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,
#4801
Kenneth A. Wallston
#4802
Eino Kaila
1890 - 1958 (68 years)
Eino Sakari Kaila was a Finnish philosopher, critic and teacher. He worked in numerous fields including psychology , physics and theater, and attempted to find unifying principles behind various branches of human and natural sciences.
Go to Profile#4803
Narziß Ach
1871 - 1946 (75 years)
Narziß Kaspar Ach was a German psychologist and university lecturer in Königsberg, Prussia and Göttingen, Germany. Biography From 1890–1895 and in 1898/99 he studied medicine and philosophy at the University of Würzburg and received his doctorate in 1895. In 1895/96 he worked in the psychological laboratory of Heidelberg University alongside Emil Kraepelin. In 1897, Ach went on a trip to North America for further examination of motion sickness. Following the journey, he worked at the pharmacological institute of the University of Strasbourg.
Go to Profile#4804
Richard M. Elliott
1887 - 1969 (82 years)
Richard Maurice "Mike" Elliott was an American psychologist who served as the departmental chair of the University of Minnesota Psychology Department from 1919 until 1951. Biography Elliott was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. He received his Bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College and in 1910 went on to graduate school at Harvard University where he was advised by Hugo Münsterberg and influenced by Robert Yerkes. During World War I, Elliott conducted mental testing under the command of Donald G. Paterson. Elliott arrived to chair the new University of Minnesota Psychology Department in 1919.
Go to Profile#4805
Donald Marquis
1908 - 1973 (65 years)
Donald George Marquis was an American psychologist and a past president of the American Psychological Association . He was best known for his tenure as a department chair and professor at the University of Michigan.
Go to Profile#4806
Mary Collins
1895 - 1989 (94 years)
Mary Collins was an expert in colour vision, and psychology lecturer at Edinburgh University. Academic career Mary Collins gained her MA in 1917 from Edinburgh University, her BEd in 1919 and PhD in 1923. She was then appointed lecturer in psychology at the University. Her first book, Colour blindness was published in 1925 covering her initial work in studying aspects of color vision. Subsequently, she worked extensively with Sir James Drever, head of department, and subsequently with Boris Semeonoff . Collins became senior lecturer by 1950 and reader by 1956, retiring "before 1962".
Go to Profile#4807
Charles Henry Thompson
1895 - 1980 (85 years)
Charles Henry Thompson was an American educational psychologist and the first African-American to earn a doctorate degree in educational psychology. He obtained a Master's degree and Ph.D at the University of Chicago. Born in Jackson, Mississippi, he became an educator at Howard University. During his time at Howard, he was the dean of the liberal art college and later became the dean of Howard's graduate school, where he made several administrative and scholarship changes. Additionally, he founded The Journal of Negro Education, an academic journal pertaining to the education of African-American students.
Go to Profile#4808
Andreas Bjerre
1879 - 1925 (46 years)
Sören Andreas Bjerre, known as Andreas Bjerre, was a Swedish academic specialising in criminal law and criminal psychology. Early life and career Born in Göteborg in 1879, Andreas Bjerre was the son of Sören Bjerre, who was a rich butter-merchant, and Sophie Jörgensen. His brother was the psychologist Poul Bjerre .
Go to Profile#4809
Eugen Kahn
1887 - 1973 (86 years)
Eugen Kahn was a German psychiatrist. His "habilitation" supervisors were Emil Kraepelin and Ernst Rüdin. He argued Willenlos was a misnomer for the Haltlose, as the patients demonstrated plenty of "will" and simply lacked the ability to translate it into action. He was the first Sterling Professor of Psychiatry and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Yale 1930-1946.
Go to Profile#4810
Philip S. Holzman
#4811
Albert Lilius
1873 - 1947 (74 years)
Albert Henrik Lilius was a child psychologist a pioneering researcher in Finland and professor at the University of Helsinki. He published a book about Nordic figures from the history of educational work along with several others.
Go to Profile#4812
Georg Anschütz
1886 - 1953 (67 years)
Georg Ernst Anschütz was a German psychologist, who worked especially in the field of music psychology and synaesthesia. Due to his exposed role during the National Socialism period, he was dismissed from university service after 1945. His writings were nevertheless reprinted until the 1970s.
Go to Profile#4813
Karl Beth
1872 - 1959 (87 years)
Karl Beth was a German academic involved in the fields of the history of religion, the psychology of religion, and Christianity. He has been described as "one of the founding fathers of the psychology of religion".
Go to Profile#4814
Walter J. Lonner
#4815
Marvin D. Dunnette
#4816
John Clarence Defries
#4817
Lillien Jane Martin
1851 - 1943 (92 years)
Lillien Jane Martin was an American psychologist. She published over twelve books. Martin experienced ageism and sexism as an early woman in psychology. Early life and education Lillien Jane Martin was born on July 7, 1851, at Olean, New York. At the age of four, she entered the nearby Olean Academy. At the age of sixteen, her talents were recognized such that she became a teacher at a girls' school in Wisconsin. By the age of 26, in 1876, she had earned enough money to return to her native New York where she enrolled at Vassar College at Poughkeepsie, New York.
Go to Profile#4818
Hendrik Verwoerd
1901 - 1966 (65 years)
Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd , also known as H. F. Verwoerd, was a South African politician, scholar, and newspaper editor who served as Prime Minister of South Africa and is commonly regarded as the architect of apartheid. Verwoerd played a significant role in socially engineering apartheid, the country's system of institutionalized racial segregation and white supremacy, and implementing its policies, as Minister of Native Affairs and then as prime minister . Furthermore, Verwoerd played a vital role in helping the far-right National Party come to power in 1948, serving as their political strategist and propagandist, becoming party leader upon his premiership.
Go to Profile#4819
Eberhard Zwicker
1924 - 1990 (66 years)
Karl Eberhard Zwicker was a German acoustics scientist and full professor at the Technical University of Munich. Zwicker studied physics and electrical engineering at the University of Stuttgart and was an assistant of . In 1967 he was appointed full professor of the newly founded Institute for Electro-Acoustics of the Technical University of Munich.
Go to Profile#4820
Friedrich Jodl
1849 - 1914 (65 years)
Friedrich Jodl was a German philosopher and psychologist. Biography Friedrich Jodl grew up in a Munich family association which, due to its proximity to the royal court, had provided numerous senior civil servants in Bavaria. The painter Heinrich Bürkel, a family friend, introduced him to the fine arts at an early age.
Go to Profile#4821
Ian Hindmarch
#4822
Jerome E. Singer
#4823
Guy Montrose Whipple
1876 - 1941 (65 years)
Guy Montrose Whipple was an American educational psychologist known for developing psychological tests of human intelligence and personality. His other research interests included gifted education, literacy, vocational education, and the psychology of eyewitness testimony. A 1997 article about giftedness described Whipple as "an all-but-forgotten pioneer in this field".
Go to Profile#4824
Otto Klemm
1884 - 1939 (55 years)
Gustav Otto Klemm was a German psychologist and philosopher, as well as the first chair as Professor of Applied Psychology at the University of Leipzig. While his psychological work is largely irrelevant today, Klemm is one of the best-known representatives of the Leipzig School of Gestalt psychology. His studies on human motor, which were carried out under his guidance, had scientific validity, both in terms of their findings as well as the careful methodology. He is next to Nikolai Alexandrovich Bernstein among the first researchers who have studied the phenomenon of variability of partial ...
Go to Profile#4825
Gao Juefu
1896 - 1993 (97 years)
Gao Juefu , also known as Gao Zhuo , was one of China's modern psychologists and a psychology historian. He was born in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province. When he was young, he studied at the Beijing Higher Normal School and the University of Hong Kong Department of Education.
Go to Profile#4826
Johannes von Kries
1853 - 1928 (75 years)
Johannes Adolf von Kries was a German physiological psychologist who formulated the modern “duplicity” or “duplexity” theory of vision mediated by rod cells at low light levels and three types of cone cells at higher light levels. He made important contributions in the field of haemodynamics. In addition, von Kries was a significant theorist of the foundations of probability.
Go to Profile#4827
Christine Eiser
#4828
John E. Arnold
1913 - 1963 (50 years)
John Edward Arnold was an American professor of mechanical engineering and professor of business administration at Stanford University. He was a pioneer in scientifically defining and advancing inventiveness, based on the psychology of creative thinking and imagination, and an internationally recognized innovator in educational philosophy.
Go to Profile#4829
Donald Saklofske
Donald Harold Saklofske is a Canadian psychologist and professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Western Ontario. He is a former president of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences and the current editor-in-chief of its official journal, Personality and Individual Differences. He is also editor-in-chief of the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment. He is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, the Canadian Psychological Association, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
Go to Profile#4830
Cesare Musatti
1897 - 1989 (92 years)
Cesare Luigi Musatti was an Italian philosopher and psychoanalyst. He was a leading figure for the first generation of Italian psychoanalysts. Musatti studied under Vittorio Benussi before becoming his assistant. Musatti edited the Italian edition of the works of Sigmund Freud.
Go to Profile#4831
Joseph Zohar
#4832
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#4833
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.
Go to Profile#4834
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.
Go to Profile#4835
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#4836
Diego De Leo
#4837
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#4838
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#4839
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#4840
John A. Clausen
#4841
Marilyn E. Carroll
#4842
Felix Post
#4843
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#4844
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.
Go to Profile#4845
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#4846
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.
Go to Profile#4847
Richard W. Foltin
#4848
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.
Go to Profile#4849
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.
Go to Profile#4850
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.
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