Oprah Winfrey, aiding her during a legal battle in the late 1990s. With his cogent advice and charismatic demeanor, McGraw quickly caught the public's eye, leading to his own syndicated television show, Dr. Phil. The show, which debuted in 2002, offers guests the opportunity to confront personal issues under McGraw's guidance. It has since been lauded for its ability to bring psychological discussions into everyday living rooms. Over the years, Dr. Phil has penned multiple best-selling books related to self-help and personal health, further solidifying his position as a prominent psychologist and media personality.
- Birthplace: Vinita, Oklahoma, USA
- John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey is one of the primary figures associated with the philosophy of pragmatism and is considered one of the fathers of functional psychology. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Dewey as the 93rd most cited psychologist of the 20th century. A well-known public intellectual, he was also a major voice of progressive education and liberalism. Although Dewey is known best for his publications about education, he also wrote about many other topics, including epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, art, logic, social theory, and ethics. He was a major educational reformer for the 20th century. The overriding theme of Dewey's works was his profound belief in democracy, be it in politics, education, or communication and journalism. As Dewey himself stated in 1888, while still at the University of Michigan, "Democracy and the one, ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonymous."Known for his advocacy of democracy, Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society—to be major topics needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. Dewey asserted that complete democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by communication among citizens, experts, and politicians, with the latter being accountable for the policies they adopt.
- Birthplace: Burlington, Vermont
- Alfred Charles Kinsey (; June 23, 1894 – August 25, 1956) was an American biologist, professor of entomology and zoology, and sexologist who in 1947 founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, previously known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. He is best known for writing Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953), also known as the Kinsey Reports, as well as the Kinsey scale. Kinsey's research on human sexuality, foundational to the field of sexology, provoked controversy in the 1940s and 1950s. His work has influenced social and cultural values in the United States, as well as internationally.
- Birthplace: Hoboken, New Jersey
- Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and writer known for advocating the exploration of the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs under controlled conditions. As a clinical psychologist at Harvard University, Leary conducted experiments under the Harvard Psilocybin Project in 1960–62 (LSD and psilocybin were still legal in the United States at the time), resulting in the Concord Prison Experiment and the Marsh Chapel Experiment. The scientific legitimacy and ethics of his research were questioned by other Harvard faculty because he took psychedelics together with research subjects and pressured students in his class to take psychedelics in the research studies. Leary and his colleague, Richard Alpert (who later became known as Ram Dass), were fired from Harvard University in May 1963. National illumination as to the effects of psychedelics did not occur until after the Harvard scandal.Leary believed that LSD showed potential for therapeutic use in psychiatry. He used LSD himself and developed a philosophy of mind expansion and personal truth through LSD. After leaving Harvard, he continued to publicly promote the use of psychedelic drugs and became a well-known figure of the counterculture of the 1960s. He popularized catchphrases that promoted his philosophy, such as "turn on, tune in, drop out", "set and setting", and "think for yourself and question authority". He also wrote and spoke frequently about transhumanist concepts involving space migration, intelligence increase, and life extension (SMI²LE), and developed the eight-circuit model of consciousness in his book Exo-Psychology (1977). He gave lectures, occasionally billing himself as a "performing philosopher".During the 1960s and 1970s, he was arrested often enough to see the inside of 36 prisons worldwide. President Richard Nixon once described Leary as "the most dangerous man in America".
- Birthplace: USA, Massachusetts, Springfield
- Joyce Diane Brothers (née Bauer; October 20, 1927 – May 13, 2013) was an American psychologist, television personality and columnist, who wrote a daily newspaper advice column from 1960 to 2013. In 1955, she became the only woman to win the top prize on the American game show The $64,000 Question, answering questions on the topic of boxing, which was suggested as a stunt by the show's producers. In 1958, she presented a television show on which she dispensed psychological advice, pioneering the field. She wrote a column for Good Housekeeping for almost 40 years and became, according to The Washington Post, the "face of American psychology". Brothers appeared in dozens of television roles, usually as herself, but from the 1970s onward she accepted roles portraying fictional characters, often self-parodies. Radio therapist Dr. Laura credited Brothers with making psychology "accessible".
- Birthplace: New York City, USA, New York
- Robert Anton Wilson (born Robert Edward Wilson; January 18, 1932 – January 11, 2007) was an American author, novelist, essayist, editor, playwright, poet, futurist, and self-described agnostic mystic. Recognized by Discordianism as an Episkopos, Pope, and saint, Wilson helped publicize the group through his writings and interviews. Wilson described his work as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth". His goal being "to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone but agnosticism about everything."
- Birthplace: New York City, USA, New York
- Julie Berry is a former contestant on the reality television show Survivor: Vanuatu.
- Birthplace: Lewiston, Maine, USA
- Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert; April 6, 1931) is an American spiritual teacher, former academic and clinical psychologist, and author of many books, including the 1971 book Be Here Now. He is known for his personal and professional associations with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s, for his travels to India and his relationship with Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba, and for founding the charitable organizations Seva Foundation and Hanuman Foundation. He continues to teach, via his website; produces a podcast, with support from 1440 Multiversity; and pursues mobile app development through the Be Here Now network and the Love, Serve, Remember Foundation.
- Birthplace: Boston, USA, Massachusetts
- Herbert Simon may refer to: Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001), American political scientist and economist Herbert Simon (real estate) (born 1934), American real estate developer
- Birthplace: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- William James (January 11, 1842 – August 27, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James was a leading thinker of the late nineteenth century, one of the most influential U.S. philosophers, and has been labeled the "Father of American psychology".Along with Charles Sanders Peirce, James established the philosophical school known as pragmatism, and is also cited as one of the founders of functional psychology. A Review of General Psychology analysis, published in 2002, ranked James as the 14th most eminent psychologist of the 20th century. A survey published in American Psychologist in 1991 ranked James's reputation in second place, after Wilhelm Wundt, who is widely regarded as the founder of experimental psychology. James also developed the philosophical perspective known as radical empiricism. James' work has influenced intellectuals such as Émile Durkheim, W. E. B. Du Bois, Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty, and has even influenced former US President Jimmy Carter. Born into a wealthy family, James was the son of the Swedenborgian theologian Henry James Sr. and the brother of both the prominent novelist Henry James and the diarist Alice James. James trained as a physician and taught anatomy at Harvard, but never practiced medicine. Instead he pursued his interests in psychology and then philosophy. James wrote widely on many topics, including epistemology, education, metaphysics, psychology, religion, and mysticism. Among his most influential books are The Principles of Psychology, a groundbreaking text in the field of psychology; Essays in Radical Empiricism, an important text in philosophy; and The Varieties of Religious Experience, an investigation of different forms of religious experience, including theories on mind-cure.
- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- Hugo Münsterberg (; June 1, 1863 – December 16, 1916) was a German-American psychologist. He was one of the pioneers in applied psychology, extending his research and theories to industrial/organizational (I/O), legal, medical, clinical, educational and business settings. Münsterberg encountered immense turmoil with the outbreak of the First World War. Torn between his loyalty to the United States and his homeland, he often defended Germany's actions, attracting highly contrasting reactions.
- Birthplace: Gdańsk, Poland
- Kay Redfield Jamison (born June 22, 1946) is an American clinical psychologist and writer. Her work has centered on bipolar disorder, which she has had since her early adulthood. She holds the post of the Dalio Professor in Mood Disorders and Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and is an Honorary Professor of English at the University of St Andrews.
Paul Rosenfels
Dec. at 76 (1909-1985)Paul Rosenfels (March 21, 1909 in Chicago – 1985 in New York City) was an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst known as one of the first American social scientists to publish about homosexuality as part of the human condition, rather than defining it as an illness or deviation. After leaving the academic field of psychiatry in the 1940s, he developed some of his own thinking and a larger philosophy. He published Homosexuality: The Psychology of the Creative Process in 1971, and other books about his arguments with psychiatry and psychoanalysis. In the 1940s Rosenfels left Chicago and his family, moving to California. He moved to New York City in 1962, where he established a private practice. He devoted himself to developing the foundations of a "science of human nature." In 1973 with Dean Hannotte, he founded the Ninth Street Center in New York City, which provided peer counseling and discussion groups.
Lauren Slater
Age: 61Lauren Slater (born March 21, 1963) is an American psychotherapist and writer. She is the author of nine books, including Welcome To My Country (1996), Prozac Diary (1998), and Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir (2000). Her 2004 book Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century, a description of psychology experiments "narrated as stories", has drawn both praise and criticism. It was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Kirsch award for science and technology writing, and was named as a 2005 Bild Der Wissenschaft book of the year in Germany. Criticism has focused on Slater's research methods and on the extent to which some of the experiences she describes may have been fictionalized. Other awards Slater has won include the 1993 New Letters Literary Award in creative nonfiction, and the 1994 Missouri Review Award, and her work has been included in Best American Essays multiple times. In 2006, Slater was chosen to be Guest Editor of the Best American Essay series. Slater has contributed to The New York Times, Harper's, and Elle.The Village Voice called her "the closest thing we have to a doyenne of psychiatric disorder".- Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, linguist, and popular science author. He is Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, and is known for his advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. Pinker's academic specializations are visual cognition and psycholinguistics. His experimental subjects include mental imagery, shape recognition, visual attention, children's language development, regular and irregular phenomena in language, the neural bases of words and grammar, and the psychology of cooperation and communication, including euphemism, innuendo, emotional expression, and common knowledge. He has written two technical books that proposed a general theory of language acquisition and applied it to children's learning of verbs. In particular, his work with Alan Prince published in 1989 critiqued the connectionist model of how children acquire the past tense of English verbs, arguing instead that children use default rules such as adding "-ed" to make regular forms, sometimes in error, but are obliged to learn irregular forms one by one. Pinker is also the author of eight books for general audiences. His earlier works argue that the human faculty for language is an instinct, an innate behavior shaped by natural selection and adapted to our communication needs. The Language Instinct (1994), How the Mind Works (1997), Words and Rules (2000), The Blank Slate (2002), and The Stuff of Thought (2007), describe aspects of [the field of] psycholinguistics and cognitive science, and include accounts of his own research. Pinker's The Sense of Style (2014), as a general style guide, is another language-oriented work. Informed by modern science and psychology, it offers advice on how to produce more comprehensible and unambiguous writing in nonfiction contexts and explains why so much of today's academic and popular writing is difficult for readers to understand. Pinker's two other books for the public leave behind individual questions of language and learning in favor of broader societal themes. The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) makes the case that violence in human societies has, in general, steadily declined with time, and identifies six major causes of this decline. Enlightenment Now (2018) continues the optimistic thesis of The Better Angels of Our Nature by using social science data from various sources to argue for a general improvement of the human condition over recent history. Pinker has been named as one of the world's most influential intellectuals by various magazines. He has won awards from the American Psychological Association, the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Institution, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society and the American Humanist Association. He delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 2013. He has served on the editorial boards of a variety of journals, and on the advisory boards of several institutions. He has frequently participated in public debates on science and society.
- Birthplace: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Chris Argyris
Dec. at 90 (1923-2013)Chris Argyris (July 16, 1923 – November 16, 2013) was a Greek business theorist, Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School, and held the position of "Thought Leader" at Monitor Group. Argyris, like Richard Beckhard, Edgar Schein and Warren Bennis, is known as a co-founder of organization development, and known for seminal work on learning organizations.- Birthplace: Newark, New Jersey
James Hillman
Dec. at 85 (1926-2011)James Hillman appeared in the 2007 film The 11th Hour.- Birthplace: Atlantic City, New Jersey
- Jonathan Seth Kellerman (born August 9, 1949) is an American novelist, psychologist, and Edgar and Anthony Award-winning author best known for his popular mystery novels featuring the character Alex Delaware, a child psychologist who consults for the Los Angeles police department.Born on the Lower East Side of New York City, his family relocated to Los Angeles when Jonathan was nine years old.Kellerman graduated from the University of Southern California (USC) with a Ph.D in Psychology in 1974 and began working as a staff psychologist at the University of Southern California School of Medicine where he eventually became a full clinical professor of pediatrics. He opened a private practice in the early 1980s while writing novels in his garage at night.His first published novel, When the Bough Breaks appeared in 1985, many years after writing and having works rejected. He then wrote five best selling novels while still a practicing psychologist. In 1990 he quit his private practice to write full-time. He has written more than 40 crime novels as well as non-fiction works and children's books.
- Birthplace: New York City, New York
Dan Anderson
Dec. at 81 (1921-2003)Dan Anderson (March 30, 1921 – February 19, 2003) was an American clinical psychologist and educator. He served as the president and director of the Hazelden Foundation in Center City, Minnesota. He is most associated with the development of the Minnesota Model, the clinical method of addiction treatment, based in part on the twelve-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous.Louis M. Goldstein
Louis M. Goldstein [1][2] is an American linguist and cognitive scientist. He was previously a professor and chair of the Department of Linguistics and a professor of psychology at Yale University, and is now a professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Southern California. He is a senior scientist at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut and a founding member of the Association for Laboratory Phonology. He is best known for development, with Catherine Browman [3], of the theory of articulatory phonology, a gesture-based approach to phonological and phonetic structure. The theoretical approach is incorporated in a computational model [4] that generates speech from a gesturally-specified lexicon. Goldstein, Philip Rubin, and Mark Tiede [5] designed a revision of the articulatory synthesis model, known as CASY [6], the configurable articulatory synthesizer. This three-dimensional model of the vocal tract permits researchers to replicate MRI images of actual speakers and has been used to study the relation between speech production and perception.- Diane Edith Watson (born November 12, 1933) is a former US Representative for California's 33rd congressional district, serving from 2003 until 2011. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district is located entirely in Los Angeles County and includes much of Central Los Angeles, as well as such wealthy neighborhoods as Los Feliz. A native of Los Angeles, Watson is a graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, and also holds degrees from California State University, Los Angeles and Claremont Graduate University. She worked as a psychologist, professor, and health occupation specialist before serving as a member of the Los Angeles Unified School Board (1975–78). She was a member of the California Senate from 1978 to 1998, and the US Ambassador to Micronesia from 1999 to 2000. Watson was elected to Congress in a 2001 special election to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Representative Julian C. Dixon. She was re-elected four times, but retired after the end of the 111th Congress.
- Birthplace: Los Angeles, California, USA
John M. Gottman
Age: 83John Mordecai Gottman is a professor emeritus in psychology known for his work on marital stability and relationship analysis through scientific direct observations, many of which were published in peer-reviewed literature. The lessons derived from this work represent a partial basis for the relationship counseling movement that aims to improve relationship functioning and the avoidance of those behaviors shown by Gottman and other researchers to harm human relationships. His work has also had a major impact on the development of important concepts on social sequence analysis. Gottman is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington. With his wife, Julie Schwartz, Gottman heads a non-profit research institute and a for-profit therapist training entity. Gottman was recognized in 2007 as one of the 10 most influential therapists of the past quarter century. "Gottman's research showed that it wasn't only how couples fought that mattered, but how they made up. Marriages became stable over time if couples learned to reconcile successfully after a fight."Kenneth J Gergen
Age: 90Kenneth J. Gergen is an American psychologist and professor at Swarthmore College. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts from Yale University and his Ph.D. from Duke University.- Birthplace: Rochester, New York
- Gregory S. Berns is an American neuroeconomist, neuroscientist, professor of psychiatry, psychologist and writer. He lives with his family in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.Berns holds the Distinguished Chair of Neuroeconomics in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta where he is a professor of both psychiatry and economics. He is Director of the Center for Neuropolicy; the author of the books Satisfaction: The Science of Finding True Fulfillment, Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently, How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain, and has made numerous media appearances.
- Kevin Michael Hogan is the starting American football quarterback for the Stanford Cardinal.
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- Nathaniel Branden (born Nathan Blumenthal; April 9, 1930 – December 3, 2014) was a Canadian–American psychotherapist and writer known for his work in the psychology of self-esteem. A former associate and romantic partner of Ayn Rand, Branden also played a prominent role in the 1960s in promoting Rand's philosophy, Objectivism. Rand and Branden split acrimoniously in 1968, after which Branden focused on developing his own psychological theories and modes of therapy.
- Birthplace: Brampton, Canada
- William Moulton Marston (May 9, 1893 – May 2, 1947), also known by the pen name Charles Moulton (), was an American psychologist, inventor of an early prototype of the lie detector, self-help author, and comic book writer who created the character Wonder Woman.Two women, his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston, and their polyamorous life partner, Olive Byrne, greatly influenced Wonder Woman's creation.He was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2006.
- Birthplace: Saugus, Massachusetts
- John Allan Hobson is an American psychiatrist and dream researcher. He is known for his research on rapid eye movement sleep. He is Professor of Psychiatry, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School, and Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
- Birthplace: Hartford, Connecticut
- Livingston Farrand (June 14, 1867 – November 8, 1939) was an American physician, anthropologist, psychologist, public health advocate and academic administrator.
- Birthplace: Newark, New Jersey
Edwin A. Fleishman
Age: 97Edwin A. Fleishman is an American psychologist best known for his work in the field of industrial and organizational psychology. Among his notable achievements was a taxonomy for describing individual differences in perceptual-motor performance. He graduated Loyola College in Maryland in 1945, then served in the United States Navy. He earned his doctorate in applied psychology in 1951 from Ohio State University, then took a position with the United States Air Force. He was the President of Advanced Research Resources Organization and was a professor at Yale University. However, Fleishman produced his greatest and best known quantity of work as a professor at George Mason University. He also served as a visiting professor at the University of California. He is also past president of the International Association of Applied Psychology and the American Psychological Association's Divisions of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Evaluation and Measurement, and its Society of Engineering Psychologists.- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- Daniel Todd Gilbert (born November 5, 1957) is an American social psychologist and writer. He is the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, and is known for his research with Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia on affective forecasting. He is the author of the international bestseller Stumbling on Happiness, which has been translated into more than 30 languages and won the 2007 Royal Society Prizes for Science Books. He has also written essays for several newspapers and magazines, hosted a short, non-fiction television series on PBS, and given three popular TED talks.
- George Freud Loewenstein (born August 9, 1955) is an American educator and economist. He is the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Economics and Psychology in the Social and Decision Sciences Department at Carnegie Mellon University and director of the Center for Behavioral Decision Research. He is a leader in the fields of behavioral economics (which he is also credited with co-founding) and neuroeconomics. He is the great-grandson of Sigmund Freud.
- Roger Wolcott Sperry (August 20, 1913 – April 17, 1994) was an American neuropsychologist, neurobiologist and Nobel laureate who, together with David Hunter Hubel and Torsten Nils Wiesel, won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his work with split-brain research. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Sperry as the 44th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
- Birthplace: Hartford, Connecticut
- James C. Kaufman (born September 21, 1974) is a psychologist known for his research on creativity. He is a Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut. Previously, he taught at the California State University, San Bernardino, where he directed the Learning Research Institute. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in Cognitive Psychology, where he worked with Robert J. Sternberg.
- Birthplace: New York City, USA, Great Neck, New York
- Elizabeth F. Loftus (born Elizabeth Fishman, October 16, 1944) is an American cognitive psychologist and expert on human memory. She has conducted research on the malleability of human memory. Loftus is best known for her ground-breaking work on the misinformation effect and eyewitness memory, and the creation and nature of false memories, including recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. As well as her work inside the laboratory, Loftus has been involved in applying her research to legal settings; she has consulted or provided expert witness testimony for hundreds of cases. In 2002, Loftus was ranked 58th in the Review of General Psychology's list of the 100 most influential psychological researchers of the 20th century, and was the highest ranked woman on the list.
- Birthplace: Los Angeles, California
- Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990), commonly known as B. F. Skinner, was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.Skinner considered free will an illusion and human action dependent on consequences of previous actions. If the consequences are bad, there is a high chance the action will not be repeated; if the consequences are good, the probability of the action being repeated becomes stronger. Skinner called this the principle of reinforcement.To strengthen behavior, Skinner used operant conditioning, and he considered the rate of response to be the most effective measure of response strength. To study operant conditioning, he invented the operant conditioning chamber, also known as the Skinner Box, and to measure rate he invented the cumulative recorder. Using these tools, he and C. B. Ferster produced his most influential experimental work, which appeared in their book Schedules of Reinforcement (1957).Skinner developed behavior analysis, the philosophy of that science he called radical behaviorism, and founded a school of experimental research psychology—the experimental analysis of behavior. He imagined the application of his ideas to the design of a human community in his utopian novel, Walden Two, and his analysis of human behavior culminated in his work, Verbal Behavior. Skinner was a prolific author who published 21 books and 180 articles. Contemporary academia considers Skinner a pioneer of modern behaviorism, along with John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov. A June 2002 survey listed Skinner as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.
- Birthplace: Susquehanna Depot, Pennsylvania
Jerome Kagan
Age: 96Jerome Kagan is an American psychologist. He was born in 1929 in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in Rahway, New Jersey. Kagan is currently retired after being a professor at Harvard University in the Developmental program. He is one of the key pioneers of developmental psychology. He is Daniel and Amy Starch Research Professor of Psychology, Emeritus at Harvard University, and co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute. He has shown that an infant's "temperament" is quite stable over time, in that certain behaviors in infancy are predictive of certain other behavior patterns in adolescence T. He did extensive work on temperament and gave insight on emotion. Kagan was listed as the 22nd most eminent psychologist of the 20th century, just above Carl Jung.- Birthplace: Newark, New Jersey
- Daniel Kahneman (; Hebrew: דניאל כהנמן; born March 5, 1934) is an Israeli-American psychologist and economist notable for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, as well as behavioral economics, for which he was awarded the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (shared with Vernon L. Smith). His empirical findings challenge the assumption of human rationality prevailing in modern economic theory. With Amos Tversky and others, Kahneman established a cognitive basis for common human errors that arise from heuristics and biases (Kahneman & Tversky, 1973; Kahneman, Slovic & Tversky, 1982; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974), and developed prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). In 2011, he was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers. In the same year, his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, which summarizes much of his research, was published and became a best seller.He is professor emeritus of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. Kahneman is a founding partner of TGG Group, a business and philanthropy consulting company. He was married to cognitive psychologist and Royal Society Fellow Anne Treisman, who died on February 9, 2018.In 2015, The Economist listed him as the seventh most influential economist in the world.
- Birthplace: Tel Aviv, Israel
- Elliot Aronson (born January 9, 1932) is an American psychologist who is best known for his experiments on the theory of cognitive dissonance and for his invention of the Jigsaw Classroom, a cooperative teaching technique which facilitates learning while reducing interethnic hostility and prejudice. In his popular (1972) social psychology textbook, The Social Animal, (now in its 11th edition), he stated Aronson's First Law: "People who do crazy things are not necessarily crazy," thus asserting the importance of situational factors in bizarre behavior. He is the only person in the 120-year history of the American Psychological Association to have won all three of its major awards: for writing, for teaching, and for research. In 2007 he received the William James Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Association for Psychological Science, in which he was cited as the scientist who "fundamentally changed the way we look at everyday life.” A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Aronson as the 78th most cited psychologist of the 20th century. He officially retired in 1994 but continues to teach and write.
- Birthplace: Chelsea, Boston, Massachusetts
Harvey Jackins
Dec. at 83 (1916-1999)Carl Harvey Jackins was the founder, leader and principal theorist of Re-evaluation Counseling.- Birthplace: Idaho
J. R. Kantor
Dec. at 96 (1888-1984)Jacob Robert Kantor was a prominent American psychologist who pioneered a naturalistic system in psychology called Interbehavioral Psychology or Interbehaviorism.- Birthplace: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
- Steve G. Jones is a clinical hypnotherapist based in Savannah, Georgia. He also has offices in New York and California. He has created numerous recordings and publications about hypnosis, self-awareness and the law of attraction. He co-authored the book You Can Attract It with Frank Mangano.
- Birthplace: Washington, D.C., USA
Richard E. Mayer
Age: 78Richard E. Mayer is an American educational psychologist who has made significant contributions to theories of cognition and learning, especially as they relate to problem solving and the design of educational multimedia. Mayer's best known contribution to the field of educational psychology is multimedia learning theory, which posits that optimal learning occurs when visual and verbal materials are presented together simultaneously. He is the year 2000 recipient of the E. L. Thorndike Award for career achievement in educational psychology, and the winner of 2008 Distinguished Contribution of Applications of Psychology to Education and Training Award from the American Psychological Association. He was ranked #1 as the most productive educational psychologist in the world for 1991-2001. He is the author of more than 390 publications including 23 books on education and multimedia. He received a PhD in psychology from the University of Michigan, and served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Psychology at Indiana University from 1973-1975. Mayer is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara where he has served since 1975.- James Clayton Dobson, Jr. (born April 21, 1936) is an American evangelical Christian author, psychologist, and founder in 1977 of Focus on the Family (FOTF), which he led until 2010. In the 1980s he was ranked as one of the most influential spokesmen for conservative social positions in American public life. Although never an ordained minister, he was called "the nation's most influential evangelical leader" by The New York Times while Slate portrayed him as a successor to evangelical leaders Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.As part of his former role in the organization, he produced Focus on the Family, a daily radio program which according to the organization was broadcast in more than a dozen languages and on over 7,000 stations worldwide, and reportedly heard daily by more than 220 million people in 164 countries. Focus on the Family was also carried by about sixty U.S. television stations daily. Dobson founded the Family Research Council in 1981. He is no longer affiliated with Focus on the Family. Dobson founded Family Talk as a non-profit organization in 2010 and launched a new radio broadcast, Family Talk with Dr. James Dobson, that began on May 3, 2010 on over 300 stations nationwide.
- Birthplace: Shreveport, Louisiana
G. M Gilbert
Dec. at 66 (1911-1977)Gustave Mark Gilbert was an American psychologist best known for his writings containing observations of high-ranking Nazi leaders during the Nuremberg Trials. His Psychology of Dictatorship was an attempt to profile Adolf Hitler using as reference the testimonials of Hitler’s closest generals and commanders. Gilbert’s published work is still a subject of study in many universities and colleges, especially in the field of psychology.- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- Brian Wansink is a former American professor and a discredited researcher who worked in consumer behavior and marketing research. He is the former executive director of the USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) (2007–2009) and held the John S. Dyson Endowed Chair in the Applied Economics and Management Department at Cornell University, where he directed the Cornell Food and Brand Lab.Wansink's lab researched people's food choices and ways to improve those choices. Starting in 2017, problems with Wansink's papers and presentations were brought to wider public scrutiny. These problems included conclusions not supported by the data presented, data and figures duplicated across papers, questionable data including impossible values, incorrect and inappropriate statistical analyses, and "p-hacking". The lab had 17 papers retracted (one twice) and had 15 corrections issued. On September 20, 2018, Cornell determined that Wansink had committed scientific misconduct and removed him from research and teaching, limiting his activity to cooperating with further investigation of his papers; he resigned effective June 30, 2019.
- Birthplace: Sioux City, Iowa, USA
Howard Buten
Age: 75Howard Buten is an American author living in France. He is also a psychologist, a clown, and a violin player. He is the author of five novels, the first of which, entitled When I Was Five I Killed Myself, was published in 1981 and turned into a film under its French title Quand j'avais cinq ans je m'ai tué in 1994. As a young man Howard Buten encountered a child with autism and this sparked a lifelong interest in the disease. He has worked on autism as a researcher, clinical psychologist, therapist, and founder of a clinic for the autistic in Paris, France. He is also a theatrical clown with the stage name Buffo, who is quite well known in France. He got his start in acting at a very young age, re-enacting scenes from his favorite stories, along with his childhood friends/neighbors. Buten's first and best known novel, When I Was Five I Killed Myself, is largely unknown in his home country, but has sold more than a million copies in France. He was made Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, a prominent literary honor, in 1991.- Birthplace: Detroit, Michigan
- Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 – February 4, 1987) was an American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach (or client-centered approach) to psychology. Rogers is widely considered to be one of the founding fathers of psychotherapy research and was honored for his pioneering research with the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1956. The person-centered approach, his own unique approach to understanding personality and human relationships, found wide application in various domains such as psychotherapy and counseling (client-centered therapy), education (student-centered learning), organizations, and other group settings. For his professional work he was bestowed the Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Psychology by the APA in 1972. In a study by Steven J. Haggbloom and colleagues using six criteria such as citations and recognition, Rogers was found to be the sixth most eminent psychologist of the 20th century and second, among clinicians, only to Sigmund Freud.
- Birthplace: Oak Park, Illinois
- Albert Ellis (September 27, 1913 – July 24, 2007) was an American psychologist who in 1955 developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). He held MA and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University and the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP). He also founded and was the President of the New York City-based Albert Ellis Institute for decades. He is generally considered to be one of the originators of the cognitive revolutionary paradigm shift in psychotherapy and one of the founders of cognitive-behavioral therapies.Based on a 1982 professional survey of US and Canadian psychologists, he was considered as the second most influential psychotherapist in history (Carl Rogers ranked first in the survey; Sigmund Freud was ranked third). Psychology Today noted, "No individual—not even Freud himself—has had a greater impact on modern psychotherapy."
- Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Donald H. Clark (born 1930) is an American writer, teacher, consultant and clinical psychologist who has specialized in group and individual work with gay people since 1968. His writing includes fiction, textbooks, and articles for both professional journals and popular magazines. He is the author of the best-selling, seminal book, Loving Someone Gay, now in its fifth edition, as well as its Spanish-language edition Amar a Alguien Gay, Someone Gay: Memoirs, Living Gay and As We Are.Dr. Clark received a B.A. in Psychology from Antioch College in 1953 and a PhD in Psychology from Adelphi University in 1959. He also served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, Scientific and Professional Personnel. He served on the faculty of Hunter College and the City University of New York. He published a report for the Carnegie Corporation of New York about the Human Potential Movement. He has been a member of the Governing Boards of the Saybrook Institute and the Gay Rights Advocates, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, and a California State Board of Psychology Commissioner, among other roles. Since 1971, he held a private practice in San Francisco, California, retiring in 2007.
- Erik Homburger Erikson (born Erik Salomonsen; 15 June 1902 – 12 May 1994) was a German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychological development of human beings. He may be most famous for coining the phrase identity crisis. His son, Kai T. Erikson, is a noted American sociologist. Despite lacking a bachelor's degree, Erikson served as a professor at prominent institutions, including Harvard, University of California (UC Berkeley), and Yale. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Erikson as the 12th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
- Birthplace: Frankfurt, Germany
- Milton Hyland Erickson (5 December 1901 – 25 March 1980) was an American psychiatrist and psychologist specializing in medical hypnosis and family therapy. He was founding president of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis and a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Psychopathological Association. He is noted for his approach to the unconscious mind as creative and solution-generating. He is also noted for influencing brief therapy, strategic family therapy, family systems therapy, solution focused brief therapy, and neuro-linguistic programming.
- Birthplace: Nevada
- Philip E. Rubin (born May 22, 1949) is an American cognitive scientist, technologist, and science administrator known for raising the visibility of behavioral and cognitive science and neuroscience at a national level. During his research career he was best known for his pioneering development of articulatory synthesis (computational modeling of the physiology and acoustics of speech production), and sinewave synthesis, and their use in studying complex temporal events, including understanding the biological bases of speech and language. He is the Chief Executive Officer emeritus and a member of the Board of Directors of Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut, where he was also a senior scientist. In addition, he is a Professor Adjunct in the Department of Surgery, Otolaryngology at the Yale University School of Medicine, a Research Affiliate in the Department of Psychology at Yale University, a Fellow at Yale's Trumbull College, and a Trustee of the University of Connecticut. From 2012 through Feb. 2015 he was the Principal Assistant Director for Science at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in the Executive Office of the President of the United States, and led the White House's neuroscience initiative. He also served as the Assistant Director for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences at OSTP. For many years he has been involved with issues of science advocacy, education, funding, and policy.
- Birthplace: Newark, New Jersey
- Though standing only 4'2" (4'3" with shoes), Meredith Eaton made a big impression when she beat out 2000 other applicants during a casting call for the made-for-cable movie, "Unconditional Love" (2002), launching her unexpected career as an actress. Born on Aug. 26, 1974 in Long Island, NY, Eaton pursued a career in psychology, attending Adelphi University where she earned a perfect 4.0 grade point average. Eaton later earned her master's and was accepted to her dream Ph.D program, when she heard about the open casting call for "Unconditional Love." The comic murder-mystery featured Kathy Bates as Grace, a middle-aged Midwestern woman who, after losing the two most important men in her life - her husband (Dan Aykroyd) and her favorite pop star (Jonathan Pryce) - travels to England to help the star's secret lover (Rupert Everett) find his killer. Eaton had a superfluous, but exceedingly funny role as Grace's aggressive and anxiety-ridden daughter-in-law who must deal with her husband walking out on her. Writer-director Paul Haggis loved Eaton's performance so much that he wrote the role of ultra-aggressive lawyer Emily Resnick on "Family Law" (CBS, 1999-2002) just for her. After the drama was cancelled, Eaton appeared in episodes of "NYPD Blue" (ABC, 1993-2005), "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (CBS, 2000-15) and "House" (Fox, 2004-12). She then landed a recurring role on "Boston Legal" (ABC, 2004-08), playing Bethany, a feisty lawyer whose habit for biting people she doesn't like - earning her the nickname "The Badger" - both repulses and attracts Denny Crane (William Shatner), with whom she engages in a politically incorrect romance.
- Birthplace: Long Island, New York, USA
- Susan J. Kelley is the former Dean of the College of Health and Human Sciences at Georgia State University. She is also currently a Professor of Nursing and the Director of the National Center on Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, and founder and director of Project Healthy Grandparents, at Georgia State University.
David Reiss
Age: 88David Reiss is a Psychiatrist and Researcher. He currently is a Clinical Professor in the Yale Child Study Center, Yale University. His most notable contribution to the field came in 1981, when he published his monumental book, The Family's Construction of Reality. The book thoroughly details the 5-year research, conducted at the George Washington University, on families.Stephen M. Colarelli
Stephen M. Colarelli is an American psychology professor at Central Michigan University, known for his research on evolutionary psychology and the workplace.Marc Breedlove
Age: 71Stephen Marc Breedlove (born 1954) is the Barnett Rosenberg professor of Neuroscience at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. He was born and raised in the Ozarks of southwestern Missouri. After graduating from Central High School (Springfield, Missouri) in 1972, he earned a bachelor's degree in Psychology from Yale University in 1976, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from UCLA in 1982. He was a professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley from 1982 to 2003, moving to Michigan State in 2001. He works in the fields of Behavioral Neuroscience and Neuroendocrinology. He is a member of the Society for Neuroscience and the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology, and a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) and the Biological Sciences section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).- Robert Remez, an American experimental psychologist and cognitive scientist, is Professor of Psychology at Barnard College, Columbia University and Chair of the Columbia University Seminar on Language & Cognition (founded in 2000). His teaching focuses on the relationships between cognition, perception and language. He is best known for his theoretical and experimental work on perceptual organization. and speech perception.With Carol Fowler, Philip Rubin, and Michael Turvey, he introduced the consideration of speech in terms of a dynamical systems/action theory perspective. With Rubin and various other colleagues, he has used the technique of sinewave synthesis as a unique tool for exploring perceptual organization. He is the co-editor, with David Pisoni, of the Handbook of Speech Perception. He was the Ann Olin Whitney Professor and former Chair of the Department of Psychology at Barnard College and is a member of the Board of Directors of Haskins Laboratories. Remez is a graduate of Brandeis University and the University of Connecticut.
- Kurt Lewin ( lə-VEEN; 9 September 1890 – 12 February 1947) was a German-American psychologist, known as one of the modern pioneers of social, organizational, and applied psychology in the United States. Exiled from the land of his birth, Lewin made a new life for himself, in which he defined himself and his contributions within three lenses of analysis: applied research, action research, and group communication were his major offerings to the field of communication. Lewin is often recognized as the "founder of social psychology" and was one of the first to study group dynamics and organizational development. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Lewin as the 18th-most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
- Birthplace: Mogilno, Poland
- Amy Bloom (born 1953) is an American writer and psychotherapist. She has been nominated for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- John William Money (8 July 1921 – 7 July 2006) was a New Zealand psychologist, sexologist and author, specializing in research into sexual identity and biology of gender. He was one of the first scientists to study the psychology of sexual fluidity and how the societal constructs of "gender" affect an individual. Recent academic studies have criticized Money's work in many respects, particularly in regards to his involvement with the sex-reassignment of David Reimer and his eventual suicide. Money's writing has been translated into many languages, and includes around 2,000 articles, books, chapters and reviews. He received around 65 honors, awards, and degrees in his lifetime. He was also a patron of many famous New Zealand artists, such as Rita Angus and Theo Schoon.
- Birthplace: Morrinsville, New Zealand
- George Herbert Mead (February 27, 1863 – April 26, 1931) was an American philosopher, sociologist and psychologist, primarily affiliated with the University of Chicago, where he was one of several distinguished pragmatists. He is regarded as one of the founders of symbolic interactionism and of what has come to be referred to as the Chicago sociological tradition.
- Birthplace: South Hadley, Massachusetts
Arthur A. Dole
Arthur A. Dole is an emeritus professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1992, Dole was inducted into the group of faculty at University of Pennsylvania who have served more than twenty-five years, the "Twenty-five Year Club". After retiring, he became president of People for Educational Advancement and Community Enhancement (PEACE). During WW II, he was a "war resister" - choosing a five-year prison sentence rather than be labelled a "conscientious objector". After the war, he returned to his job at the American Friends Service Committee.Ken Nakayama
Ken Nakayama is an American psychologist and the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He is well known for his work on prosopagnosia, an inability to recognize faces, and super recognisers, people with significantly better-than-average face recognition ability.He received his BA from Haverford College and PhD from UCLA. From 1971 to 1990, he was at the Smith Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in San Francisco. Since then, he has been faculty at Harvard University. He helped in the formation of the Vision Sciences Society and served as its first president. In 2016, the Vision Sciences Society established the Ken Nakayama Medal for Excellence in Vision Science in honor of his numerous significant contributions. In 2017, he received the Edgar D. Tillyer Award from The Optical Society.- Anatol Rapoport (Ukrainian: Анатолій Борисович Рапопо́рт; Russian: Анато́лий Бори́сович Рапопо́рт; May 22, 1911 – January 20, 2007) was a Ukrainian-born American mathematical psychologist. He contributed to general systems theory, to mathematical biology and to the mathematical modeling of social interaction and stochastic models of contagion.
- Birthplace: Lozova, Ukraine
- Robert Coles may refer to: Robert Coles (settler) (c. 1600–1655), early American settler Robert Coles (psychiatrist) (born 1929), American author and psychiatrist Robert Coles (golfer) (born 1972), English golfer
- Birthplace: Boston, Massachusetts
- Carol S. Dweck (born October 17, 1946) is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Dweck is known for her work on the mindset psychological trait. She taught at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the University of Illinois before joining the Stanford University faculty in 2004.
James H. Leuba
Dec. at 79 (1867-1946)James Henry Leuba (April 9, 1868 – December 8, 1946) was an American psychologist best known for his contributions to the psychology of religion. His son Clarence James Leuba was also a psychologist and taught at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.- Patrick Colonel Suppes (; March 17, 1922 – November 17, 2014) was an American philosopher who made significant contributions to philosophy of science, the theory of measurement, the foundations of quantum mechanics, decision theory, psychology and educational technology. He was the Lucie Stern Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Stanford University and until January 2010 was the Director of the Education Program for Gifted Youth also at Stanford.
- Birthplace: Tulsa, Oklahoma
- Alison Gopnik (born June 16, 1955) is an American professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. She is known for her work in the areas of cognitive and language development, specializing in the effect of language on thought, the development of a theory of mind, and causal learning. Her writing on psychology and cognitive science has appeared in Science, Scientific American, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, New Scientist, Slate and others. Her body of work also includes four books and over 100 journal articles. She has frequently appeared on TV and radio including The Charlie Rose Show and The Colbert Report. Slate writes of Gopnik, "One of the most prominent researchers in the field, Gopnik is also one of the finest writers, with a special gift for relating scientific research to the questions that parents and others most want answered. This is where to go if you want to get into the head of a baby." Gopnik is a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, sharing the Mind & Matter column with Robert Sapolsky on alternating Saturdays.
- Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Edward Bradford Titchener (11 January 1867 – 3 August 1927) was an English psychologist who studied under Wilhelm Wundt for several years. Titchener is best known for creating his version of psychology that described the structure of the mind: structuralism. He created the largest doctoral program in the United States (at the time) after becoming a professor at Cornell University, and his first graduate student, Margaret Floy Washburn, became the first woman to be granted a PhD in psychology (1894).
- Birthplace: Chichester, United Kingdom
- Brian Knutson is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Stanford University and director of the Symbiotic Project on Affective Neuroscience. His research focuses on the neural basis of emotion, and has been covered in multiple news sources.
- David M. Buss (born April 14, 1953) is an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, theorizing and researching human sex differences in mate selection.
- Birthplace: Indianapolis, Indiana
- David Eagleman (born April 25, 1971) is an American neuroscientist, author, and science communicator. He teaches as an adjunct professor at Stanford University and is CEO of NeoSensory, a company that develops devices for sensory substitution. He also directs the non-profit Center for Science and Law, which seeks to align the legal system with modern neuroscience. He is known for his work on brain plasticity, time perception, synesthesia, and neurolaw. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and a New York Times bestselling author published in 32 languages. He is the writer and presenter of the Emmy-nominated international television series, The Brain with David Eagleman.
- Birthplace: Albuquerque, New Mexico
- David F. Duncan (born in Kansas City, Missouri on June 26, 1947) is president of Duncan & Associates, a firm providing consultation on research design and data collection for behavioral and policy studies. He is also Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health at Brown University School of Medicine.
- Birthplace: Kansas City, Missouri
- James Lloyd "Jay" McClelland, FBA (born December 1, 1948) is the Lucie Stern Professor at Stanford University, where he was formerly the chair of the Psychology Department. He is best known for his work on statistical learning and Parallel Distributed Processing, applying connectionist models (or neural networks) to explain cognitive phenomena such as spoken word recognition and visual word recognition. McClelland is to a large extent responsible for the large increase in scientific interest for connectionism in the 1980s.
- Birthplace: Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Virginia Satir (26 June 1916 – 10 September 1988) was an American author and therapist, known especially for her approach to family therapy and her pioneering work in the field of family reconstruction therapy. She is widely regarded as the "Mother of Family Therapy" Her most well-known books are Conjoint Family Therapy, 1964, Peoplemaking, 1972, and The New Peoplemaking, 1988. She is also known for creating the Virginia Satir Change Process Model, a psychological model developed through clinical studies. Change management and organizational gurus of the 1990s and 2000s embrace this model to define how change impacts organizations.
- Birthplace: Wisconsin
- Bruno Bettelheim (August 28, 1903 – March 13, 1990) was an Austrian-born self-proclaimed psychologist, public intellectual and author who spent most of his academic and clinical career in the United States. An early writer on autism, Bettelheim's work focused on the education of emotionally disturbed children, as well as Freudian psychology more generally. Imprisoned by the Nazis in the 1930s, he arrived in the United States as a refugee under a program for scholars fleeing Europe. In the U.S., he later gained a position as professor at the University of Chicago and director of the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School for Disturbed Children, and after 1973 taught at Stanford University.Bettelheim theorized that children with behavioral and emotional disorders were not born that way, and could be "cured" through extended psychoanalytic therapy, treatment that rejected the use of psychotropic drugs and shock therapy. During the 1960s and 1970s he had an international reputation in such fields as autism, child psychiatry, and psychoanalysis. Much of his work was discredited after his death due to fraudulent academic credentials, allegations of abusive treatment of patients under his care, and accusations of plagiarism. Bettelheim's ideas, which grew out of Freud's, about alleged subconscious injury caused by mothers of troubled children are now seen as particularly damaging. The University of Chicago was later criticized for not providing their normal oversight during Bettelheim's tenure. Chicago area psychiatrists were also later criticized for knowing at least some of what was occurring regarding the physical abuse of patients, and not taking effective action.
- Birthplace: Vienna, Austria
- Neil Clark Warren (born September 18, 1934) is an American clinical psychologist, Christian theologian, seminary professor, chairman and co-founder of the online relationship sites eHarmony and Compatible Partners. Warren earned a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Chicago. He is a former dean and psychologist at the Graduate School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary. In 1995, Warren and his son-in-law Greg Forgatch created Neil Clark Warren & Associates, a company offering seminars and teaching tools based on Warren’s books. In early 2000, they saw the need to redesign the company and created eHarmony, an online compatibility matching service which gained two million users in its first three years. After retiring in 2007, Warren came out of retirement in July 2012, again becoming the chief executive of eHarmony and helping to restructure the company.
- Birthplace: Des Moines, Iowa
- Paul Watzlawick (July 25, 1921 – March 31, 2007) was an Austrian-American family therapist, psychologist, communication theorist, and philosopher. A theoretician in communication theory and radical constructivism, he commented in the fields of family therapy and general psychotherapy. Watzlawick believed that people create their own suffering in the very act of trying to fix their emotional problems. He was one of the most influential figures at the Mental Research Institute and lived and worked in Palo Alto, California.
- Birthplace: Villach, Austria
- Michael A. Persinger (June 26, 1945 – August 14, 2018) was an American-Canadian professor of psychology at Laurentian University, a position he had held from 1971 until his death in 2018. His most well-known hypotheses include the temporal lobes as the central correlate for mystical experiences, subtle changes in geomagnetic activity as mediators of parapsychological phenomena, the tectonic strain within the Earth's crust as the source of luminous phenomena attributed to unidentified aerial objects, and the importance of specific quantifications for energy (10−20 Joules), photon flux density (picoWatt per meter squared), and small shifts in magnetic field intensities (picoTesla to nanoTesla range) for integrating cellular activity as well as human thought with universal phenomena.Persinger's experimental work on paranormal experiences has received widespread media coverage but has also been widely criticised. His major research themes have included electromagnetic field effects upon biological organisms, epilepsy, temporal lobe functions, properties of biophotons, geophysical-human interactions, physical cosmology, and the quantifiable examination of what Persinger terms "low-probability phenomena" such as time travel, parallel universes, and the universe as a simulation. He has published over 500 technical articles in scientific journals, more than a dozen chapters in various books, and seven of his own books. His book with Ghislaine Lafreniere, entitled Space-Time Transients and Unusual Events (1977), documents the search for patterns in phenomena that are not compatible with current scientific paradigms.He argued that all phenomena including consciousness, spiritual experiences, and "paranormal events" can be explained by universal physical mechanisms and can be verified using the scientific method. He contended quantitative differences in energy, rather than qualitative distinctions, are responsible for the apparent mind-body duality. Further, he has claimed that the structure and function of the brain determine the boundaries of human perception of the universe, and that shared quantitative values connect local phenomena with fundamental properties of the cosmos - expanding upon the work of Sir Arthur Eddington.
- Birthplace: Jacksonville, Florida
- Carol Gilligan (; born November 28, 1936) is an American feminist, ethicist, and psychologist best known for her work on ethical community and ethical relationships, and certain subject-object problems in ethics. She is a professor at New York University and a visiting professor at the University of Cambridge. She is teaching as a visiting professor at New York University, Abu Dhabi. She is best known for her 1982 work, In a Different Voice. Her work has been credited with inspiring the passage of the 1994 Gender Equity in Education Act. In 1996, Time magazine listed her among America's 25 most influential people. She is the founder of ethics of care.
- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- Elliott Jaques (January 18, 1917 – March 8, 2003) was a Canadian psychoanalyst, social scientist and management consultant known for as originator of concepts such as ‘corporate culture’, ‘mid-life crisis’, ‘fair pay’, ‘maturation curves’, ‘time span of discretion’ and requisite organization, as a total system of managerial organization.
- Birthplace: Toronto, Canada
- Rollo Reese May (April 21, 1909 – October 22, 1994) was an American existential psychologist and author of the influential book Love and Will (1969). He is often associated with humanistic psychology and existentialist philosophy, and alongside Viktor Frankl, was a major proponent of existential psychotherapy. The philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich was a close friend who had a significant influence on his work.As well as Love and Will, May's works include The Meaning of Anxiety (1950, revised 1977) and, titled in honor of Tillich's The Courage to Be, The Courage to Create (1975).
- Birthplace: USA, Ada, Ohio
- Bettina Arndt (born 1 August 1949) is an Australian sex therapist, journalist, and author.
- Birthplace: Australia
Raymond Moody
Age: 80Raymond A. Moody, Jr. (born June 30, 1944) is a philosopher, psychologist, physician and author, most widely known for his books about life after death and near-death experiences (NDE), a term that he coined in 1975 in his best-selling book Life After Life. Raymond Moody's research purports to explore what happens when a person dies. He has widely published his views on what he terms near-death-experience psychology.- Birthplace: Georgia, USA, Porterdale
- Dr. Arnold Lucius Gesell (21 June 1880 – 29 May 1961) was an American clinical psychologist, pediatrician and professor at Yale University known for his research & contributions to the field of child development.
- Birthplace: Alma, Alma, Wisconsin
- Idit R. Harel (born Idit Ron; September 18, 1958) is an Israeli-American entrepreneur and CEO of Globaloria. She is a learning sciences researcher and pioneer of Constructionist learning-based EdTech interventions.
- Birthplace: Tel Aviv, Israel
- Ellen Jane Langer (; born March 25, 1947) is a professor of psychology at Harvard University; in 1981, she became the first woman ever to be tenured in psychology at Harvard. Langer studies the illusion of control, decision-making, aging, and mindfulness theory. Her most influential work is Counterclockwise, published in 2009, which answers the questions of aging from her extensive research, and increased interest in the particulars of aging across the nation.
- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- Lawrence Kohlberg (; October 25, 1927 – January 19, 1987) was an American psychologist best known for his theory of stages of moral development. He served as a professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Chicago and at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. Even though it was considered unusual in his era, he decided to study the topic of moral judgment, extending Jean Piaget's account of children's moral development from twenty-five years earlier. In fact, it took Kohlberg five years before he was able to publish an article based on his views. Kohlberg's work reflected and extended not only Piaget's findings but also the theories of philosophers George Herbert Mead and James Mark Baldwin. At the same time he was creating a new field within psychology: "moral development". In an empirical study using six criteria, such as citations and recognition, Kohlberg was found to be the 30th most eminent psychologist of the 20th century.
- Birthplace: Bronxville, New York
- Walter Mischel (German: [ˈmɪʃəl]; February 22, 1930 – September 12, 2018) was an Austrian-born American psychologist specializing in personality theory and social psychology. He was the Robert Johnston Niven Professor of Humane Letters in the Department of Psychology at Columbia University. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Mischel as the 25th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
- Birthplace: Vienna, Austria
- Charlene Drew Jarvis (born July 31, 1941 in Washington, D.C. as Charlene Rosella Drew) is an American educator and former scientific researcher and politician who served as the president of Southeastern University until March 31, 2009. Jarvis is the daughter of the blood plasma and blood transfusion pioneer Charles Drew.
- Birthplace: Washington, D.C.
- Bertram Cohler is a writer.
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- Harry Frederick Harlow (October 31, 1905 – December 6, 1981) was an American psychologist best known for his maternal-separation, dependency needs, and social isolation experiments on rhesus monkeys, which manifested the importance of caregiving and companionship to social and cognitive development. He conducted most of his research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow worked with him for a short period of time. Harlow's experiments were controversial; they included creating inanimate surrogate mothers for the rhesus infants from wire and wool. Each infant became attached to its particular mother, recognizing its unique face and preferring it above others. Harlow next chose to investigate if the infants had a preference for bare-wire mothers or cloth-covered mothers. For this experiment, he presented the infants with a clothed "mother" and a wire "mother" under two conditions. In one situation, the wire mother held a bottle with food, and the cloth mother held no food. In the other situation, the cloth mother held the bottle, and the wire mother had nothing. Also later in his career, he cultivated infant monkeys in isolation chambers for up to 24 months, from which they emerged intensely disturbed. Some researchers cite the experiments as a factor in the rise of the animal liberation movement in the United States. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Harlow as the 26th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
- Birthplace: Fairfield, Iowa
- Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran (born 10 August 1951) is an Indian-American neuroscientist Ramachandran is known for his wide-ranging experiments and theories in behavioral neurology, including the invention of the mirror box. He is a Distinguished Professor in UCSD's Department of Psychology, where he is the director of the Center for Brain and Cognition. After earning a medical degree in India, Ramachandran studied experimental neuroscience at Cambridge, obtaining his PhD there. Most of his research has been in the fields of behavioral neurology and visual psychophysics. After early work on human vision, Ramachandran turned to work on wider aspects of neurology including phantom limbs and phantom pain. Ramachandran invented mirror therapy which is now used to treat amputees with phantom limb pain and also to help restore motor control in stroke victims with weakened limbs. Ramachandran's popular books Phantoms in the Brain (1998), The Tell-Tale Brain (2010), and others describe neurological and clinical studies of people with synesthesia, Capgras syndrome, and a wide range of other unusual conditions. Ramachandran has also described his work in many public lectures, including lectures for the BBC, and two official TED talks.
- Birthplace: Tamil Nadu
- Muzafer Sherif (born Muzaffer Şerif Başoğlu; July 29, 1906 – October 16, 1988) was a Turkish-American social psychologist. He helped develop social judgment theory and realistic conflict theory. Sherif was a founder of modern social psychology who developed several unique and powerful techniques for understanding social processes, particularly social norms and social conflict. Many of his original contributions to social psychology have been absorbed into the field so fully that his role in the development and discovery has disappeared. Other reformulations of social psychology have taken his contributions for granted, and re-presented his ideas as new.
- Birthplace: Ödemiş, Turkey
- David Guy Myers (born 20 September 1942) is a professor of psychology at Hope College in Michigan, United States, and the author of 17 books, including popular textbooks entitled Psychology, Exploring Psychology, Social Psychology and general-audience books dealing with issues related to Christian faith as well as scientific psychology. In addition, he has published chapters in over 60 books and numerous scholarly research articles in professional journals. Myers is widely recognized for his research on happiness and is one of the supporters of the positive psychological movement.Myers was born in Seattle, Washington and graduated from Seattle's Queen Anne High School in 1960. He attended Whitworth University, from which he received his B.A. in chemistry magna cum laude in 1964, having been a pre-med student. However, his graduate work went in a different direction, that of social psychology. He received his M.A. in social psychology in 1966 and his Ph.D. in social psychology the following year for thesis titled Enhancement of Initial Risk Taking Tendencies in Social Situations, both at the University of Iowa.Myers has spent most of his career at Hope College, rising through the ranks of assistant professor (1967), associate professor (1970), and since 1975, full professor. He served as a visiting scholar at the Universität Mannheim (Germany), in the summer of 1974, and at the University of St. Andrews (Scotland), in 1985. Myers has received fellowships and grants from the U.S. Public Health Service and the National Science Foundation and is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society and the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology. He is one of the most important authors of psychology textbooks and is the recipient of honorary doctorates from three different educational institutions. Myers is well known in the hearing loss community. As a person who lives with hearing loss, and as the child of a mother who migrated from hard of hearing to complete deafness, Myers is committed to supporting and giving voice to the millions of Americans who are invisibly challenged by hearing loss and known as a supporter of hearing loop technology.
- Birthplace: Seattle, Washington
- Eric Hoffer (July 25, 1898 – May 21, 1983) was an American moral and social philosopher. He was the author of ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983. His first book, The True Believer (1951), was widely recognized as a classic, receiving critical acclaim from both scholars and laymen, although Hoffer believed that The Ordeal of Change (1963) was his finest work.
- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- Morton Deutsch (February 4, 1920 – March 13, 2017) was an American social psychologist and researcher in conflict resolution. Deutsch was one of the founding fathers of the field of conflict resolution. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Deutsch as the 63rd most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
- Birthplace: New York City, New York
- Edgar Henry Schein (born March 5, 1928), a former professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has made a notable mark on the field of organizational development in many areas, including career development, group process consultation, and organizational culture. He is the son of former University of Chicago professor Marcel Schein.
- Birthplace: Zürich, Switzerland
Judith Rodin
Age: 80Judith Rodin (born Judith Seitz; September 9, 1944) is a philanthropist with a long history in U.S. higher education. She was the president of the Rockefeller Foundation from 2005 until 2017. From 1994 to 2004, Rodin served as the 7th permanent president of the University of Pennsylvania, and the first permanent female president of an Ivy League university.- Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Alfred Ray Lindesmith (August 3, 1905 – February 14, 1991) was an Indiana University professor of sociology. He was among the early scholars providing a rigorous and thoughtful account of the nature of addiction. Lindesmith's interest in drugs began at the University of Chicago, where he was trained in social psychology by Herbert Blumer and Edwin Sutherland, earning his doctorate in 1937. His education there was a mixture of the analytical and theoretical, a balance that would later appear in his drug studies. The work at Chicago involved research with interactionist theory, including the research of Chicago's Herbert Blumer, emphasizing the idea of self-concept in human interaction.
- Birthplace: Clinton Falls Township, Minnesota
- Alvin Meyer Liberman (; May 10, 1917 – January 13, 2000) was born in St. Joseph, Missouri. Liberman was an American psychologist. His ideas set the agenda for fifty years of psychological research in speech perception.
- Birthplace: Saint Joseph, Missouri
- Mark Rosenzweig may refer to: Mark Rosenzweig (economist), development economist at Yale University Mark Rosenzweig (psychologist) (1922–2009), American psychologist and pioneer of research on animal neuroplasticity
- Birthplace: Rochester, New York
- John Broadus Watson (January 9, 1878 – September 25, 1958) was an American psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviorism. Watson promoted a change in psychology through his address Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it, which was given at Columbia University in 1913. Through his behaviorist approach, Watson conducted research on animal behavior, child rearing, and advertising. In addition, he conducted the controversial "Little Albert" experiment and the Kerplunk experiment. Watson popularized the use of the scientific theory with behaviorism. He was also editor of Psychological Review from 1910 to 1915. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Watson as the 17th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
- Birthplace: Travelers Rest, South Carolina
- Paul Ekman (born February 15, 1934) is an American psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco who is a pioneer in the study of emotions and their relation to facial expressions. He has created an "atlas of emotions" with more than ten thousand facial expressions, and has gained a reputation as the best human lie detector in the world. He was ranked 59th out of the 100 most cited psychologists of the twentieth century. Ekman conducted seminal research on the specific biological correlations of specific emotions, demonstrating the universality and discreteness of emotions in a Darwinian approach.
- Birthplace: Washington, D.C.
- Abraham Low (1891–1954), was an American neuropsychiatrist noted for his work establishing self-help programs for the mentally ill, and criticism of Freudian psychoanalysis.
- Birthplace: Baranów Sandomierski, Poland
- William Damon (born 1944 in Brockton, Massachusetts) is a professor at Stanford University, Director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He is one of the world's leading researchers on the development of purpose in life and the author of the influential book The Path to Purpose. Damon also helped develop innovative educational methods such as peer collaboration, project-based learning, and the youth charter. Damon is also known for his studies of purposeful philanthropy. His current work includes a scientific study that explores the development of purpose in higher education and a study of family purpose across generations. Dr. Damon writes on intellectual and social development through the lifespan. He is the founding editor of New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development and editor-in-chief of The Handbook of Child Psychology (1998 and 2006 editions). Damon has been elected to the National Academy of Education and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In January 2018, Damon was named one of "The 50 Most Influential Psychologists in the World".
- Birthplace: Brockton, Massachusetts
- Boris Sidis (; October 12, 1867 – October 24, 1923) was a Ukrainian-American psychologist, physician, psychiatrist, and philosopher of education. Sidis founded the New York State Psychopathic Institute and the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. He was the father of child prodigy William James Sidis. Boris Sidis eventually opposed mainstream psychology and Sigmund Freud, and thereby died ostracized. He was married to a maternal aunt of Clifton Fadiman, the noted American intellectual.
- Birthplace: Berdychiv, Ukraine
- Brian Norton Baird (born March 7, 1956) is a former United States Representative for Washington's 3rd congressional district, serving from 1999 to 2011 as a member of the Democratic Party. After leaving the House of Representatives, he served as president of Antioch University's Seattle campus until 2015.
- Birthplace: Chama, New Mexico, USA
- Marc D. Hauser (born October 25, 1959) is an American evolutionary biologist and a researcher in primate behavior, animal cognition and human behavior found guilty of fabricated and falsified data. Hauser was a Harvard University professor from 1998 to 2011, when he resigned after being found guilty for research misconduct.".In 2010, Harvard found him guilty of scientific misconduct, and a year later he resigned. Because his research was financed by government grants, the Office of Research Integrity of the Health and Human Services Department also investigated, finding in 2012 that Hauser had fabricated data, manipulated experimental results, and published falsified findings.
Raymond Cattell
Dec. at 92 (1905-1998)Raymond Bernard Cattell (20 March 1905 – 2 February 1998) was a British and American psychologist, known for his psychometric research into intrapersonal psychological structure. His work also explored the basic dimensions of personality and temperament, the range of cognitive abilities, the dynamic dimensions of motivation and emotion, the clinical dimensions of abnormal personality, patterns of group syntality and social behavior, applications of personality research to psychotherapy and learning theory, predictors of creativity and achievement, and many multivariate research methods including the refinement of factor analytic methods for exploring and measuring these domains. Cattell authored, co-authored, or edited almost 60 scholarly books, more than 500 research articles, and over 30 standardized psychometric tests, questionnaires, and rating scales. According to a widely cited ranking, Cattell was the 16th most eminent, 7th most cited in the scientific journal literature, and among the most productive, but controversial psychologists of the 20th century.Cattell was an early proponent of using factor analytic methods instead of what he called "subjective verbal theorizing" to explore empirically the basic dimensions of personality, motivation, and cognitive abilities. One of the results of Cattell's application of factor analysis was his discovery of 16 separate primary trait factors within the normal personality sphere (based on the trait lexicon). He called these factors "source traits". This theory of personality factors and the self-report instrument used to measure them are known respectively as the 16 personality factor model and the 16PF Questionnaire (16PF).Cattell also undertook a series of empirical studies into the basic dimensions of other psychological domains: intelligence, motivation, career assessment and vocational interests. Cattell theorized the existence of fluid and crystallized intelligence to explain human cognitive ability, investigated changes in Gf and Gc over the lifespan, and constructed the Culture Fair Intelligence Test to minimize the bias of written language and cultural background in intelligence testing.- Birthplace: West Bromwich, United Kingdom
- Granville Stanley Hall (February 1, 1846 – April 24, 1924) was a pioneering American psychologist and educator. His interests focused on childhood development and evolutionary theory. Hall was the first president of the American Psychological Association and the first president of Clark University. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Hall as the 72nd most cited psychologist of the 20th century, in a tie with Lewis Terman.
- Birthplace: Ashfield, Massachusetts
- Donald Thomas Campbell (November 20, 1916 – May 5, 1996) was an American social scientist. He is noted for his work in methodology. He coined the term "evolutionary epistemology" and developed a selectionist theory of human creativity. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Campbell as the 33rd most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
- Neal Elgar Miller (August 3, 1909 – March 23, 2002) was an American experimental psychologist. Described as an energetic man with a variety of interests, including physics, biology and writing, Miller entered the field of psychology to pursue these. With a background training in the sciences, he was inspired by professors and leading psychologists at the time to work on various areas in behavioral psychology and physiological psychology, specifically, relating visceral responses to behavior. Miller's career in psychology started with research on "fear as a learned drive and its role in conflict". Work in behavioral medicine led him to his most notable work on biofeedback. Over his lifetime he lectured at Yale University, Rockefeller University, and Cornell University Medical College and was one of the youngest members of Yale's Institute of Human Relations. His accomplishments led to the establishment of two awards: the New Investigator Award from the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research and an award for distinguished lectureship from the American Psychological Association. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Miller as the eighth most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
- Birthplace: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Drew Westen
Age: 66Drew Westen is professor in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia; the founder of Westen Strategies, LLC, a strategic messaging consulting firm to nonprofits and political organizations; and a writer. He is also co-founder, with Joel Weinberger, of Implicit Strategies, a market research firm that measures consumers' unconscious responses to advertising and brands.- Lera Boroditsky (born 1976?) is a cognitive scientist and professor in the fields of language and cognition. She is currently one of the main contributors to the Theory of Linguistic Relativity. She is a Searle Scholar, a McDonnell Scholar, recipient of a National Science Foundation Career award, and an American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientist. She is Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at UCSD and Editor in Chief of Frontiers in Cultural Psychology. She previously served on the faculty at MIT and at Stanford.
- Urie Bronfenbrenner (April 29, 1917 – September 25, 2005) was a Russian-born American psychologist who is most known for his ecological systems theory. His work with the United States government helped in the formation of the Head start program in 1965. Bronfenbrenner's ability research was key in changing the perspective of developmental psychology by calling attention to the large number of environmental and societal influences on child development.
- Birthplace: Slovakia
- Barry Schwartz may refer to: Barry Schwartz (psychologist) (born 1946), American psychologist Barry Schwartz (technologist) (born 1980), blogger and reporter who writes about search engines and search engine marketing Barry K. Schwartz (born 1942), American businessman, Thoroughbred racehorse owner, and former horse racing industry executive Barry Schwartz (sociologist)
