The Most Influential People Across History
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,
#4651
Joseph Zohar
#4652
Henri-Étienne Beaunis
1830 - 1921 (91 years)
Henri-Étienne Beaunis was a French physiologist and psychologist. He defended the thesis of the Nancy School in the field of hypnosis. He is known for his works on anatomy, physiology, psychology and hypnosis.
Go to Profile#4653
Edmund B. Delabarre
1863 - 1945 (82 years)
Edmund Burke Delabarre , was a researcher and professor of psychology at Brown University. He graduated from Amherst College in 1886. He was a pioneer in the field of shape perception and on the interaction between mental processes and the involuntary movements of the body.
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Wilhelm Fridolin Volkmann
1821 - 1877 (56 years)
Wilhelm Fridolin Volkmann [later the title Ritter von Volkmar was appended to his name] was an Austrian philosopher and psychologist. Biography He was born and educated in Prague. In 1846 he became a lecturer in aesthetics, afterwards in philosophy, at the University of Prague, and in 1856 was appointed to a professorship in philosophy there. His chief studies were in the exact psychology of the school of Herbart, for whose general principles Volkmann was probably the most conspicuous expounder.
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Emil Utitz
1883 - 1956 (73 years)
Emil Utitz was a Czech philosopher and psychologist of Jewish descent. He was educated in Prague, where he was a classmate of Franz Kafka. After studies in Munich, Leipzig, and Prague, he became a professor in Rostock, and from 1925 was Chair of Philosophy at the University of Halle-Wittenberg. After his forced retirement in 1933, he became a professor in Prague. In 1942, he was deported to Theresienstadt Ghetto, where he was head of the library. After the liberation of Theresienstadt in 1945, he returned to Prague. Utitz died in Jena in 1956, while travelling through East Germany to give lec...
Go to Profile#4656
Diego De Leo
#4657
Salvator Cupcea
1908 - 1958 (50 years)
Salvator P. Cupcea was a Romanian psychologist, physician, and political figure. From beginnings as a researcher for the Victor Babeș University of Cluj, alongside his friend Alexandru Roșca, he became noted as a pioneer of experimental psychology and psychoanalysis, studying in particular the social marginals. He later immersed himself in the social hygiene and eugenics movement, also specializing in genetic medicine, biological anthropology, and criminology. A collaborator of Iuliu Moldovan, he taught classes at the latter's Institute for much of World War II, when he focused on studying th...
Go to Profile#4658
Frank A. Beach
1911 - 1988 (77 years)
Frank Ambrose Beach, Jr. was an American ethologist, best known as co-author of the 1951 book Patterns of Sexual Behavior. He is often regarded as the founder of behavioral endocrinology, as his publications marked the beginnings of the field.
Go to Profile#4659
Mary Louise Northway
1909 - 1987 (78 years)
Mary Louise Northway was a Canadian psychologist, recognized for her work in the area of sociometry . She was a faculty member at the University of Toronto. Biography Northway was born in Toronto on May 28, 1909; she was the only child of Lucy Northway and Arthur Garfield Northway. She was educated in Toronto at Branksome Hall, Rosedale Public School, and Bishop Strachan School.
Go to Profile#4660
John A. Clausen
#4661
Marilyn E. Carroll
#4662
Felix Post
#4663
Max Siegel
1918 - 1988 (70 years)
Max Siegel was an American psychologist and past president of the American Psychological Association . His faculty appointments included work at Brooklyn College, Florida Atlantic University and Nova Southeastern University. Siegel was interested in issues surrounding crime.
Go to Profile#4664
Albert Lefevre
1873 - 1928 (55 years)
Albert Lefevre was an American psychologist. Early life Lefevre was born on October 4, 1873, in Baltimore, Maryland. He received a bachelor's degree and a master's degree from the University of Texas at Austin. He studied at Johns Hopkins University, before transferring to Cornell University, where he received a PhD in Psychology in 1898. He completed his studies by spending two years in Berlin, Germany, from 1898 to 1900.
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June Downey
1875 - 1932 (57 years)
June Etta Downey was an American psychologist who studied personality and handwriting. Downey was born and raised in Laramie, Wyoming, where she received her degree in Greek and Latin from the University of Wyoming. Throughout her life Downey wrote seven books and over seventy articles. Included in this work, Downey developed the Individual Will-Temperament Test, which was one of the first tests to evaluate character traits separately from intellectual capacity and the first to use psychographic methods for interpretation.
Go to Profile#4666
Thomas Verner Moore
1877 - 1969 (92 years)
Dom Thomas Verner Moore was an American psychologist, psychiatrist and monk. He was the "first psychiatric researcher to create symptom rating scales and use factor analysis to deconstruct psychosis." He was also among the first Catholic priests to conduct influential scientific work in psychology, and he developed a psychiatric paradigm based on Catholic teaching, as well as on the philosophical perspective of Thomism.
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Richard W. Foltin
#4668
Theodora Mead Abel
1899 - 1998 (99 years)
Theodora Mead Abel was an American clinical psychologist and educator, who used innovative ideas by combining sociology and psychology. She was a pioneer in cross-cultural psychology. Early life and education Theodora was born in Newport, Rhode Island, on September 9, 1899, and raised in New York City.
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Carroll C. Pratt
1894 - 1979 (85 years)
Carroll C. Pratt was an American psychologist and musicologist. Much of his work centered on the interplay of psychology, music and emotion. He was involved with the experimental psychology and Gestalt psychology movements.
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Thelma Alper
1908 - 1988 (80 years)
Thelma Gorfinkle Alper was an American clinical psychologist, known for creating a study measure for women's achievement motivation. She was also the first Jewish woman to receive a Ph.D from Harvard, having careers at multiple institutions as she conducted studies primarily on memory of tasks, with an interest in its relation to women.
Go to Profile#4671
Emma Sophia Baker
1856 - 1943 (87 years)
Emma Sophia Baker was a Canadian psychologist. In 1903, she became the first person to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto, it is important to know that psychology was considered a subdiscipline of philosophy at the time. Baker was also one of the first two women to earn a Ph.D. from that institution, the other was chemist Clara Benson.
Go to Profile#4672
Mildred B. Mitchell
1903 - 1983 (80 years)
Mildred Bessie Mitchell was a psychologist who graduated from Yale University in 1931. She was the first clinical psychology examiner for the US Astronaut Program helping NASA select men for Project Mercury in 1959.
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Ulf Lundberg
#4674
Claudia A. Baier
#4675
Therese Benedek
1892 - 1977 (85 years)
Therese Benedek was a Hungarian-American psychoanalyst, researcher, and educator. Active in Germany and the United States between the years 1921 and 1977, she was regarded for her work on psychosomatic medicine, women's psychosexual development, sexual dysfunction, and family relationships. She was a faculty and staff member of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis from 1936 to 1969.
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Edna Frances Heidbreder
1890 - 1985 (95 years)
Edna Frances Heidbreder was an American philosopher and psychologist who explored the study of history, and made contributions toward the field of study in psychometrics, systematic psychology, and concept formation. She expressed interest in cognition and systematic psychology, and the experimentation on personality traits and its characteristics. She also did work testing the normal inferiority complex and studied systemic problems in her later work.
Go to Profile#4677
Alina Surmacka Szczesniak
#4678
Eugénie Ginsberg
1870 - 1944 (74 years)
Eugénie Ginsberg or Eugénie Ginsberg-Blaustein was a Polish philosopher and psychologist noted for her works on descriptive psychology and her analysis of existential dependence, independence, and related concepts as applied in the area of psychology.
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Eugene Carlisle LeBel
1899 - 1986 (87 years)
Reverend Eugene Carlisle LeBel, C.S.B., C.D., LL.D, was a Canadian academic and religious leader, who spent much of his life in Catholic schools, both studying and teaching. He is best known for his efforts to introduce academic changes to Assumption College, leading it to become Assumption University of Windsor and later the non-denominational University of Windsor.
Go to Profile#4680
John Alexander McGeoch
1897 - 1942 (45 years)
John Alexander McGeoch was an American psychologist and educator. Considered a modern functionalist, his interests focused on human learning and memory. He was the chair of the department of psychology at the University of Missouri from 1930 to 1935, Wesleyan University from 1935 to 1939, and University of Iowa from 1939 to 1942. He was also an editor for the Psychological Bulletin from 1931–1942.
Go to Profile#4681
Albert William Wolters
1893 - 1961 (68 years)
Albert William Phillip Wolters was a British psychologist. History Wolters spent most of his academic career at the University of Reading. He was initially appointed as a lecturer in the Department of Education in 1908. Here he taught courses in Philosophy and Social Institutions. In 1910 he began teaching psychology and he convinced the university authorities to provide him with facilities to establish a psychological laboratory and subsequently a department of psychology. He was made Professor of Psychology and then Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the university.
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Robert John Pearce Carey
#4683
Willy Lens
#4684
Margaret K. Knight
1903 - 1983 (80 years)
Margaret Kennedy Knight , , was a psychologist and humanist. Biography Born in Hertfordshire, England, Knight went to Girton College, Cambridge University, graduating in 1926. In 1948 she gained a master's degree.
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Traian Herseni
1907 - 1980 (73 years)
Traian Herseni was a Romanian social scientist, journalist, and political figure. First noted as a favorite disciple of Dimitrie Gusti, he helped establish the Romanian school of rural sociology in the 1920s and early '30s, and took part in interdisciplinary study groups and field trips. A prolific essayist and researcher, he studied isolated human groups across the country, trying to define relations between sociology, ethnography, and cultural anthropology, with an underlying interest in sociological epistemology. He was particularly interested in the peasant cultures and pastoral society of the Făgăraș Mountains.
Go to Profile#4686
Sidney Clarence Garrison
1885 - 1945 (60 years)
Sidney Clarence Garrison was an American educator and psychologist. He served as the second President of Peabody College from 1938 to 1945. He was the author of several books about education. Early life Sidney Clarence Garrison was born on October 17, 1885, in Lincolnton, North Carolina. His father was Rufus J. Garrison and his mother, Susie Elizabeth Mooney. He had a brother, Karl C. Garrison, who became a psychologist.
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Roland Clark Davis
1902 - 1961 (59 years)
Roland Clark Davis was an American psychologist recognized for his innovation in instrumentation and measurement of electrophysiological phenomena. Davis contributed to the measurement of electrodermal activity, gastric reflexes, and muscle action potentials. Davis published over 70 articles on psychophysiology and related topics across a 30-year career and mentored many graduate students at Indiana University Bloomington from 1931 through 1961.
Go to Profile#4688
Joseph Peterson
1878 - 1935 (57 years)
Joseph Peterson was an American psychologist and a past president of the American Psychological Association . Early life Joseph Peterson was born on September 8, 1878, in Huntsville, Utah. His parents, Hans Jordon Peterson and Inger Mary Christensen, were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who had immigrants from Denmark to the United States.
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Kate Brousseau
1862 - 1938 (76 years)
Kate Brousseau was an American professor and researcher on mental hygiene, chair of the Psychology Department at Mills College. Early life Kate Brousseau was born on April 24, 1862, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, daughter of Judge Julius Brousseau , born in New York by French Canadian parents, and Caroline Yakeley , of English and German heritage. Brousseau was the older of four siblings.
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Laurance F. Shaffer
1903 - 1976 (73 years)
Laurance Frederic Shaffer was an American psychologist and a past president of the American Psychological Association . Biography Shaffer was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Air Forces and he opened the first pilot selection examining unit during World War II. He was a department chair at Columbia University and he served as editor of the Journal of Consulting Psychology. Shaffer promoted the concept of mental hygiene, which combined the notions of health promotion and psychological adjustment. He was the APA president in 1953.
Go to Profile#4691
Karl Holzinger
1892 - 1954 (62 years)
Karl John Holzinger was an American educational psychologist known for his work in psychometrics. Education Holzinger received his A.B. and A.M. degrees from the University of Minnesota in 1915 and 1917, respectively. He then attended the University of Chicago, from which he received his Ph.D. in 1922. He subsequently studied at University College London with both Karl Pearson and Charles Spearman. Holzinger became interested in intelligence testing through his work with Spearman.
Go to Profile#4692
J. Macbride Sterrett
1847 - 1923 (76 years)
J. Macbride Sterrett was an American philosopher. Early life J. Macbride Sterrett was born in 1847. Career Mcbride was a philosopher. His major works were on Christian apologetics, Hegel, and the British Empiricists. He served as the second President of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology in 1909.
Go to Profile#4693
Nicholas Humphrey
#4694
Friedrich Oltmanns
1860 - 1945 (85 years)
Friedrich Oltmanns was a German biologist phycologist. In 1884 he received his doctorate at the University of Strasbourg, afterwards working as an assistant at the University of Rostock . In 1893, he was appointed an associate professor of botany at the University of Freiburg, where in 1902 he became a full professor and director of the botanical garden. With Max Verworn, Hermann Theodor Simon, Eugen Korschelt and others, he was co-editor of the 10-volume Handwörterbuch der Naturwissenschaften.
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Robert Ludwig Kahn
1923 - 1970 (47 years)
Robert Ludwig Kahn was a German-American scholar of German studies and poet. He grew up in Nuremberg and Leipzig as the son of Jewish parents who sent him abroad to England on a Kindertransport in 1939. After the end of World War II, Kahn learned his parents had perished in the Holocaust, which was a traumatic experience that caused him to lose his faith. He never recovered from survivor guilt.
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Johann Maass
1766 - 1823 (57 years)
Johann Gebhard Ehrenreich Maass was a German psychologist. Maass was born in 1766 in Krottendorf near Halberstadt. In 1791 he became an extraordinary professor of philosophy, and in 1798 a full professor. Among his writings on psychology are Versuche: Über die Einbildungskraft , Über die Leidenschaften , and Über die Gefühle und Affekte . He died in Halle in 1823.
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Thaddeus L. Bolton
1865 - 1948 (83 years)
Thaddeus Lincoln Bolton was an American psychologist who was head of the Department of Psychology at Temple University for twenty years. In February 1947, about a year before his death, he set aside $61,000 in a trust fund to establish the Thaddeus L. Bolton Professorship at Temple.
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Thomas Hunter
1876 - 1953 (77 years)
Sir Thomas Alexander Hunter was a New Zealand psychologist, university professor and administrator. He was vice chancellor of the University of New Zealand from 1929 to 1947, chairman of Massey Agricultural College from 1936 to 1938, and principal of Victoria University College from 1938 to 1951. At the age of seventy-five, Hunter retired after serving, for almost fifty years, at Victoria University College.
Go to Profile#4699
Grace Manson
1893 - 1967 (74 years)
Grace Eveyln Manson was an American psychologist known for her work as an occupational psychologist. Early life and education Manson was born on July 15, 1893, in Baltimore, Maryland. Educated at Goucher College, where she received her AB in 1915, and Columbia University, where she received her AM in 1919, she went on to earn a Ph.D. from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1923.
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Margaret Verrall
1857 - 1916 (59 years)
Margaret de Gaudrion Verrall was a classical scholar and lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge. Much of her life and research was concerned with the study of parapsychology, mainly in order to examine how psychic abilities might demonstrate the abilities, breadth and power of the human mind. She began to exhibit and develop psychic abilities herself around 1901, and became both a recipient and analyst of many cross-correspondences produced by psychics, most notably the Palm Sunday scripts.
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