Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.

We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.

To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).

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List of the most influential people in Psychology,

#701

Linda B. Smith

#26391

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Linda B. Smith is an American developmental psychologist internationally recognized for her theoretical and empirical contributions to developmental psychology and cognitive science, proposing, through theoretical and empirical studies, a new way of understanding developmental processes. Smith's works are groundbreaking and illuminating for the field of perception, action, language, and categorization, showing the unique flexibility found in human behavior. She has shown how perception and action are ways of obtaining knowledge for cognitive development and word learning.

#702

Peter Anthony Lachenbruch

#43585

Overall Influence

#703

John Paul Scott

John Paul Scott

#12484

Overall Influence

1909 - 2000 (91 years)

John Paul Scott was an American behavior geneticist and comparative psychologist known for his research into the development of social behavior , which he pursued through studies in animal models including the dog. Scott & his collaborator John L. Fuller are memorialised in the Fuller-Scott prize, offered annually by the Behavior Genetics Association.

#704

Gad Saad

#20292

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Gad Saad is a Canadian marketing professor at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University. He is known for applying evolutionary psychology to marketing and consumer behaviour. He wrote a blog for Psychology Today and hosts a YouTube channel titled "The Saad Truth".

#705

Jeremy D. Safran

Jeremy D. Safran

#30394

Overall Influence

1952 - 2018 (66 years)

Jeremy David Safran was a Canadian-born American clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, lecturer, and psychotherapy researcher. He was a professor of psychology at the New School for Social Research, where he served for many years as director of clinical training. He was also a faculty member at New York University's postdoctoral program in psychoanalysis and The Stephen A. Mitchell Center for Relational Studies. He was co-founder and co-chair of The Sandor Ferenczi Center at the New School for Social Research. In addition he was past-president of The International Association for Relational...

#706

Lee Shulman

#10428

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Lee S. Shulman is an American educational psychologist and reformer. He has made notable contributions to the study of teaching, assessment of teaching, and the fields of medicine, science, and mathematics.

#707

Lawrence LeShan

#22094

Overall Influence

1920 - 2020 (100 years)

Lawrence LeShan was an American psychologist, educator, and the author of the best-selling How to Meditate a practical guide to meditation. He authored or co-authored approximately 75 articles in the professional literature and more than fifteen books on a diverse range of topics including psychotherapy, war, cancer treatment, and mysticism. He also wrote science fiction under the pseudonym Edward Grendon.

#708

Auke Tellegen

#21913

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (94 years)

Auke Tellegen is a psychologist who served as a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota from 1968 to 1999. He worked on assessment, developing the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire and contributed to the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.

#709

Michael J. Saks

#22052

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Michael J. Saks is a professor of law at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University; he holds a secondary appointment in the department of psychology. Saks served as president of the American Psychology-Law Society and as editor of the scientific journal, Law and Human Behavior. For his early work on jury research, he earned the Award for Distinguished Contribution to Psychology in the Public Interest from the American Psychological Association.

#710

Bruce Chorpita

#20290

Overall Influence

Bruce F. Chorpita , is an American researcher and clinical psychologist who has worked in multiple academic and government leadership positions addressing youth mental health and improvement of clinical practice. He currently is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University at Albany, State University of New York. He is widely published in the areas of children's mental health services, with funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, the Hawaii Departments of Education and Health, the John D. and Catherine T.

#711

Robert L. Morris

#53727

Overall Influence

1942 - 2004 (62 years)

Robert Lyle Morris was an American psychologist, parapsychologist and professor at the University of Edinburgh, where he was the first holder of the Koestler Chair of Parapsychology at the Koestler Parapsychology Unit.

#712

Harry Frederick Harlow

#44063

Overall Influence

#713

Michael Hogg

#32518

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Michael A. Hogg is a British psychologist, and Professor of Social Psychology in the Department of Psychology at Claremont Graduate University in Los Angeles. He is also an honorary Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Kent in the UK.

#714

Maggie Snowling

#27274

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Margaret Jean Snowling is a British psychologist, and world-leading expert in language difficulties, including dyslexia. From 2012 to 2022 she was President of St John's College, Oxford and Professor in the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. Snowling was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2016 for services to science and the understanding of dyslexia. She was born in South Shields.

#715

Jon Kaas

#16129

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Jon Kaas is a professor at Vanderbilt University and a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He has made discoveries about the organization of the mammalian brain, including the description of many areas of the cerebral cortex and their neuroplasticity.

#716

Michelle Craske

#28622

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Michelle G. Craske is an Australian academic who is currently serving as Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Behavioral Sciences, Miller Endowed Chair, Director of the Anxiety and Depression Research Center, and Associate Director of the Staglin Family Music Center for Behavioral and Brain Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is known for her research on anxiety disorders, including phobia and panic disorder, and the use of fear extinction through exposure therapy as treatment. Other research focuses on anxiety and depression in childhood and adolescence and the use of cognitive behavioral therapy as treatment.

#717

Liane Gabora

#8659

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Liane Gabora is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia - Okanagan. She is known for her theory of the "Origin of the modern mind through conceptual closure," which built on her earlier work on "Autocatalytic closure in a cognitive system: A tentative scenario for the origin of culture."

#718

Benny Shanon

#16389

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Benny Shanon is an emeriti professor of psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and holds the Mandel Chair in cognitive psychology and education. Born in Tel Aviv, Shanon studied philosophy and linguistics at Tel Aviv University and received his doctorate in experimental psychology from Stanford University. He is best known for his research on the cognitive effects of ayahuasca and the Biblical entheogen hypothesis, the idea that the use of hallucinogenic drugs influenced religion.

#719

Earl B. Hunt

#15955

Overall Influence

1933 - 2016 (83 years)

Earl B. Hunt was an American psychologist specializing in the study of human and artificial intelligence. Within these fields he focused on individual differences in intelligence and the implications of these differences within a high-technology society. He was in partial retirement as emeritus professor of psychology and adjunct professor of computer science at the University of Washington at the time of his death. His book Will We Be Smart Enough? discussed demographic projections and psychometric research as they relate to predictions of possible future workplaces.

#720

Heinz Leymann

#24944

Overall Influence

1932 - 1999 (67 years)

Heinz Leymann was a Swedish academic, famous for his studies on mobbing among humans. He held a degree in pedagogical psychology, and another one in psychiatry and worked as a psychologist. He was a professor at Umeå University.

#721

John E. Hunter

#30564

Overall Influence

1939 - 2002 (63 years)

John E. "Jack" Hunter was an American psychology professor known for his work in methodology. His best-known work is Methods of Meta-Analysis: Correcting Error and Bias in Research Findings. The International Communication Association named a research award in his honor.

#722

Michael H. Birnbaum

#37071

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Michael H. Birnbaum is a professor of Psychology and Director of the Decision Research Center at California State University, Fullerton. He has researched widely in psychology but his major focus has been on individual and social judgment and decision making, and the modelling of behavior. Birnbaum has been president of the Society for Mathematical Psychology, the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, and the Society for Computers in Psychology.

#723

Paul Gilbert

#29332

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Paul Raymond Gilbert is a British clinical psychologist. Gilbert is the founder of compassion focused therapy , compassionate mind training and the author of books such as The Compassionate Mind: A New Approach to Life's Challenges and Overcoming Depression.

#724

Glyn W. Humphreys

#41444

Overall Influence

1954 - 2016 (62 years)

Glyn W. Humphreys was a British cognitive neuropsychologist and academic. He was the Watts Professor of Experimental Psychology and principal investigator for the CNN Lab at Oxford University. He had previously worked at the University of Birmingham in the School of Psychology, where he held an honorary professorship of Cognitive Psychology. He died on 14 January 2016.

#725

Judith S. Beck

#14989

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Judith S. Beck is an American psychologist who is best known for her work in cognitive therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. Her father is Aaron Beck, the founder of cognitive therapy, with whom she has worked on many occasions. She received her doctoral degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1982.

#726

Francis T. McAndrew

Francis T. McAndrew

#19321

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Francis T. "Frank" McAndrew is an American social psychologist and the Cornelia H. Dudley Professor of Psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. At Knox, he founded the environmental studies program and chaired the psychology department for a decade. McAndrew is an elected fellow of numerous professional organizations, including the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, and the Midwestern Psychological Association . He received a B.S. in psychology from King's College in Pennsylvania and also a Ph.D.

#727

Klaus Fiedler

#27368

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Klaus Fiedler is a German psychologist who teaches as a professor for social psychology at the Universität Heidelberg. Biography Fiedler studied psychology at the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen getting his diploma in 1975. He continued to work there as a research fellow and did his doctorate in 1979. One year later he got a two-year stipend at the German Research Foundation that was followed by his employment as an assistant professor in Giessen. His habilitation took place in 1984. In 1987 he was named Professor for Cognitive and Social-cognitive Psychology. After a professorship at the Un...

#728

Katy Milkman

#10464

Overall Influence

Katherine L. Milkman is an American economist who is the James G. Dinan endowed Professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She is the President of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making.

#729

Elaine F. Walker

#37109

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Elaine F. Walker is a psychologist and professor whose research focuses on child and adolescent development, and changes in the brain due to adolescence. Other research interests includes the precursors and neurodevelopment aspects of schizophrenia and other serious mental disorders. She has taken part in writing over 250 articles and six books related to mental health and neuroscience. Walker is the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Emory University.

#730

Kenneth Koedinger

#24699

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Kenneth R. Koedinger is a professor of human–computer interaction and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the founding and current director of the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center. He is widely known for his role in the development of the Cognitive Tutor software. He is also widely published in cognitive psychology, intelligent tutoring systems, and educational data mining, and his research group has repeatedly won "Best Paper" awards at scientific conferences in those areas, such as the EDM2008 Best Paper, ITS2006 Best Paper, ITS2004 Best Paper, and ITS2000 Best Paper.

#731

Benjamin Karney

#22341

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Benjamin Karney is an American professor of social psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles and an adjunct behavioral scientist at the Rand Corporation. His research is on interpersonal relationships and marriage, examining the effects of stress on marital processes, divorce rates in military marriages, intimate relationships among youth and young adults, and marriage in low-income populations.

#732

R. Travis Osborne

#29585

Overall Influence

1913 - 2013 (100 years)

Robert Travis Osborne was an American psychologist. He was professor emeritus of psychology at University of Georgia, and director of the Pioneer Fund, an organization prominently described as white supremacist in nature, from 2000 until his death.

#733

Myrna Weissman

#18888

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Myrna Milgram Weissman is Diane Goldman Kemper Family Professor of Epidemiology in Psychiatry at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, and Chief of the Division of Translational Epidemiology at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. She is an epidemiologist known for her research on the prevalence of psychiatric disorders and psychiatric epidemiology, as it pertains to rates and risks of anxiety and mood disorders across generations. Among her many influential works are longitudinal studies of the impact of parental depress...

#734

Doreen Kimura

#28922

Overall Influence

1933 - 2013 (80 years)

Doreen Kimura was a Canadian psychologist who was professor at the University of Western Ontario and professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University. Kimura was recognized for her contributions to the field of neuropsychology and later, her advocacy for academic freedom. She was the founding president of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship.

#735

Kent C. Berridge

#30182

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Kent C. Berridge is an American academic, currently working as a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan. Berridge was a joint winner of the 2018 Grawemeyer Award for Psychology.

#736

Stuart Card

#7934

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Stuart K. Card is an American researcher and retired senior research fellow at Xerox PARC. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of applying human factors in human–computer interaction. With Jock D. Mackinlay, George G. Robertson and others he invented a number of Information Visualization techniques. He holds numerous patents in user interfaces and visual analysis.

#737

Marvin Zuckerman

#28536

Overall Influence

1928 - 2018 (90 years)

Marvin Zuckerman was Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Delaware. Zuckerman is best known for his research into the psychobiological basis of human personality, sensory deprivation, mood state measurement, and sensation seeking. His work was particularly inspired by eminent research psychologists, Hans Eysenck and Arnold Buss.

#738

Robert L. Linn

#31523

Overall Influence

1938 - 2015 (77 years)

Robert Lee Linn was an American educational psychologist who has made notable contributions to the understanding of educational assessments. He studied technical and policy issues relating to the application of test data, and the effects of high-stakes testing on teaching and learning. He was a professor emeritus at the University of Colorado, past president of the American Educational Research Association and the National Council on Measurement in Education , and former editor of the Journal of Educational Measurement. He completed his PhD and MA in educational psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

#739

Jefferson Fish

#19855

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Jefferson Morris Fish is a professor emeritus of psychology at St. John's University in New York City, where he previously served as Chair of the Department of Psychology and as Director of the PhD Program in Clinical Psychology.

#740

Svend Brinkmann

Svend Brinkmann

#19244

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (49 years)

Svend Brinkmann is a Danish Professor of Psychology in the Department of Communication and Psychology at Aalborg University, Denmark. He serves as a co-director of the Center for Qualitative Studies. His research primarily involves philosophical, moral, and methodological issues in psychology and other human and social sciences. In recent years, Brinkmann has been studying the impact of psychiatric diagnoses on individuals and society.

#741

Harold Goodglass

#18117

Overall Influence

1920 - 2002 (82 years)

Harold Goodglass was a prominent pioneer of neuropsychological tests and assessment, and spent much of his career investigating aphasia. The Boston VA Hospital, where he spent many years investigating brain function, now houses the Harold Goodglass Aphasia Research Center.

#742

Erik Scherder

#26073

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Erik Johan Anton Scherder is a Dutch professor of neuropsychology who is connected to the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam . Scherder followed his education to physiotherapist in the late seventies after which he worked in the Valeriuskliniek in Amsterdam. Afterwards he followed the study psychology at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam with a specialization in neuropsychology, in which he promoted in 1995.

#743

Marinus van IJzendoorn

Marinus van IJzendoorn

#27170

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Marinus H. "Rien" van IJzendoorn is professor of human development and one of the co-leaders of Generation R at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. His work has focussed on the social, psychological, and neurobiological determinants of parenting and child development, with special emphasis on attachment, emotion regulation, differential susceptibility hypothesis, and child maltreatment.

#744

Dariusz Doliński

#37152

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Dariusz Doliński is a Polish psychologist. He specialises in the psychology of social behaviour, including social influence, emotional psychology, and motivation. He is a lecturer at Szkoła Wyższa Psychologii Społecznej , teaching social psychology and advertising psychology. He is an author of over 150 publications.

#745

Robert Ader

#11406

Overall Influence

1932 - 2011 (79 years)

Robert Ader was an American psychologist and academic who co-founded psychoneuroimmunology, a field of study which explores the links connecting the brain, behavior, and the immune system. Ader was a professor emeritus at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

#746

Kimberly Young

#12154

Overall Influence

1965 - 2019 (54 years)

Kimberly Sue Young O'Mara was a psychologist and expert on Internet addiction disorder and online behavior. She founded the Center for Internet Addiction in 1995 while she was a psychology professor at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. Until her death in 2019, Young was a professor of management at St. Bonaventure University. During her career, she published numerous journal articles and book chapters and served as an expert witness regarding her pioneer research including testimony for the Child Protection Online Act Congressional Committee. Young was a member of the American Psychol...

#747

Patricia Resick

#22220

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Patricia A. Resick is an American researcher in the field of post traumatic stress disorder. She is known for developing cognitive processing therapy. Biography After earning her doctorate from the University of Georgia in 1976, Resick served as Assistant to Associate Professor at the University of South Dakota, 1976-1980, and Associate to Full Professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, 1981–2003.

#748

Magda B. Arnold

#20835

Overall Influence

1903 - 2002 (99 years)

Magda Blondiau Arnold was a Canadian psychologist who was the first contemporary theorist to develop appraisal theory of emotions, which moved away from "feeling" theories and "behaviorist" theories toward the cognitive approach. She also created a new method of scoring the Thematic Apperception Test called Story Sequence Analysis.

#749

Larry R. Squire

#46624

Overall Influence

#750

Elizabeth Moberly

#14314

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Elizabeth Moberly is a British research psychologist and theologian. Moberly is the author of Homosexuality: A New Christian Ethic, in which she suggests several possible causes of male homosexuality and a therapeutic cure.

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