Many people think Dr Sigmund Freud is the most renowned psychologist of all time. Except he was not a psychologist, he was a psychoanalyst. There is a difference. But Dr Freud concerned himself with psychological matters, particularly the id, ego and super-ego.
Many of Dr Freud's ideas receive sharp criticism today but his work remains influential. Psychotherapy, in particular, provokes heated debate over its effectiveness as a form of help and healing. Still, whether anyone agrees with his ideas, Freudian concepts remain the basis of a growing body of work.
Today's most famous psychologists may invoke Freud's name in passing but their work is more targeted. These scientists explore aspects of the human experience that Dr Freud refused to consider. They publish volumes of discovery, most of it in academic papers but some of it for public consumption.
Superprof explores these works and the people behind them. We'll talk about pioneering women in psychology as well as psychologists renowned for their infamous experiments. We'll wrap up our study with a few titles to add to your psychology bookshelf.
Today's Most Famous Psychologists
Dr Wilhelm Wundt is known as one of the fathers of modern psychology. He was the first to declare himself a psychologist. He established the first psychological studies laboratory in 1879.
For so long, psychological study revolved around understanding the human mind. Psychologists have come a long way towards that goal in the nearly 150 years since Dr Wundt divorced psychology from philosophy.
But nobody claims to have reached the end of the quest. Indeed, as our lives become more informed, complicated and - let's face it, more stressed, psychologists have ever more fertile fields to plough. These are some of the psychologists studying modern adaptations to the human experience.
Steven Pinker rivals Jordan Peterson for his breadth of psychological studies. Dr Pinker is a firm adherent of the Computational Theory of Mind, which posits that the human mind functions like a computer. Bad inputs like trauma create bad outputs - criminality and self-abuse, for example. That theory mirrors the GIGO theory of computer science: garbage in, garbage out.
Drs Peterson and Pinker embrace wide-ranging ideas. By contrast, Dr Janet E. Helms is laser-focused on ethnic minority studies. Through her research, we know that gender- and race-based experiences impact mental health and determine treatment options.
Dr Helms' Theory of Racial Identity helps explain racism and xenophobia. Her work parallels Dr Susan Fiske's studies in power as control and stereotype content. Dr Fiske advanced those concepts as well as the Ambivalent Sexism Theory to outline how social groups form their views of others.
This handful of renowned psychologists demonstrates how today's most famous psychologists expand on the work past psychologists did. They learned from past psychological experiments, controversial as they sometimes were, to study novel aspects of the human condition. As social attitudes open up and humans become more accepting, these psychologists' discoveries become more relevant.
The Most Famous Psychologists Who Are Female
For most of the past two millennia, women weren't taken seriously - neither their needs nor their abilities. The same holds for much of philosophy's and psychology's history. Scientists like Mary Whiton Calkins and Melanie Klein (pictured), revolutionised the discipline.
Today, thanks to Dr Klein (and Jean Piaget), we understand child development and object relations theory. She and other pioneering female psychologists paved the way for today's female scientists.
But even Dr Klein would have been stifled in her work were it not for Dr Calkins. This trailblazing psychologist claimed many 'firsts' for women in psychology. She was the first female to study psychology at Harvard but was denied her doctoral degree. The school felt that women weren't suitable for the field.
We can't know what Dr Calkins felt about all the barriers to accessing her chosen field. We do know that she persevered, going on to become the first woman to direct scientific associations. Her tireless work of changing popular conceptions of women's abilities permitted troves of women-led psychological research.
Which makes Dr Joyce Brothers all the more noteworthy. Dr Brothers married a government employee in 1949 and earned her doctorate in Psychology four years later. Despite her progressive views on women's education, she held traditional views of marriage. She forfeited her career as a psychologist because she would have earned more than her husband.
Other famous female psychologists partner with their husbands to conduct psychological research. American psychologist Mamie Phillips Clarke is an example of such, Leda Cosmides is another. Dr Cosmides works with her partner, an anthropologist, to research evolutionary psychology.
The list of women in psychology is nowhere near as long as famous male psychologists. But it's not because they've not been interested in psychology or research. The feats of women who fought for research opportunities in the field are must-read chronicles, much like the books in the next section.
The Most Famous Psychologists and Their Experiments
Recently, Harvard University was beset with fraud allegations. Dr Francesca Gino had apparently falsified her behavioural studies results. But she's only the latest in a long line of academic scandals.
Duke University psychology professor-researcher Dan Ariely came under fire for data falsification in an experiment he conducted. Things went from bad to worse when he suggested an outside entity manipulated his research data.
But that wasn't the first time Dr Ariely faced accusations of academic misconduct and data fraud. The allegations go back to 2006, when he conducted an experiment without first getting the mandatory ethics approval. That experiment echoed the one Dr Stanley Milgram conducted decades before.
Dr Milgram wanted to test how far beyond their moral code people would go to obey authority. He set up an experiment that involved test subjects administering progressively stronger electric shocks to their test partner. The resulting ethics controversy saw Dr Milgram barred from professional bodies but the experiment itself was revealing.
The best way to tell that a psychological experiment merits renown is how often it's replicated. Dr Milgram's Obedience to Authority experiment is oft-repeated; newer trials deliver slightly different results. We see the same disparity in Dr Phil Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE).
The SPE is arguably the most renowned of all psychological experiments. It entailed 24 male volunteers, divided into two groups, role-playing prisoners and prison guards. Except the experiment took a dramatic turn as Dr Zimbardo urged the 'guards' to abuse the prisoners.
The lack of ethics, along with Dr Zimbardo's questionable methodology and the participants' trauma brought this experiment widespread attention. In 2002, the British Broadcasting Corporation replicated the study but here too, the duplicate study yielded different results.
Looking back over the most renowned psychology experiments, it seems like the researchers didn't care about their test participants. But today's norms are very different from what was allowed back then. And most importantly, those controversial experiments contributed to the framework for today's ethics in psychological studies.
Famous Psychologists and their Psychology Books
In 1971, Dr Phil Zimbardo conducted arguably the most infamous psychology experiment. Thirty years later, he published a book detailing his reasoning and methodology, and how the study went awry.
The Lucifer Effect then details the psychological effects of prisoner abuse in other confinement situations. The book explores Abu Ghraib atrocities, among others, and concludes with the idea that humans can be led to commit evil acts.
Many famous psychologists reflect on their past experiments years after the fact, adding depth to their narratives with the knowledge they accrue over the years. Dr Stanley Milgram was such a one; his book, titled Obedience to Authority came in in 1974. The Milgram Experiment took place in 1961.
Drs Milgram and Zimbardo were high school friends; their experiments reflect the ethos of their time and social circumstances. Dr Albert Bandura, another titan of American psychological studies, published his book on Aggression Theory a dozen years after his controversial Bobo Doll experiment.
But we needn't only focus on American psychologists and their works. French academic Olivier Sibony teamed up with Israeli-American Daniel Kahneman and American Cass Sunstein to write Noise: a Flaw in Human Judgement. Of the trio, only Dr Kahneman is a psychologist.
Noise complements Barry Schwartz's The Paradox of Choice. Both works suggest that too much stimulus affects - even inhibits people's abilities to make rational decisions. External noise rivals internal 'noise' that affects people's schemes to get what they want. Canadian psychiatrist Eric Berne's book, Games People Play, is a worthy companion to Paradox and Noise.
And so, we return to Dr Freud - the psychoanalyst, not his daughter, Dr Anna Freud. She ranks among the top women in psychology and has written many books, too. But none are so impactful as her father's The Interpretation of Dreams. Dream analysis fractured Dr Freud's relationship with his student, Carl Jung.
Now, Brazilian neuroscientist Sidarta Ribiero picked up the torch by publishing The Oracle of Night. Though not a psychologist, he addresses the psychological theories of dreams. But rather than focusing solely on psychology, he broadens dreams' functions to embrace the whole human experience.
Unlocking the potential of the unconscious mind through dream analysis is a concept psychologists have explored for centuries. Even now, psychology bookshelves are loaded with great books about dream interpretation. Fascinating as that subject is, one mustn't miss out on other great psychology works, though.
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