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).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential people in Social Psychology,
#251
David Halpern
#9296
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
David Solomon Halpern is a British civil servant, heading the Behavioural Insights Team spun out from the Cabinet Office. Education Halpern attended King's School, Rochester, before attending Christ's College, University of Cambridge achieving a 1st in natural Sciences specialising in experimental psychology. He then went on to complete a PhD in social and political sciences, also at St John's College, Cambridge.
Go to Profile#252
Joel Brockner
#129285
Overall Influence
#253
Eliot R. Smith
#129782
Overall Influence
#254
I. N. Jerry Sandler
#130052
Overall Influence
#255
Steven R. Asher
#130190
Overall Influence
#256
Donald Templer
#37726
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (86 years)
Donald I. Templer was a retired American psychologist best known for ideas on race and intelligence, and his association with the white nationalist group American Renaissance. He was formerly a professor of psychology at Alliant International University in Fresno, California.
Go to Profile#257
Florence Denmark
#43057
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (92 years)
Florence Harriet Levin Denmark is an American psychologist and a past president of the American Psychological Association . She is a pioneering female psychologist who has influenced the psychological sciences through her scholarly and academic accomplishments in both psychology and feminist movements. She has contributed to psychology in several ways, specifically in the field of psychology of women and human rights, both nationally and internationally.
Go to Profile#258
Linda M. Collins
#130801
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
#259
Carol Fowler
#31255
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Carol Ann Fowler is an American experimental psychologist. She was president and director of research at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut from 1992 to 2008. She is also a professor of psychology at the University of Connecticut and adjunct professor of linguistics and psychology at Yale University. She received her undergraduate degree from Brown University in 1971, her M.A University of Connecticut in 1973 and her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Connecticut in 1977.
Go to Profile#260
Rolf van Dick
#99982
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Rolf van Dick is a German social psychologist. Life Van Dick graduated in psychology at the Philipps-University Marburg. He earned his Ph.D. in 1999 from Philipps-University Marburg, supervised by Ulrich Wagner. From 1995 to 2002, he was working as a lecturer and assistant professor at the Philipps-University Marburg. From 2003 to 2006, he worked at Aston University, Birmingham, England, first as a senior lecturer, and from 2005 to 2007 as a full professor and chair of Social Psychology and Organizational Behavior.
Go to Profile#261
Serena Chen
#100047
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Serena Chen is an American social psychologist known for her work on the self and interpersonal relationships. She is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley and currently serves as Chair of the Psychology Department. Her research utilizes a social-cognition framework and has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other news outlets.
Go to Profile#262
Margaret Clark
#107882
Overall Influence
Margaret Sydnor Clark is an American psychologist. Clark received her B.A. in Government and Psychology from Franklin and Marshall College in 1973, and obtained a Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Maryland in 1977. She joined the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University as Assistant Professor upon completing her studies, and taught there until moving to Yale University in 2005. At Carnegie Mellon she served as chair of the faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences for a year. At Yale, Clark has served first as master, a position subsequently renamed as head, of Trumbull College since 2013, was named John M.
Go to Profile#263
Lenora Fulani
#13265
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Lenora Branch Fulani is an American psychologist, psychotherapist, and political activist. She is best known for her presidential campaigns and development of youth programs serving minority communities in the New York City area. In the 1988 United States presidential election heading the New Alliance Party ticket, she became the first woman and the first African American to achieve ballot access in all fifty states. She received more votes for president in a U.S. general election than any other woman until Jill Stein of the Green Party of the United States in 2012. Fulani's political concern...
Go to Profile#264
Sydney Absell Gregory
#131673
Overall Influence
#265
Samuel L. Gaertner
#132194
Overall Influence
#266
Jennifer Lerner
#21993
Overall Influence
Jennifer S. Lerner is an American experimental social psychologist known for her research in emotion and decision theory. She is the first psychologist at the Harvard Kennedy School to receive tenure. At Harvard, her titles include Professor of Public Policy and Management, Professor of Psychology , Faculty Director in the Graduate Commons Program, co-founder of the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory and co-director of the Harvard Faculty Group on Emotion, Decision Making, and Health. Her research interests include the effects of accountability on judgment and choice. She founded and directs...
Go to Profile#267
Toni Schmader
#60985
Overall Influence
Toni Schmader is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in social psychology at the University of British Columbia. Education Schmader earned a PhD in social psychology in 1999 from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Previously she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude Washington and Jefferson College.
Go to Profile#268
Dieter Frey
#132697
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
#269
James T. Tedeschi
#132966
Overall Influence
#270
Barrie Gunter
#133004
Overall Influence
#271
Lawrence Wrightsman
#124913
Overall Influence
1931 - 2019 (88 years)
Lawrence Samuel Wrightsman, Jr. was an American psychologist known for his research in social psychology and the psychology of law. He taught at the University of Kansas from 1976 until his retirement in 2008. He served as president of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues from 1976 to 1977 and of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology from 1977 to 1978. According to the SPSP, "The textbooks, articles, and addresses that Larry wrote helped create the field of psychology and law as we know it."
Go to Profile#272
Melanie Killen
#50580
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Melanie Killen is a developmental psychologist and Professor of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, and Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, and Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK. She is supported by funding from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development , and the National Science Foundation for her research. In 2008, she was awarded Distinguished Scholar-Teacher by the Provost's office at the University of Maryland. She is the Director of the Social and Moral Development Lab at the University of Maryla...
Go to Profile#273
Andrzej Eliasz
#41606
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Andrzej Eliasz is a Polish psychologist, professor, and former rector of the SWPS University of Humanities and Social Sciences . Chairman of the board of trustees. Eliasz was born in 1941. He earned his first undergraduate degree from Warsaw University. In 1972 he obtained a doctoral degree. In 1990 he was awarded the title of professor of humanities. Eliasz worked at the Central Institute for Labor Protection and the Institute of Psychology of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#274
Ralph W. Hood
#8020
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Ralph Wilbur Hood Jr. is an American psychologist. He serves as Leroy A. Martin Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he specializes in the psychology of religion.
Go to Profile#275
Brian Keith Payne
#136162
Overall Influence
#276
Laurie A. Rudman
#115116
Overall Influence
Laurie A. Rudman is a social psychology feminist professor as well as the Director of the Rutgers University Social Cognition Laboratory who has contributed a great deal of research to studies on implicit and explicit attitudes and stereotypes, stereotype maintenance processes, and the media's effects on attitudes, stereotypes, and behavior on the Feminism movement. She was awarded the 1994 Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize for her research examining the effects of sexist advertising on men's behavior toward female job applicants.
Go to Profile#277
Jagannath Prasad Das
#60425
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (93 years)
Jagannath Prasad Das is an Indo-Canadian educational psychologist specialized in educational psychology, intelligence and childhood development. Among his contributions to psychology are the PASS theory of intelligence and the Das-Naglieri Cognitive Assessment System. Das was the Director of the JP Das Developmental Disabilities Centre at the University of Alberta. He formally retired in 1996, and is currently Emeritus Director of the Centre on Developmental and Learning Disabilities and Emeritus Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Alberta. He is a member of the Royal S...
Go to Profile#278
Michael W. Ross
#137115
Overall Influence
#279
Toshio Yamagishi
#137187
Overall Influence
#280
E. Allan Lind
#137208
Overall Influence
#281
Joshua Aronson
#36842
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Joshua Michael Aronson is an American social psychologist and Associate Professor of Applied Psychology at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. He is known for his pioneering work on stereotype threat, which he conducted in the 1990s along with Claude Steele and Steven Spencer. This work has shown that female, minority, and low-income children are stereotyped as performing worse on standardized tests, and that when they are taught to overcome these stereotypes, their standardized test scores improve. He also co-authored a study in 2009 in which ...
Go to Profile#282
Eamonn Ferguson
#137630
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
#283
Karen Henwood
#103196
Overall Influence
Karen Henwood is a British social psychologist and Professor of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, and an expert on identity and risk, particularly socio-cultural and environmental change. Her research in recent years includes the ESRC project "Timescapes" on relationships and identities through the life course, and a project on men as fathers, as well as research on energy use, sustainable development, climate change policy and on living with nuclear risk. She was editor-in-chief of Qualitative Research from 2016 to 2019.
Go to Profile#284
Kurt I. Lewin
#139279
Overall Influence
#285
Ronald E. Riggio
#139815
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
#286
Miron Zuckerman
#139854
Overall Influence
#287
Frank Pajares
#140862
Overall Influence
#288
Bente Kiens
#141219
Overall Influence
#289
Nicole Shelton
#82991
Overall Influence
J. Nicole Shelton is an American psychologist and Stuart Professor of Psychology at Princeton University. Her research focuses on racial prejudice and interactions between whites and ethnic minorities.
Go to Profile#290
Simone A French
#142096
Overall Influence
#291
Roxane Cohen Silver
#99998
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Roxane Cohen Silver is a social, health psychologist known for her work on personal, national, and international traumas and how people cope with these traumas. She holds the position of Vice Provost for Academic Planning & Institutional Research and Distinguished Professor of Psychological Science, Public Health, and Medicine at the University of California, Irvine.
Go to Profile#292
Gloria Careaga Pérez
#34169
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Gloria Angélica Careaga Pérez is a Mexican social psychologist and feminist. She has taught at the Faculty of Psychology in the National Autonomous University of Mexico since 1979. She is co-founder of Mexican organization El Closet de Sor Juana and former co-Secretary General of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association.
Go to Profile#293
Robb Willer
#35001
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (47 years)
Robb Willer is an American sociologist and social psychologist known for his work on political persuasion, polarization, democracy, and morality. He is a professor of sociology, psychology, and organizational behavior at Stanford University where he is the Director of the Polarization and Social Change Lab and Faculty Co-Director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society.
Go to Profile#294
Tim Kasser
#23124
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Tim Kasser is an American psychologist and book author known for his work on materialism and well-being. Career Kasser received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Rochester in 1994, and after one additional year of teaching at Montana State University, he accepted a position at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where he was a professor of psychology. He retired from Knox in 2019 and was named Emeritus Professor.
Go to Profile#295
Sheldon Solomon
#143235
Overall Influence
#296
Madeline E. Heilman
#143739
Overall Influence
#297
Evelin Lindner
#56470
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Evelin Gerda Lindner is a German-Norwegian medical doctor, psychologist, transdisciplinary scholar and author who is known for her theory of humiliation. Lindner is originally a physician and a clinical psychologist, and holds doctorates in both psychological medicine and social psychology. Her research focuses on human dignity, and she believes that the humiliation of honor and dignity may be among the strongest obstacles on the way to a decent world community. She founded the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies network. Born in Germany, she is now mainly based in Norway, where she has partially lived since 1977.
Go to Profile#298
Faye Crosby
#97908
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Faye J. Crosby is an American social psychologist and professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research has focused on topics related to social justice, particularly affirmative action, as well as gender equality and relative deprivation. Before joining the University of California, Santa Cruz, she taught at Yale University and at Smith College. In 2005, she received the Kurt Lewin Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.
Go to Profile#299
Kenneth Keniston
#88754
Overall Influence
1930 - 2020 (90 years)
Kenneth Keniston was an American social psychologist. Keniston was born in Chicago, and attended secondary school abroad, at the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires. He enrolled in Harvard College, and later earned a Rhodes Scholarship to complete his D. Phil in social studies from Balliol College, Oxford. Keniston taught at Harvard University and Yale University before joining the Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty in 1977, where he served as the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Human Development. Keniston and his wife Suzanne Berger both received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1979. Kenist...
Go to Profile#300
Jack M. Loomis
#144499
Overall Influence
