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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.

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List of the most influential people in Social Psychology,

#51

Daniel Wegner

#2612

Overall Influence

1948 - 2013 (65 years)

Daniel Merton Wegner was an American social psychologist. He was a professor of psychology at Harvard University and a fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was known for applying experimental psychology to the topics of mental control and conscious will, and for originating the study of transactive memory and action identification. In The Illusion of Conscious Will and other works, he argued that the human sense of free will is an illusion.

#52

Andrew Steptoe

#46987

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

#53

Arthur Aron

#12034

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Arthur Aron is a professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He is best known for his work on intimacy in interpersonal relationships, and development of the self-expansion model of motivation in close relationships.

#54

Shelley E. Taylor

#10189

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Shelley Elizabeth Taylor is an American psychologist. She serves as a distinguished professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She received her Ph.D. from Yale University, and was formerly on the faculty at Harvard University. A prolific author of books and scholarly journal articles, Taylor has long been a leading figure in two subfields related to her primary discipline of social psychology: social cognition and health psychology. Her books include The Tending Instinct and Social Cognition, the latter by Susan Fiske and Shelley Taylor.

#55

Kipling Williams

#30483

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Kipling D. Williams is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. He received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Ohio State University. He is most noted for his research on ostracism and has developed unique methods to study the processes and consequences.

#56

Edgar Schein

#3272

Overall Influence

1928 - 2023 (95 years)

Edgar Henry Schein was a Swiss-born American business theorist and psychologist who was professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He founded the discipline of organizational behavior, and made notable contributions in the field of organizational development in many areas, including career development, group process consultation, and organizational culture. He was the son of former University of Chicago professor Marcel Schein.

#57

Mark Lepper

#22653

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Mark R. Lepper is the Albert Ray Lang Professor of psychology at Stanford University, and a leading theorist in social psychology. He is particularly known for his research on attribution theory and confirmation bias, and for his collaborations with Lee Ross.

#58

Norman H. Anderson

#25887

Overall Influence

1925 - Present (99 years)

Norman Henry Anderson was an American social psychologist and the founder of Information integration theory. Anderson was a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, where he was one of three founders of the Department of Psychology. He received a BS in 1946 and an MS in 1949 from the University of Chicago, and an MS in 1955 and a PhD in 1956 from the University of Wisconsin, with a thesis on Effect of First-order Conditional Probability in a Two-choice Learning Situation. Anderson also taught at The University of California, Los Angeles during the 1960...

#59

Roos Vonk

#21260

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Roosje Vonk is a Dutch professor of social psychology at the Radboud University in Nijmegen author, and motivational speaker. Life and work Vonk studied psychology at Leiden University. She received her PhD in 1990 for her dissertation The cognitive representation of persons: A multidimensional study of Implicit Personality Theory, impression formation, and person judgments. In 1999 she became professor at the Radboud University Nijmegen. In addition to her work at the university, she popularized psychology by means of books, articles, and lectures for the general public.

#60

Justin Kruger

#7648

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Justin S. Kruger is an American social psychologist and professor at New York University Stern School of Business. Education Kruger received his BS in Psychology from Santa Clara University in 1993 , and received his PhD in Social Psychology from Cornell University in 1999.

#61

John Jost

#18391

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

John Thomas Jost is a social psychologist best known for his work on system justification theory and the psychology of political ideology. Jost received his AB degree in Psychology and Human Development from Duke University , where he studied with Irving E. Alexander, Philip R. Costanzo, David Goldstein, and Lynn Hasher, and his PhD in Social and Political Psychology from Yale University , where he was the last doctoral student of Leonard Doob and William J. McGuire. He was also a doctoral student of Mahzarin R. Banaji and a postdoctoral trainee of Arie W. Kruglanski.

#62

Jerome E. Singer

#9250

Overall Influence

1934 - 2010 (76 years)

Jerome Everett Singer was the founding chair of the Medical and Clinical Psychology Department at Uniformed Services University. He is best known for his contributions to the two-factor theory of emotion. He also served as one of the fourteen members on the National Research Council committee on human performance in 1985. Singer played a role in the cognitive revival of modern psychology. His main area of expertise was the psychological and physiological effects of various types of stress.

#63

Robert Louis Kahn

#25334

Overall Influence

1918 - 2019 (101 years)

Robert Louis Kahn was an American psychologist and social scientist, specializing in organizational theory and survey research, having been considered a "founding father" of the modern approach to these disciplines. He has also been involved in developing studies on aging and his work is critically acclaimed by experts.

#64

Margaret Wetherell

#10598

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Margaret Wetherell is a prominent academic in the area of discourse analysis. Career Wetherell worked for 23 years at the Open University, UK from which she retired as Emeritus Professor in 2011. She then took up a part-time post of Professor in Psychology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

#65

Daniel Gilbert

#5630

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

#66

Vincent Y. Yzerbyt

#55304

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

#67

Wolfgang Stroebe

#15315

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Ernst Joachim Wolfgang Stroebe is a German social psychologist and Emeritus Professor of Social Psychology at the Utrecht University and now visiting professor at the University of Groningen, particularly known for his work on social and health psychology.

#68

Robert Frager

#4775

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Robert Frager is an American social psychologist responsible for establishing America's first educational institution dedicated to transpersonal psychology. Frager is known for founding the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, now called Sofia University, in Palo Alto, California, where he currently holds the position of director of the low residency Master of Arts in Spiritual Guidance program and professor of psychology. Frager has previously acted as president of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology as well as a consultant, educator and a spiritual teacher in the Sufi tradition.

#69

Christina Maslach

#3706

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Christina Maslach is an American social psychologist and professor emerita of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, known for her research on occupational burnout. She is a co-author of the Maslach Burnout Inventory and Areas of Worklife Survey. Early in her professional career, Maslach was instrumental in stopping the Stanford prison experiment. In 1997, she was awarded the U.S. Professor of the Year.

#70

Robert V. Levine

#25911

Overall Influence

1945 - 2019 (74 years)

Robert Victor Levine, Ph.D. was an American psychologist. Levine was Professor of Psychology at California State University, Fresno, a social psychology writer, speaker, and consultant. He was also the former Associate Dean of the College of Science and Mathematics at Fresno.

#71

Wallace Lambert

#19775

Overall Influence

1922 - 2009 (87 years)

Wallace E. Lambert was a Canadian psychologist and a professor in the psychology department at McGill University . Among the founders of psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics, he is known for his contributions to social and cross-cultural psychology , language education , and bilingualism .

#72

David O. Sears

#28446

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

David O’Keefe Sears is an American psychologist who specializes in political psychology. He is a distinguished professor of psychology and political science at the University of California, Los Angeles where he has been teaching since 1961. He served as dean of social sciences at UCLA between 1983 and 1992. Best known for his theory of symbolic racism, Sears has published many articles and books about the political and psychological origins of race relations in America, as well as on political socialization and life cycle effects on attitudes, the role of self-interest in attitudes, and multiculturalism.

#73

Sandra Bem

#7426

Overall Influence

1944 - 2014 (70 years)

Sandra Ruth Lipsitz Bem was an American psychologist known for her works in androgyny and gender studies. Her pioneering work on gender roles, gender polarization and gender stereotypes led directly to more equal employment opportunities for women in the United States.

#74

Michael Lamb

#49511

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Michael E. Lamb is a professor and former Head of the then Department of Social and Developmental Psychology at the University of Cambridge, known for his influential work in developmental psychology, child and family policy, social welfare, and law. His work has focused on divorce, child custody, child maltreatment, child testimony, and the effects of childcare on children's social and emotional development. His work in family relationships has focused on the role of both mothers and fathers and the importance of their relationships with children. Lamb's expertise has influenced legal decisio...

#75

Shelly Chaiken

#21074

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Rochelle Lynne "Shelly" Chaiken is an American social psychologist. She first received her BS from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1971 for mathematics. She later earned her MS and her PhD at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in social psychology. She was a professor of psychology at New York University, but is now retired.

#76

Gerard Hendrik Hofstede

#61892

Overall Influence

#77

Zick Rubin

#15075

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Isaac Michael "Zick" Rubin is an American social psychologist, lawyer, and author. He is "widely credited as the author of the first empirical measurement of love," for his work distinguishing feelings of like from feelings of love via Rubin's Scales of Liking and Loving. Science Progress stated, "The major breakthrough in research on love came from the pioneer psychometric work of Zick Rubin."

#78

John Dovidio

#30464

Overall Influence

John Francis Dovidio is the Carl Iver Hovland Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Public Health at Yale University, where he is also the former director of the Intergroup Relations Lab. He is known for his research on the concept of aversive racism and on reducing people's intergroup biases. He was the president of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues from 1999 to 2000. He served as the editor-in-chief of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin from 1994 to 1997, of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychologys Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes section from 2002 to 2008, and the co-editor of Social Issues and Policy Review from 2006 to 2011.

#79

Michael Argyle

#18786

Overall Influence

1925 - 2002 (77 years)

Michael Argyle was one of the best known English social psychologists of the twentieth century. He spent most of his career at the University of Oxford, and worked on numerous topics. Throughout his career, he showed strong preferences for experimental methods in social psychology, having little time for alternative approaches such as discourse analysis.

#80

Andrew J. Elliot

#32459

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Andrew J. Elliot is a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. His research on the hierarchical model of approach and avoidance motivation focuses on combining classic and contemporary methods to test various theories. Elliot's work in social psychology is cited frequently by those in the field, causing him to be named one of Thomson Reuters' ISI Highly Cited for the Social Sciences in 2010.

#81

Robert A. Baron

#29609

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Robert Alan Baron is Professor of Management and the Spears Chair of Entrepreneurship at Oklahoma State University's Spears School of Business. He studied psychology at City University of New York and received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1968. He is co-author of the textbook Social Psychology , published by Allyn & Bacon, as well as numerous other books and journal articles. Dr. Baron has held faculty appointments at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Purdue, the University of Minnesota, Texas, South Carolina, Washington, Princeton University, and Oxford University.

#82

Miles Hewstone

#27693

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Miles Ronald Cole Hewstone is a British social psychologist who is well known for his work on social relations. Biography He graduated from the University of Bristol in 1978 and then moved to the University of Oxford from which he obtained a D.Phil. in social psychology in 1981. He pursued post-doctoral work at the University of Tübingen, Germany from which he obtained a Habilitation in 1986. He then undertook further work with Serge Moscovici and Wolfgang Stroebe .

#83

Daniel Katz

#25318

Overall Influence

1903 - 1998 (95 years)

Daniel Katz was an American psychologist, Emeritus Professor in Psychology at the University of Michigan and an expert on organizational psychology. Biography Born in Trenton, New Jersey, Katz received his MA from the University of Buffalo in 1925, and his PhD from the Syracuse University in 1928 under Floyd Henry Allport, founder of the American experimental social psychology.

#84

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.

#85

Mark R Leary

#65118

Overall Influence

#86

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.

#87

Alexander Haslam

#35209

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Stephen Alexander "Alex" Haslam is a professor of psychology and ARC Australian Laureate Fellow in the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland. His research focuses on areas of social psychology, organisational psychology and health psychology, exploring issues of stereotyping and prejudice, tyranny and resistance, leadership and power, stress and well-being. This work is informed by, and has contributed to the development of, theory and ideas relating to the social identity approach.

#88

Andreas Zick

#30740

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Andreas Zick is a professor of Socialization and Conflict Research at Faculty of Education Science, Bielefeld University. Academia Zick is a professor for Socialization and Conflict Research at the Faculty of Education Science at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. Concurrent with that, he is also the associate member of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence, head of the research training group on Group-Focused Enmity , and associated member of the Faculty of Sociology.

#89

Çiğdem Kağıtçıbaşı

#13377

Overall Influence

1940 - 2017 (77 years)

Çiğdem Kağıtçıbaşı was a Turkish scientist and professor. She was a university professor since 1969 and received the APA Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Advancement of Psychology in 1993.

#90

Dominic Abrams

#23735

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

William Dominic Joshua Abrams, is a Professor of Social Psychology and the Director of the Centre for the Study of Group Processes in the School of Psychology at the University of Kent. His research examines social identity, social cohesion, inclusion and exclusion, prejudice, discrimination, social attitudes, social change and social influence in groups across the life course. It spans social and developmental psychology and gerontology and uses a wide range of methods, most frequently surveys and laboratory and field experiments.

#91

Donn Erwin Byrne

#69266

Overall Influence

#92

Sonia Livingstone

Sonia Livingstone

#33351

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Sonia Livingstone is a leading British scholar on the subjects of children, media and the Internet. She is Professor of Social Psychology and former head of the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science. While Livingstone’s research has evolved since the start of her career in the 1980s, her recent work explores media and communication in relation to society, children and technology. Livingstone has authored or edited twenty-four books and hundreds of academic articles and chapters. She is known for her continued public engagement about her...

#93

Clyde Hendrick

#38207

Overall Influence

Clyde Hendrick was a Horn Professor of Psychology at Texas Tech University. He received his doctorate degree from University of Missouri in 1967 in Psychology. His main research interests included close relationships. During the past decade his primary focus was around love and sex attitudes. In collaboration with doctoral students. Hendrick studied various aspects related to love and sex attitudes. These two research areas are connected to close relations, such as relationship satisfaction, communication modalities, personality variables, conflict styles, and self-disclosure. He worked very closely with Susan Hendrick on many of his research studies.

#94

Lee Jussim

#36729

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Lee J. Jussim is an American social psychologist. He leads the Social Perception Laboratory at Rutgers University. Early life and education When Jussim was 5 years old, his family moved into a Brooklyn-area public housing where they lived until he was 12. When he was 13, his family moved to Levittown, Long Island, and his mother died of cancer shortly after.

#95

Andrew F. Hayes

#71973

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

#96

Michael Harris Bond

#74432

Overall Influence

#97

Scott Plous

#26603

Overall Influence

Scott Plous is an American academic social psychologist. He is currently a Professor of Psychology at Wesleyan University and Executive Director of Social Psychology Network. Early life and education Scott Plous was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He attended college at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and earned his PhD in social psychology at Stanford University, where he also completed a MacArthur Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in International Peace and Cooperation. His doctoral advisor at Stanford was Philip Zimbardo.

#98

Patricia Devine

#14478

Overall Influence

Patricia Grace Devine is a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she was the psychology department chair from 2009 to 2014. She was also the 2012 president of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

#99

Mark van Vugt

#9523

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Mark van Vugt is a Dutch evolutionary psychologist who holds a professorship in evolutionary psychology and work and organizational psychology at the VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Van Vugt has affiliate positions at the University of Oxford, Institute for Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology .

#100

Martin Bauer

#21851

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Martin W. Bauer is a Professor of social psychology. He directs the MSc in Social and Public Communication at the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science at LSE. Martin Bauer was a Research Fellow in 'Public Understanding of Science' at the Science Museum in London, an academic visitor to the Maison des Sciences de l'homme in Paris, and he teaches regularly in Brazil at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul and the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul.

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