Every Theorist, Psychologist, Physician, and Professional has his or her own unique history. When reading about them it often becomes clear from where their theories and interests derived. Freud for example was his mother's favorite, Jung spoke of voices speaking to him, and Adler felt a strong need to overcome inferiority due to a life threatening illness. Learn about the most influential people in psychology below:
Aaron Beck
Aaron Beck, MD 1921-2021 Aaron Beck was born on July 18, 1921, in Providence, Rhode Island. He was the youngest of five children and grew up in a Jewish family ...
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Abraham Maslow
Abraham Maslow 1908-1970 Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist born in Brooklyn, NY. He taught at several universities in the New York area and perhaps best known for his belief ...
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Albert Bandura
Albert Bandura 1925- Albert Bandura, and American psychologist born in Alberta, Canada. He received his Master's degree from the University of British Columbia in 1951 and his doctorate a year ...
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Albert Ellis
Albert Ellis 1913 - Ellis was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and received his Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University. He taught for several years at Rutgers and then entered private ...
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Alfred Adler
Alfred Adler 1870-1937 Alfred Adler was born in Vienna Austria as the second of six children. Much of his career was molded from childhood experiences, particularly an incident when he ...
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Alfred Binet
Alfred Binet 1857 - 1911 Alfred Binet was both a psychologist and a lawyer. His greatest accomplishment in the field of psychology lead to what we now call the Intelligence ...
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B. F. Skinner
B. F. Skinner 1904-1990 Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born in a small Pennsylvania town. His father was an attorney and his mother a housewife. His family life was described as ...
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Carl Rogers
Carl Rogers 1902-1987 Carl Rogers was a Humanistic Psychologist who is most known for his approach to psychological treatment and his belief in the genuine good in the individual. He ...
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Edward Thorndike
Edward Thorndike 1874-1949 Edward Thorndike is best known for his work with animal research, spending the majority of his career at Teacher's College, Columbia University. He is most famous for ...
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Emil Kraepelin
Emil Kraepelin 1855-1925 Emil Kraepelin was a psychiatrist who studied the description and classification of mental disorders, leading to what we now call the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental ...
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Erik Erikson
Erik Erikson 1902-1994 Erik Erikson was born in Frankfurt, Germany and studied psychology under Anna Freud (Sigmund Freud's daughter) at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. He moved to the United States ...
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Hans Eysenck
Hans Eysenck 1916-1997 Hans Eysenck is probably best known as a controversialist. He has received acclaim and criticism from colleagues and seems to strive more from the latter. Born the ...
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Harry Harlow
Harry Harlow 1905-1981 Harry Harlow was born in Fairfield, Iowa and was educated in the field of Ethology, or the study of primates. He spent his entire professional career teaching ...
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Henry A. Murray
Henry A. Murray 1893 - 1988 Henry Murray taught at Harvard University for over 30 years and like his psychoanalytic predecessors, Freud and Jung, he believed that personality could be ...
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Herman Ebbinghaus
Herman Ebbinghaus 1850 - 1909 Hermann Ebbinghaus was born in Bremen, Germany. He received his education, including a Ph.D. from the University of Bonn. In 1880 he published his first ...
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Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Pavlov 1849-1936 A Physiologist by training, Ivan Pavlov's most famous experiment in psychology began as a study of digestion. Although very concerned with biases and controlling for variables, during ...
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Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget 1896 - 1980 Jean Piaget was born in Switzerland and by age 10 had already begun his professional career as a researcher and writer. He was interested in ...
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John Watson
John Watson 1878 - 1958 John Watson is considered the father of behaviorism due to his opposition to the mainstream psychological view of the unconscious and psychoanalytic thought. To the ...
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Max Wertheimer
Max Wertheimer 1880-1943 Max Wertheimer is considered the founder of Gestalt Psychology. He studied law for several years before graduating with his degree in philosophy. He served as a professor ...
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Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud 1856-1939 Sigmund Freud was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1856. His family moved to Vienna when he was four, where he spent the majority of his life ...
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Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Wundt 1832-1920 Considered the father of modern psychology, Wilhelm Wundt studied medicine in his native Germany before his interests began to lean more toward physiology and psychology. His main ...
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William James
William James 1842 - 1910 William James was born in New York City. His family lived in several countries affording James a multicultural education, including schools in the U.S., England, ...
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