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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,

#101

Fritz Strack

#20136

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Fritz Strack is a German social psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of Würzburg. Strack is a member of Germany's National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for psychology in 2019.

#102

Mark Zanna

#48432

Overall Influence

1944 - 2020 (76 years)

Mark Zanna, FRSC was a social psychologist at the University of Waterloo. He was well known for his work on attitudes and intergroup relations. He earned his Ph.D. from Yale University. Research A major debate among attitude researchers in the 1970s concerned whether cognitive dissonance theory or self-perception theory best accounted for how people's attitudes change. While at Princeton University, Zanna and Joel Cooper conducted a landmark experiment that resolved the discrepancy in favor of cognitive dissonance. They demonstrated that arousal is necessary for some instances of attitude cha...

#103

Jennifer Crocker

#31548

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Dr. Jennifer Crocker is a professor and Ohio Eminent Scholar in Social Psychology at Ohio State University. She is also a former president of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Her publications are on the subject of self-esteem and the contingencies and interpersonal goals that individuals have that are a clear reflection of their level of self-esteem.

#104

Claude Steele

#14666

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Claude Mason Steele is a social psychologist and emeritus professor at Stanford University, where he is the I. James Quillen Endowed Dean, Emeritus at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education, and Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences, Emeritus.

#105

Robert S. Wyer

#35710

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Robert S. Wyer Jr. is a visiting professor at the University of Cincinnati and professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Colorado. Wyer Jr.'s research interests cover various aspects of social information processing, including:knowledge accessibility,comprehension,memory,social inference,the impact of affect on judgment and decisions,attitude formation and change,and consumer judgment and decision-making.

#106

Amélie Mummendey

Amélie Mummendey

#57955

Overall Influence

1944 - 2018 (74 years)

Amélie Mummendey was a German social psychologist. From 2007 until her death, she was a Vice-Rector for the Graduate Academy at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Biography Amélie Mummendey completed her M.Sc. in Psychology at the University of Bonn, followed by her PhD at the University of Mainz in 1970, and her Habilitation at the University of Münster in 1974. She held a chair in social psychology at the University of Münster before taking up a chair in social psychology at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena in 1997. In 2007, Mummendey was elected as the first Vice-Rector for th...

#107

Mario Mikulincer

#80045

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

#108

Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi

Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi

#7964

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Haifa, Israel. In 1970 Beit-Hallahmi received a PhD in clinical psychology from Michigan State University. Bibliography

#109

Robert E. Kraut

Robert E. Kraut

#33372

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Robert E. Kraut is an American social psychologist who studies human-computer interaction, online communities, internet use, group coordination, computers in organizations, and the role of visual elements in interpersonal communication. He is a Herbert Simon University Professor Emeritus of Human-computer Interaction at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

#110

Wolfgang Wagner

Wolfgang Wagner

#29024

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Wolfgang Wagner is an Austrian social psychologist, currently professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Tartu, Estonia. Formerly he was at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, and affiliated with the Department of Social Psychology and Methodology at the University of San Sebastián, Spain. He is renowned for his contributions to the Theory of Social Representations.

#111

Steven Neuberg

#25446

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Steven L. Neuberg is an experimental social psychologist whose research has contributed to topics pertaining to person perception, impression formation, stereotyping, prejudice, self-fulfilling prophecies, stereotype threat, and prosocial behavior. His research can be broadly characterized as exploring the ways motives and goals shape social thought processes; extending this approach, his later work employs the adaptationist logic of evolutionary psychology to inform the study of social cognition and social behavior. Neuberg has published over sixty scholarly articles and chapters, and has co...

#112

Naomi Eisenberger

#30547

Overall Influence

Naomi I. Eisenberger is a social psychologist known for her research on the neural basis of social pain and social connection. She is professor of social psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles where she directs the Social and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory and co-directs the Social Cognitive Science laboratory.

#113

Joseph Paul Forgas

Joseph Paul Forgas

#61728

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Joseph Paul Forgas is an Australian social psychologist, currently Scientia Professor at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. He was born in Budapest, Hungary and emigrated to Australia at the age of 22. He is married with two children, and lives in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs.

#114

Alex Inkeles

#8354

Overall Influence

1920 - 2010 (90 years)

Alex Inkeles was an American sociologist and social psychologist. One of his main areas of research was the culture and society of the Soviet Union. His career was mostly spent at Harvard University and Stanford University. In addition to being the founding editor of the Annual Review of Sociology, some of his recognitions included membership in the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and American Philosophical Society.

#115

Sandra Jovchelovitch

#50031

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Sandra Jovchelovitch, from Porto Alegre, Brazil, is a social psychologist, currently Professor of Social Psychology and Director of the MSc program in Social and Cultural Psychology at the Institute of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics , of which she serves as head since August 2007. Dr. Jovchelovitch is co-editor of the Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology and directs a book series on Contemporary Social Psychology for the Brazilian publishing house Vozes. She also serves on the editorial boards of the European Journal of Social Psychology and Psicologia e Sociedade.

#116

Mahzarin Banaji

Mahzarin Banaji

#52835

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

#117

Robert F. Krueger

#57568

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Robert Frank Krueger is Hathaway Distinguished Professor of Clinical Psychology and Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota. Robert attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and completed his clinical internship at Brown University. He is known for his research on personality psychology, clinical psychology, quantitative psychology, developmental psychology, personality disorders, behavioral genetics, and psychopathology. According to Krueger, the goal of his work is to "reduce the burden these problems place on society by w...

#118

Bogdan Wojciszke

#50128

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Bogdan Wojciszke , is a Polish psychologist, a humanities professor and an academic teacher. Life and career He graduated in psychology from the Adam Mickiewicz University , Poznań in 1975. In 1978, he received a doctoral degree from the University of Gdańsk and a habilitation from the University of Warsaw in 1986. In 1993, he was granted the title of a professor. He attended science internships at such institutions as University of Aberdeen, Max Planck Institute in Berlin, and the Oxford University . He was a fellow of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

#119

Naomi Ellemers

#51637

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Naomi Ellemers is a distinguished professor of social psychology at Utrecht University since September 2015. In 2023, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society. Career Ellemers studied social psychology at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen from 1981 to1987 and graduated in 1991 in Groningen with her thesis Identity management strategies, followed by a position as assistant professor and later as associate professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Between 1999 and 2015 she was a professor at Universiteit Leiden with the assignment sociale psychologie van de organisatie . Since September 2015 she is distinguished professor at Universiteit Utrecht.

#120

Phillip Atiba Goff

#41941

Overall Influence

Phillip Atiba Goff is an American psychologist known for researching the relationship between race and policing in the United States. He was appointed the inaugural Franklin A. Thomas Professor in Policing Equity at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2016, the college's first endowed professorship. In 2020, he became a Professor of African-American Studies and Psychology at Yale University.

#121

Clark McCauley

#32157

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Clark Richard McCauley is an American social psychologist who is Research Professor of Psychology and co-director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr College.

#122

David C. Funder

#22336

Overall Influence

David C. Funder is a personality psychologist and a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside. He has written a number of important textbooks and research articles pertaining to the field of personality psychology. He used to be a past editor of the Journal of Research in Personality, as well as being a former secondary editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Funder has been praised for his studies on personality judgment. He had also published research over the attribution theory and the "delay of gratification".

#123

Roman Cieślak

#56485

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Roman Sławomir Cieślak is a Polish psychologist who is the Rector of SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities. Cieślak earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from the Warsaw University. Subsequently, he obtained his doctoral degree from the Institute of Psychology of the Polish Academy of Sciences , an extended Ph.D. form the Warsaw School of Social Psychology , and in 2018, he was awarded a title of Professor by the President of the Republic of Poland.

#124

László Garai

#13490

Overall Influence

1935 - 2019 (84 years)

László Garai was a scholar of psychology: studies theoretical psychology, social psychology and economic psychology. Early life Garai was born in Budapest. He graduated in philosophy and psychology from the Faculty of Arts of Budapest University .

#125

William Crano

#19004

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

William Dean Crano is an American psychologist. He is the Oskamp Distinguished Professor of Psychology in the Division of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences , Claremont Graduate University. He has also written almost 200 peer-reviewed journal articles, in journals including Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Studies on Alcohol, Psychological Inquiry, Journal of Social Psychology, and AIDS Education and Prevention, and is the co-author of an article in Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 57, 2006. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and Associati...

#126

J. Richard Hackman

#86415

Overall Influence

#127

Douglas T. Kenrick

#29746

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Douglas T. Kenrick is professor of psychology at Arizona State University. His research and writing integrate three scientific syntheses of the last few decades: evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, and dynamical systems theory. He is author of over 170 scientific articles, books, and book chapters, the majority applying evolutionary ideas to human cognition and behavior.

#128

Felicia Pratto

#17396

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Felicia Pratto is a social psychologist known for her work on intergroup relations, dynamics of power, and social cognition. She is Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Connecticut. Pratto is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.

#129

Stephen Levinson

#5647

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Stephen C. Levinson FBA is a British social scientist, known for his studies of the relations between culture, language and cognition, and former scientific director of the Language and Cognition department at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

#130

David Myers

#22481

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

David Guy Myers is a professor of psychology at Hope College in Michigan, United States, and the author of 17 books, including popular textbooks entitled Psychology, Exploring Psychology, Social Psychology and general-audience books dealing with issues related to Christian faith as well as scientific psychology. In addition, he has published chapters in over 60 books and numerous scholarly research articles in professional journals. Myers is widely recognized for his research on happiness and is one of the supporters of the positive psychological movement.

#131

Abraham Tesser

#67950

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Abraham Tesser' is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Georgia. His research has made significant contributions to several areas in the field of Social Psychology. He created the self-evaluation maintenance model, a theory in social psychology that focuses on the motives for self-enhancement.

#132

Gert Jan Hofstede

#88522

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

#133

Constantine Sedikides

#89312

Overall Influence

#134

Yaacov Trope

#73406

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Yaacov Trope is a social psychologist who studies cognitive, motivational, and social factors that enable perspective taking, and effects of emotions and desires on social judgment and decision making. He is a Professor of Psychology at New York University.

#135

Dorwin Cartwright

#15082

Overall Influence

1915 - 2008 (93 years)

Dorwin Philip Cartwright was an American social psychologist, and considered one of the founders of the field of group dynamics. Cartwright's research and writing topics included the mathematical foundations of group dynamics, the sources of social power, the nature of group structure and the causes of risk taking in groups. He was a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan for 31 years.

#136

Robert J. Vallerand

#89668

Overall Influence

#137

Sara Kiesler

#52353

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Sara Beth Kiesler is the Hillman Professor Emerita of Computer Science and Human Computer Interaction in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. She is also a program director in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences at the US National Science Foundation, where her responsibilities include programs on Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace, The Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier, Smart and Connected Communities, and Securing American Infrastructure. She received an M.A. degree in psychology from Stanford in 1963, and a Ph.D., also ...

#138

Gordon Moskowitz

#28786

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Gordon Blaine Moskowitz is a social psychologist working in the field of social cognition. He is currently a professor in the Department of Psychology at Lehigh University. His primary research interests are in examining: 1i.e., the extent to which social inferences, especially stereotypes, are spontaneous

#139

Robby Christopher Gardner

#91516

Overall Influence

#140

Anthony Bogaert

#9949

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Anthony Francis "Tony" Bogaert is a Canadian psychologist. He is a professor in both the Departments of Psychology and of Community Health Sciences at Brock University. Research Bogaert is known for studying multiple subjects related to human sexuality, including asexuality. He has also published studies examining the relationship between the number of brothers a man has and his sexual orientation. These studies have concluded that the more older brothers a man has, the more likely he is to be gay, and that this effect is due to prenatal factors, not environmental ones. In his early career, Bogaert worked with J.

#141

Gary Berntson

#36566

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Gary Berntson is an emeritus professor at Ohio State University with appointments in the departments of psychology, psychiatry and pediatrics. He is an expert in psychophysiology, neuroscience, biological psychology, and with his colleague John Cacioppo, a founding father of social neuroscience. His research attempts to elucidate the functional organization of brain mechanisms underlying behavioral and affective processes, with a special emphasis on social cognition.

#142

Francis J Keefe

#92726

Overall Influence

#143

Nalini Ambady

#49382

Overall Influence

1959 - 2013 (54 years)

Nalini Ambady was an Indian-American social psychologist and a leading expert on nonverbal behavior and interpersonal perception. She was born in Calcutta, India and earned her bachelor’s degree at Lady Shri Ram College for women, Delhi University. She furthered her education by moving to the United States for her master’s degree in psychology, from the College of William and Mary, and later received her PhD in social psychology from Harvard. While completing her research at Harvard, she met her husband Raj Marphatia, who was studying at Harvard Law school.

#144

Craig A. Anderson

#42122

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Craig A. Anderson is an American professor and director at the Department of Psychology, Iowa State University in Ames. He obtained his PhD at Stanford University in 1980. He has carried out influential research regarding the effects of violent video games on children, and reports for parents related to this.

#145

Alexander Todorov

#62264

Overall Influence

Alexander Todorov is a Bulgarian professor of psychology at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Before his current position, he was a professor at Princeton University. His research is focused on how humans perceive, evaluate, and make sense of the social world. Todorov's research on first impressions has received media coverage from the New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, The Daily Telegraph, Scientific American, National Geographic, BBC, PBS, and NPR.

#146

Kathleen Vohs

#69952

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Kathleen D. Vohs is an American Psychologist. She is Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Land O'Lakes Chair in Marketing in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. In 2015, she was named an ISI Highly Cited Researcher, and in 2018, she received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society for Consumer Psychology.

#147

Blake E. Ashforth

#93677

Overall Influence

#148

Gustav Jahoda

#44033

Overall Influence

1920 - 2016 (96 years)

Gustav Jahoda, FBA, FRSE was an Austrian-born psychologist who made a sustained contribution to the development of cross-cultural psychology and cultural psychology. Biography and career He was born in Vienna to a Jewish family. Leopold Jahoda, a lawyer, was his father and Olga his mother. He initially attended school in Vienna but was expelled because of his Jewish background. He then spent a year attending school in Paris. His family moved there after the Anschluss. In Paris, he studied civil engineering. With the outbreak of war, he joined the French army but when the French front collapsed he escaped to England.

#149

Wayne Velicer

#92137

Overall Influence

1944 - 2017 (73 years)

Wayne Velicer was an American psychologist known for his research in quantitative and health psychology. He taught at the University of Rhode Island from 1973 until his death in 2017. He worked with James O. Prochaska to help to found the University of Rhode Island's Cancer Prevention Research Center, of which he subsequently served as co-director.

#150

Jean Twenge

#23509

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Jean Marie Twenge is an American psychologist researching generational differences, including work values, life goals, and speed of development. She is a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, author, consultant, and public speaker. She has examined generational differences in work attitudes, life goals, developmental speed, sexual behavior, and religious commitment.

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