Influential Psychologists - AP Psychology

The Big 5 Personality Inventory was co-developed in an effort to determine which personality traits were most essential in describing adult behaviors and attitudes.

Konrad Lorenz was an Austrian zoologist, ethologist, and ornithologist. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern ethology. Lorenz won the Nobel Prize in 1973 for Physiology or Medicine (alongside Nikolass Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch) and is the author of numerous books.

This measure, known today as the Kinsey Scale, was developed by its namesake at Indiana University during his study of male and female sexuality from 1940 to 1953.

The study asked participants to recall and write down information about an event from their childhood in which they became separated from their parent in a crowded shopping mall. What the participants did not know was that this "event" was a fictional scenario designed to appear as a plausible part of their pasts.

Freud was a huge proponent of the unconscious state of mind and believed human beings buried most of their unwanted thoughts and desires there. This concept is the basis for Freudian psychoanalytic theory and principles.

Erik Erikson believed that psychosocial development follows an eight-stage progression. Each stage consists of two competing paths of development (e.g. trust v. mistrust).

Erikson's eight stages are trust v. mistrust, autonomy v. shame/doubt, initiative v. guilt, industry v. inferiority, identity v. role confusion, intimacy v. isolation, generativity v. stagnation, and integrity v. despair.

Like John Watson, B. F. Skinner was a Behavioralist. He is best known for developing the theory of operant conditioning as an alternative to Pavlov's classical conditioning.

Wilhelm Wundt, also known as the "Father of Experimental Psychology", developed the first formal psychology lab at the University of Leipzig in 1879.

Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow are both associated with the Humanistic (also sometimes called the Client-Centered) approach to psychology, which emphasizes people's underlying desire and need for self-actualization. The humanist approach focuses more on encouraging a holistic view of mental health and self-actualization, as opposed to a problem-focused treatment model.

In 1882, Charcot established the first neurology clinic at the Salpetriere, an accomplishment for which he is often known as "The Father of Neurology".

Skinner was a key theorist in the development of the behaviorist approach to psychological study. Skinner's particular brand of behaviorism was called Radical Behaviorism, and much of Skinner's research was focused on operant conditioning (conditioning focusing on the modification of voluntary behavior through positive or negative reinforcement and punishment).

Carl Rogers studied humanistic psychology. Carl Jung and Freud maintained a relationship from 1906-13; a rift developed in their relationship as Jung increasingly deemphasized the role of libido, thus distancing himself from Freud's theoretical framework. Freud and Adler were co-founders of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society (although Freud would later have Adler expelled from this society over disagreements in their ideas). Karen Horney is widely regarded as a Neo-Freudian thinker, although she differed widely with Freud on many points (most notably the differences in psychology between the sexes).

William Wundt and Edward Titchener pioneered the development of the structuralist school of psychological inquiry. Structuralism is a theory of consciousness that seeks to analyze the simplest definable components of the adult mind and investigate how these micro-components form greater experiences and correlate to the physical world. Wundt and Titchener focused on inner sensations and feelings and assisted in the creation of a foundation for the field of psychology that prior to 1900 was simplistically defined as "the science of mental life." William James was a founder of functionalism, B.F. Skinner was a founder of behaviorism, and Sigmund Freud was the father of psychoanalysis; therefore, answers that contain these persons are incorrect.

Freud is well-known for his theory of "Freudian psychology_,"_ where a child is said to graduate to different stages of development revolving around the id, ego, and superego. These three stages are well-associated with the Oedipal complex, where the id stage of a male child revolves around desiring his mother's attention. As he graduates eventually to the ego and superego stages, he will learn to overcome his now unconcious desires and consciously focus on what is morally correct and socially acceptable. Freud's approach focused on the importance of childhood memories and how they affected the individual throughout life. In the id stage, Freud believed that the child underwent psychosexual stages where different stages focused on immediate pleasure gratification of different erogenous zones. Each stage offered its own challenges for the child to overcome. A failure to overcome a stage, according to Freud, would result in an obsession with it. For example, Freud may have argued that someone who continously chews gum or on pencils suffers from oral fixation because he didn't overcome the oral stage as an infant. The other options pertain to behavioral psychology, humanistic psychology, and biological psychology;therefore, they would be incorrect.

In the 1920s, Skinner and Watson expanded upon Wundt's and Titchener's early definition of psychology. They believed that it was difficult to consider psychology as a "science of the mental life" because it was something that required observation. They believed it was impossible to observe a sensation or thought, but that it was possible to observe an individuals behavior given a particular situation. In his experiments that tested psychologist Edward Thorndike's law of effect, Skinner was able to identify the principles of “behavior control.” He hypothesized that rewarded behavior is likely to be repeated; therefore, Skinner was able to use behavior control to successfully pigeons to play Ping-Pong and walk in figure eights. Throughout his controversial behavioral studies, he created what's commonly known as Skinner's box, an operant box where rats or pigeons had their behaviors recorded and were rewarded for pressing a bar. This experiment tested Skinner's concept of reinforcement in terms of operant conditioning.

Fromm devoted his professional life to the concepts of self-actualization and personal freedom. Freud was never very interested in personal freedom as he thought it was quite limited due to the thorough influence of childhood experiences. Rogers also was interested in self-growth and freedom, but he was not a psychoanalyst. Erikson focused on conflicts across the stages of development.

The language acquisition device is the innate “tool” in the brain that allows children to learn language and grammar easily. Noam Chomsky proposed that language learning cannot be totally dependent on observation and reward—since young children learning to speak make errors and generate novel expressions that they have never heard anyone else say (e.g. a parent is unlikely to have said “I wants cookie yesterday” or “do you think dinosaurs liked candy?” in front of the child).

Lawrence Kohlberg followed the work of Jean Piaget in the field of developmental psychology. Kohlberg's theory had three levels, with two sub stages in each level. The levels are Pre-conventional, Conventional, and Post-conventional. Sigmund Freud is considered the primary originator of psycho-analysis. Abraham Maslow constructed his well-known hierarchy of needs.

The answer is Sigmund Freud. Freud is one of the most popular names in psychology. He is attributed with finding the psychoanalytic approach to psychology. Although many of his findings (e.g. the Oedipal Complex and penis envy) have become outdated and proven false, Freudian Psychology still remains important to the field.