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,
#301
Norman Jacob Miller
#144602
Overall Influence
#302
Mark L. Hatzenbuehler
#144703
Overall Influence
#303
Bertram Gawronski
#144874
Overall Influence
#304
John B. Nezlek
#145034
Overall Influence
#305
Silvano Gallus
#145511
Overall Influence
#306
Ronald P. Stolk
#145531
Overall Influence
#307
Nira Liberman
#145539
Overall Influence
#308
Robert Maclaughlin Farr
#96263
Overall Influence
1936 - 2013 (77 years)
Robert Maclaughlin Farr was a social psychologist from Northern Ireland who played an important role in promoting and developing social representation theory. Career Rob Farr was born in Northern Ireland in 1936 where he gained a BSc followed by a MSc in Psychology from Queen's University Belfast. After this he studied for the Church of Ireland ministry at Trinity College Dublin but gave up after a short period. In 1962 returned to Queen's University as an assistant lecturer for two years and then worked as researcher with the Royal Air Force for another two years. He took up a post as a l...
Go to Profile#309
Anna Costanza Baldry
#32008
Overall Influence
1970 - 2019 (49 years)
Anna Costanza Baldry was an Italian social psychologist and criminologist. She was a professor at Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli. An expert on issues related to violence against women and children, Baldry consulted with such organizations as the United Nations and NATO. For her contributions to society, she was awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
Go to Profile#310
Marianne Schmid Mast
#82461
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Marianne Schmid Mast is a Professor of Organizational Behavior and Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Biography Marianne Schmid Mast was born in Olten and did her primary school in Däniken, Solothurn. When she was 10, her family moved to Oberkulm and she went to Bezirksschule Unterkulm and then to Handelsschule in Aarau. After receiving her business diploma, she completed her Matura in economics at the École Supérieure de Commerce in Neuchâtel. She worked for a computer company for a year, and later on she spent half a year traveling in Brazil.
Go to Profile#311
Russell Jago
#146516
Overall Influence
#312
Erich Kirchler
#45531
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Erich Kirchler is an Italian-Austrian psychologist and Professor of Economic Psychology at the University of Vienna. His research covers the areas of work, organizational, consumer and economic psychology, in particular tax psychology and money management in private households. He is best known for his research on tax behavior and tax morale and his "slippery slope framework", which has been adopted by a number of tax administrations.
Go to Profile#313
Neil Malamuth
#147647
Overall Influence
Neil Moshe Malamuth is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, known for his research on sexual violence and the effects of pornography on its viewers. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society.
Go to Profile#314
Uri Simonsohn
#95125
Overall Influence
Uri Simonsohn is a behavioral scientist at ESADE business school in Ramon Llull University in Barcelona, Spain, and a Senior Fellow at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His substantive interest is in Judgment and Decision Making, and he is also a methodologist.
Go to Profile#315
Wilhelm Hofmann
#148061
Overall Influence
#316
Rainer K. Silbereisen
#83944
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Rainer K. Silbereisen is a German psychologist who serves as research professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Jena, where he is also Director of the Center for Applied Developmental Science. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science, as well as a member of Academia Europaea. He has served as president of the German Psychological Society, the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development, and the International Union of Psychological Science. He has also served as editor-in-chief of the Internationa...
Go to Profile#317
P. Marshall Noller
#148883
Overall Influence
#318
Peter Bevington Smith
#150434
Overall Influence
#319
Ara Norenzayan
#150601
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
#320
Bas Verplanken
#150815
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
#321
Judith A. Feeney
#152064
Overall Influence
#322
Duane T. Wegener
#152202
Overall Influence
#323
Panos Vostanis
#152585
Overall Influence
#324
Herbert Matschinger
#152629
Overall Influence
#325
Robert MacCoun
#92545
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Robert J. MacCoun is the James and Patricia Kowal Professor of Law at Stanford Law School., a Professor by courtesy in Stanford's Psychology Department, and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute. Trained as a social psychologist, he has published numerous studies on psychoactive drug use and policy, individual and group decision-making, distributive and procedural justice, social influence processes, and bias in the use and interpretation of research evidence by scientists, journalists and citizens.
Go to Profile#326
Abigail J. Stewart
#152793
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
#327
Ursula Hess
#129293
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Ursula Hess is a German psychologist who teaches at the Humboldt-University of Berlin as Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at the Department of Psychology. Education Hess received a Diploma in psychology from the Justus-Liebig University in 1986 and a Ph.D. in social psychology from Dartmouth College in 1989.
Go to Profile#328
John Drury
#143539
Overall Influence
John Drury is a Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Sussex. His core research is in the area of crowd psychology. Career Drury completed his undergraduate degree in social psychology at the University of Sussex . He went on to complete his MSc and PhD in Psychology at the University of Exeter, under the supervision of Professor Steve Reicher. On completing his PhD, Drury worked as a Research Psychologist at the Trust for the Study of Adolescence from 1996 to 1998, providing research-based evidence about communication between young people and adults. He joined the faculty a...
Go to Profile#329
Wolfgang Herzog
#153909
Overall Influence
#330
Frederick Rhodewalt
#126728
Overall Influence
1949 - 2011 (62 years)
Frederick Rhodewalt was an American social psychologist at the University of Utah. Background Rhodewalt completed his BA at Lincoln University and a PhD in Social Psychology at Princeton University . He spent his entire 31 year academic career at the University of Utah in the Department of Psychology where he published extensively on issues related to personality and the self.
Go to Profile#331
Peter Kuppens
#154103
Overall Influence
#332
Roland Kanaar
#154160
Overall Influence
#333
Rod A. Martin
#46901
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Rod A. Martin is a retired Canadian academic, specializing in clinical psychology and humor research. After obtaining a B.A in theology then an M.A and PhD in psychology from the University of Waterloo,in 1984 he became a Professor of Psychology at the University of Western Ontario specializing in clinical psychology. His research focused on the nature and functions of humor and laughter, as well as their relationship to psychological health and well-being.
Go to Profile#334
Keith E. Davis
#154854
Overall Influence
#335
Leo P. Crespi
#140644
Overall Influence
1916 - 2008 (92 years)
Leo P. Crespi was an American psychologist who directed public opinion research for the United States Information Agency. Crespi graduated from UCLA in 1937, and earned a Ph.D. from Princeton in 1942 in the field of comparative psychology. During his time as a graduate student, he discovered what has come to be known as the Crespi Effect: when the attractiveness of a reward is suddenly changed, this can temporarily influence performance more than one would expect from the size of the change in the reward.
Go to Profile#336
Wolfgang Ahrens
#155444
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
#337
Burt Klandermans
#156314
Overall Influence
#338
Edward J. Lawler
#157055
Overall Influence
#339
Salvatore Chirumbolo
#157269
Overall Influence
#340
Judith Harackiewicz
#100125
Overall Influence
Judith Harackiewicz is an American social psychologist, focused on the role of motivation at the intersection of social and educational psychology. Harackiewicz is currently the Paul Pintrich Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, however in addition to this role she has also made numerous contributions to social psychology.
Go to Profile#341
Dieter Lutz
#157950
Overall Influence
#342
Kristian Tambs
#146840
Overall Influence
1951 - 2017 (66 years)
Kristian Tambs was a Norwegian psychologist. He took the doctorate at the University of Oslo in 1989, was then a postdoc fellow at the Virginia Commonwealth University until 1991, when he was hired at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. He was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
Go to Profile#343
Monica Biernat
#92012
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Monica Rose Biernat is a social psychologist known for her research on social judgment, stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. She is a University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Kansas.
Go to Profile#344
Lisa Bowleg
#86006
Overall Influence
Lisa Bowleg is an applied social psychologist known for conducting research on intersectionality in social and behavioral science and the relationship between social-contextual factors and stress, resilience, and HIV risk in Black communities.
Go to Profile#345
Seppo Ensio Iso-ahola
#159013
Overall Influence
#346
Walter G. Stephan
#159459
Overall Influence
#347
Antonia Abbey
#159586
Overall Influence
#348
Tanya L. Chartrand
#159967
Overall Influence
#349
Lina A. Ricciardelli
#160551
Overall Influence
#350
Fabio Sani
#121007
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Fabio Sani is a professor of social and health psychology at the University of Dundee, in Scotland. Education Sani completed his undergraduate degree in Pedagogy at the University of Florence in 1986. Subsequently, he obtained a Master of Science degree in social psychology at the London School of Economics in 1991, and his PhD in psychology at the University of Exeter in 1995, with a research project on schisms within social groups supervised by Steve Reicher.
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