100 famous psychologists

The 100 Most Eminent Psychologists of the 20th Century

Steven J. HaggbloomWestern Kentucky University

Renee Warnick, Jason E. Warnick,Vinessa K. Jones, Gary L. Yarbrough,Tenea M. Russell, Chris M. Borecky,Reagan McGahhey, John L. Powell III,Jamie Beavers, and Emmanuelle Monte

Arkansas State University

A rank-ordered list was constructed that reports the first 99 of the 100 most eminentpsychologists of the 20th century. Eminence was measured by scores on 3 quantitativevariables and 3 qualitative variables. The quantitative variables were journal citationfrequency, introductory psychology textbook citation frequency, and survey responsefrequency. The qualitative variables were National Academy of Sciences membership,election as American Psychological Association (APA) president or receipt of the APADistinguished Scientific Contributions Award, and surname used as an eponym. Thequalitative variables were quantified and combined with the other 3 quantitativevariables to produce a composite score that was then used to construct a rank-orderedlist of the most eminent psychologists of the 20th century.

The discipline of psychology underwent aremarkable transformation during the 20th cen-tury, a transformation that included a shift awayfrom the European-influenced philosophicalpsychology of the late 19th century to theempirical, research-based, American-dominatedpsychology of today (Simonton, 1992). On the

eve of the 21st century, the APA Monitor (“ACentury of Psychology,” 1999) published briefbiographical sketches of some of the more em-inent contributors to that transformation. Mile-stones such as a new year, a new decade, or, inthis case, a new century seem inevitably toprompt such retrospective appraisals of themost notable events or people of an era. With-out question, the psychologists mentioned in theAPA Monitor retrospective qualify as eminent.Nevertheless, they represent a very small subsetof the substantial number of 20th-century psy-chologists who might be so regarded. More-over, such retrospectives tend to omit highlyeminent, and still very productive, contempo-rary psychologists.The purpose of the present study was to pro-

duce a more inclusive, rank-ordered list of the100 most eminent psychologists of the 20thcentury. To produce any such list is a dauntingtask fraught with a variety of difficulties, not theleast of which is to operationalize “eminence.”Moreover, any procedure for creating such a listwill invite methodological criticism. Becausethese difficulties will probably not be addressedto everyone’s satisfaction, and because our listis certain to have omitted the names of manygreat psychologists for whom one could make acompelling case for inclusion, we took a cuefrom Eugene Garfield (1977) and report only 99names. Hence, the reader’s best case for a psy-

Steven J. Haggbloom, Department of Psychology, West-ern Kentucky University; Renee Warnick, Jason E. War-nick, Vinessa K. Jones, Gary L. Yarbrough, Tenea M.Russell, Chris M. Borecky, Reagan McGahhey, John L.Powell III, Jamie Beavers, and Emmanuelle Monte, De-partment of Psychology and Counseling, Arkansas StateUniversity.Renee Warnick is now at the Department of Neuro-

science, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario,Canada; Gary L. Yarbrough is now at the Department ofPsychology, University of Louisville; Tenea M. Russell isnow at the Forrest School of Professional Psychology; ChrisM. Borecky is now at the Department of Psychology, Uni-versity of Illinois—Chicago.We thank the following individuals for their assistance

with this project: Amanda L. Bulger, Robyn P. Burch, JaneC. Cullins, Kyla Emerson, Jason L. Houston, Lindsey K.Scarborough, Casey C. Schultz, Mariah J. Seydel, and Mat-thew N. Yount. We also appreciate the insightful commentson a manuscript draft provided by David Saarnio, LynnHowerton, and Dan Perlman.Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-

dressed to Steven J. Haggbloom, Department of Psychol-ogy, 276 Tate Page Hall, Western Kentucky University, 1Big Red Way, Bowling Green, Kentucky 42101. E-mail:[email protected]

Review of General Psychology Copyright 2002 by the Educational Publishing Foundation2002, Vol. 6, No. 2, 139–152 1089-2680/02/$5.00 DOI: 10.1037//1089-2680.6.2.139

139

chologist who should have made the list justmight be that last, 100th name that we have notreported.We think the most eminent list reported here

will be inherently interesting to many psychol-ogists. Beyond that, knowing who is eminent ina discipline can serve a number of useful pur-poses. James McKeen Cattell recognized nearlya century ago that the understanding of bothscience and creativity would be advanced by thestudy of who is eminent in science and why(e.g., Cattell, 1910). Exploring the contributionof psychological variables to scientific behav-ior, especially exemplary and eminent cases, isnow the province of the psychology of science,an emerging companion discipline to the morefamiliar and well-established disciplines thatstudy science, such as history of science andphilosophy of science (see Feist & Gorman,1998, for a detailed overview of the psychologyof science). For example, Simonton (1992),working from a list of 69 eminent Americanpsychologists, created a profile of the “typical”eminent American psychologist. Simonton (2000)investigated the contribution of 54 eminent psy-chologists’ methodological and theoretical ori-entations to the durability of their influence. It isour hope that the most eminent list reported herewill be a useful starting point for similar studiesin the psychology of science. Our list also haspotential uses for research in the history ofpsychology and in the psychology classroom.Some of those applications are discussed at theend of this article.Our procedures, and the resulting most emi-

nent list, differed from those of other studies ofeminence in psychology in some important re-spects. Foremost among these differences is thefact that no other study has attempted to com-pile a rank-ordered list of the most eminentpsychologists that spans the entire 20th century.Another important difference is that most emi-nence studies have employed a single measureof eminence. Eminence, however, is a complex,multidimensional concept not likely to be wellreflected in any one measure. Therefore, weused a combination of three quantitative andthree qualitative variables.The use of multiple criteria to measure emi-

nence should accomplish the equivalent of whatstatistician–magician Persi Diaconis (1978)called the “bundle of sticks” phenomenon inmagic. A magician may perform several varia-

tions on the same trick, each having, like asingle stick, a weak point. The entire perfor-mance, however, like a bundle of sticks, ismuch stronger than the individual tricks it com-prises. To adapt an aphorism from psychology,the whole is stronger than its parts. The use ofmultiple criteria yields a better measure of em-inence to the extent that the strength of the“bundle” of measures compensates for theweaknesses of its components.The variables that have been used to measure

eminence in psychology include frequency ofcitation in the professional journal literature(e.g., Endler, Rushton, & Roediger, 1978; Gar-field, 1978, 1992; Myers, 1970), frequency ofcitation in introduction to psychology textbooks(e.g., Gorenflo & McConnell, 1991; Kaess &Bousfield, 1954; Knapp, 1985; Perlman, 1980;Roeckelein, 1995), and surveys of professionalopinion (e.g., Annin, Boring, & Watson, 1968;Coan & Zagona, 1962; Korn, Davis, & Davis,1991). These measures yield quantitative or or-dinal-level data that have been used to constructrank-ordered lists.Studies of eminence in psychology have also

employed qualitative measures such as whethera psychologist’s surname has come to be usedas an eponym (i.e., a psychological term such asPavlovian conditioning or Skinner box) to rep-resent, for example, a theory, procedure, test, orapparatus (Roeckelein, 1972, 1996),1 and re-ceipt of awards or other forms of honoraryrecognition. The latter include election to mem-bership in the National Academy of Sciences(NAS), receipt of the American PsychologicalAssociation (APA) Distinguished ScientificContributions Award, and election to the APApresidency (e.g., Over, 1981; Simonton, 1992).In the present study, we used all six of the

quantitative and qualitative variables just men-tioned. Our operational definition of eminencewas a composite score on these variables. Whatfollows is a description of how each variablewas measured and how scores were combinedto yield a composite index that was then used toconstruct a rank-ordered list of the 100 mosteminent psychologists of the 20th century. Wethen describe some of the characteristics of our

1 One can also count frequency of eponym usage toobtain quantitative data from this measure (Roeckelein,1996).

140 HAGGBLOOM ET AL.

list and how it relates to other measures ofeminence in psychology.The terms psychologist and 20th century also

require definition. For present purposes, psy-chologist was not defined according to aca-demic degree (e.g., the PhD in psychology,PsyD, or a comparable degree). Rather, it wasdefined in terms of an individual’s contributionsto the discipline of psychology, as indicated byhis or her score on the various measures ofeminence we used. This approach permittedconsideration of individuals who, without ques-tion (e.g., Freud and Pavlov), have made verysignificant contributions to psychology but whomight be excluded from consideration if an ac-ademic degree criterion were used. By 20th-century psychologist, we simply meant that atleast one of the individual’s published contri-butions to psychology occurred in the 20thcentury.

Journal Citation Frequency

We constructed a list of the 100 psychologistsmost frequently cited in the professional psy-chological journal literature, the journal citationlist (JCL). The JCL was constructed by addingcitation frequencies across four previously pub-lished lists. The lists we used (along with timeperiods covered and number of names reported)were published by Myers (1970; 1962 to1967, 62 names), Endler et al. (1978; 1975, 100names), Garfield (1978; 1969 to 1977, 100names), and Garfield (1992; 1986 to 1990, 50names). The JCL sampled four (mostly) non-overlapping time periods and combined listsproduced by different methodologies. The meth-odologies included manual searches (Endler etal., 1978; Myers, 1970), computerized databasesearches (Garfield, 1978, 1992), searches of se-lected journals deemed “prestigious” (Myers,1970), searches of all Social Science CitationIndex (SSCI)–indexed psychology journals(Endler et al., 1978; Garfield, 1978), and asearch of SSCI-indexed psychology journalsthat included only those authors who had pub-lished at least 10 articles in SSCI-indexed jour-nals during the period covered by the search(Garfield, 1992). The Garfield (1992) list givesconsiderable weight to currently active, contem-porary psychologists, whereas the other threelists give more weight to historically older psy-

chologists without necessarily excluding morecontemporary psychologists.It is our view that the JCL represents a rea-

sonable approach to achieving a degree of bal-ance between an emphasis on historically estab-lished authorities and contemporarily activepsychologists. Moreover, the JCL sampled foursomewhat disparate time periods and thus pre-sents a more comprehensive picture of journalcitation frequencies than the individual lists itcomprises. Table 1 presents the first 25 nameson the JCL.2 In this and all of the other tables,we attempted to identify psychologists the waythey identified themselves in the professionalliterature.

Introductory Psychology TextbookCitation Frequency

We constructed a list of the 102 psychologistsmost frequently cited in introductory psychol-ogy textbooks, the textbook citation list (TCL).(The list contained 102 rather than 100 names asa result of tied ranks at the end of the list.) TheTCL was constructed by adding citation fre-quencies together for two previously publishedlists and a list that we created. The publishedlists that we used were those of Perlman (1980)and Gorenflo and McConnell (1991). Perlman(1980) listed the 50 psychologists most fre-quently cited in 10 textbooks with copyrightdates of 1975 to 1978. Gorenflo and McConnell(1991) listed the 64 psychologists most fre-quently cited in a sample of 24 textbooks withcopyright dates from 1985 to 1989. We con-structed a list of the 100 psychologists mostfrequently cited in five textbooks with copyrightdates of 1998 to 2000.3 Our procedure wasessentially that used by Perlman, except that wedid not adjust for self-citations and bibliographypages. Working from the author indexes, wedetermined the number of textbook pages onwhich each psychologist was cited. Individualsnot cited in at least four of the five textbookswere not considered. For the remaining eligi-

2 The JCL can be seen in its entirety (both rank-orderedand alphabetical versions) at http://edtech.tph.wku.edu/!shaggblo/jcl.htm.3 A list of the five textbooks used is available from Steven

J. Haggbloom and on the World Wide Web at http://edtech.tph.wku.edu/!shaggblo/tcl.htm.

141THE 100 MOST EMINENT PSYCHOLOGISTS

ble names, citation frequencies were summedacross the textbooks in which they were cited.The TCL was constructed by summing cita-

tion frequencies across our newly created listand the lists published by Perlman (1980) andGorenflo and McConnell (1991). As was thecase with the JCL, the TCL sampled differenttime periods and methodologies and representsa more comprehensive list than the lists it com-prises. Table 2 presents the first 25 names on theTCL.4

Survey

We surveyed, by e-mail, approximately 1,725members of the American Psychological Soci-ety (APS). Working from the APS membershipdirectory, each of 20 individuals who assistedon this research project sent the survey to ap-proximately 80 APS members. The appropriatepages of the directory were divided into 20

equal segments. The survey was then sent toevery 10th name, or the next available name, forwhich an e-mail address was listed. In cases inwhich a return message indicated that the e-mailwas not successfully delivered, additionalnames were sampled.Respondents were asked three questions: (a)

“What is your specialization in psychology(e.g., developmental, social, cognitive, learn-ing)?” (b) “In your opinion, who are the threegreatest psychologists of the 20th century inyour specialization?” and (c) “In your opinion,who are the greatest psychologists of the 20thcentury in the overall field of psychology? (Listas many names as you like in order of im-portance).” Respondents were informed that

4 The TCL can be seen in its entirety (both rank-orderedand alphabetical versions) at http://edtech.tph.wku.edu/!shaggblo/tcl.htm.

Table 1The 25 Psychologists Most Frequently Cited in theProfessional Psychological Journal Literature

Rank Name Citation frequency

1 Freud, Sigmund 13,8902 Piaget, Jean 8,8213 Eysenck, H. J. 6,2124 Winer, B. J. 6,2065 Bandura, Albert 5,8316 Siegel, S. 4,8617 Cattell, Raymond B. 4,8288 Skinner, B. F. 4,3399 Osgood, Charles E. 4,06110 Guilford, J. P. 4,00611 Campbell, Donald T. 3,96912 Festinger, Leon 3,53613 Miller, George A. 3,39414 Bruner, Jerome S. 3,27915 Cronbach, Lee J. 3,25316 Erikson, Erik H. 3,06017 Edwards, A. L. 3,00718 Rotter, Julian B. 3,00119 Byrne, Donn 2,90420 Kagan, Jerome 2,90121 Wolpe, Joseph 2,87922 Rosenthal, Robert 2,73923 Underwood, Benton J. 2,68624 Paivio, Allan 2,67825 Rokeach, Milton 2,676

Note. The entire list of the 100 psychologists most fre-quently cited in the professional journal literature can beaccessed on the World Wide Web at http://edtech.tph.wku.edu/!shaggblo/jcl.htm.

Table 2The 25 Psychologists Most Frequently Cited inIntroductory Psychology Textbooks

Rank Name Citation frequency

1 Freud, Sigmund 5602 Skinner, B. F. 3103 Bandura, Albert 3034 Piaget, Jean 2405 Rogers, Carl 2026 Schachter, Stanley 2007 Harlow, Harry F. 1758 Brown, Roger 1629 Miller, Neal E. 15410 McClelland, D. C. 15311 Erikson, Erik H. 15112 Milgram, Stanley 14613 Seligman, Martin E. P. 14314 Maslow, Abraham 14215 Bower, Gordon H. 13816 Kohlberg, Lawrence 12817 Watson, John B. 12718 Allport, Gordon W. 12419 Festinger, Leon 12120 Loftus, Elizabeth F. 12021 Zajonc, R. B. 11822 Pavlov, Ivan P. 11723 Kagan, Jerome 11624.5 Sternberg, Robert J. 11424.5 Mischel, Walter 114

Note. The entire list of 100 psychologists most frequentlycited in introductory psychology textbooks can be accessedon the World Wide Web at http://edtech.tph.wku.edu/!shaggblo/tcl.htm.


“greatest” was intentionally unexplicated to al-low for their individual interpretation.The survey response rate was a disappointing

and inexplicably low 5.6%. Using only the re-sponses to the third question, we constructed arank-ordered list of the 117 psychologists mostfrequently mentioned, the survey list (SL). (Thelist contained 117 rather than 100 names as aresult of tied ranks at the end of the list.) Theordinal information contained in those re-sponses was not used because not all respon-dents presented an ordered list, and we doubtedthe validity of the ordinal information for espe-cially long lists.Given the low response rate, is the SL a valid

measure of eminence? We saw no reason todiscount the survey results despite the low re-sponse rate. In the first place, the SL has con-siderable face validity; we think most of thenames on the SL will be quite familiar to mostpsychologists, and many of those named willprobably be recognized as eminent. More im-portant, 43 (37%) of the names on the SL arealso on the JCL, and 47 (40%) of the names onthe SL are also on the TCL. The commonalityof names between the SL and the two citationfrequency lists is essentially the same as the 40(40%) names shared by the JCL and TCL.Moreover, there was a tendency for the

names on the SL that were also on the JCL andTCL to be in the same rank order. The 43 namescommon to the SL and JCL were assigned ranksof 1 to 43 based on their ordinal position withintheir respective lists. The 47 names common tothe SL and TCL were similarly assigned ranksfrom 1 to 47. Spearman rank-order correlationcoefficients revealed significant (p " .05) pos-itive correlations between both sets of ranks,rs(41) # .34 and rs(45) # .47, for names on theSL that were also on the JCL and TCL, respec-tively. These correlations were comparable tothe rank-order correlation for the 40 namescommon to the JCL and TCL, rs(38)# .40, p ".05. Thus, the SL not only identified many ofthe same psychologists identified by the JCLand TCL but tended to identify them in the sameorder as well. We also think it is noteworthythat 20 of the psychologists who made the mosteminent list reported here would have been ex-cluded from consideration under our procedureshad we not used the survey data. As shownsubsequently, 18 of those 20 had scores on

either two or all three of the qualitativevariables.We do not expect the foregoing analyses to

obviate all concerns about the validity of theSL. We would emphasize, however, that the SLis not presented as a stand-alone measure ofeminence; rather, it is one of six measures con-tributing to a composite index. Legitimate con-cerns about validity could just as well be raisedabout the other measures we used, but, as shownsubsequently, the resulting composite index isquite robust. Table 3 presents the first 26 nameson the SL.5

Comparisons Among the JCL,TCL, and SL

A master list of 219 psychologists comprisedall of the different names on the JCL, TCL, andSL. Of these names, only 28 (13%) were com-mon to all three lists. The numbers of namesunique to each list were as follows: JCL, 47(47% of 100); TCL, 44 (43% of 102); andSL, 56 (48% of 117). Thus, these three variableseach made substantial, but comparable, contri-butions to the measurement of eminence. Wefound some selected comparisons among thethree lists to be both interesting and instructiveabout the differences among the three measures.Consider the cases of Pavlov, Watson, and

Milgram. All three appear in the top one third ofthe TCL (with ranks of 22, 17, and 12, respec-tively), and all three also appear on the SL (withranks of 6.5, 4, and 67, respectively), but noneof them appear on the JCL. Thus, textbookcitation frequency and survey measures of em-inence clearly place Pavlov, Watson, and Mil-gram among the most eminent of 20th-centurypsychologists, but they are not among the top100 psychologists in journal citation frequencyand so, by that measure, are not among the mosteminent.Pavlov and Watson appear on the TCL but

fail to appear on the JCL for essentially thesame reason. Both men made contributions topsychology that are of unarguably great histor-ical significance. The study of learning inaugu-rated by Pavlov, and for which his name is used

5 The SL can be seen in its entirety (both rank-orderedand alphabetical versions) at http://edtech.tph.wku.edu/!shaggblo/sl.htm.


as an eponym, remains a very dynamic andimportant part of empirical and theoretical re-search in contemporary psychology. However,the terminology and general methodology ofPavlovian conditioning are so integral to thenomenclature of the discipline that contempo-rary researchers would often have little cause tocite Pavlov in a journal article. Essentially thesame can be said of Watson. One can hardlyoverstate the magnitude of the historical signif-icance and continuing pervasive influence ofWatson’s classic 1913 paper expounding thebehaviorist viewpoint. On the other hand, ex-cept for historical, philosophical, or method-ological articles about behaviorism, most psy-chologists would probably have little occasionto cite Watson in a journal article. Because oftheir historical significance and continuing in-fluence, however, authors of introductory psy-chology textbooks can hardly not cite Pavlovand Watson. Milgram, although not among the

100 most cited in the journal literature, is prob-ably so extensively cited in introductory psy-chology textbooks primarily because his workon obedience to authority makes such goodcopy (i.e., students find it highly interesting)and because it had such important implicationsfor protection of human research participants. Inthese and similar cases, the JCL and TCL aredisparate measures of eminence, but used inconjunction they provide a more balancedpicture.There are also psychologists identified as

highly eminent by the JCL but not by the TCL.In some cases, the high frequency of journalcitations is due to authors referencing statisticalprocedures, instrumentation, or methodology.Thus, for example, Winer, Siegel (both statisti-cians), and Rotter (locus of control instrument)have ranks of 4, 6, and 18, respectively, on theJCL but, not surprisingly, do not appear on theTCL or SL. On the other hand, consider HerbSimon. Simon’s contributions to psychology areheld in such high regard that he is among themost frequently cited in the professional journalliterature (a rank of 32.5 on the JCL), and hewas also judged to be among the most eminentpsychologists by respondents to our survey (arank of 24 on the SL), yet he is not citedfrequently enough in introduction to psychol-ogy textbooks to have made the TCL and is thusnot eminent by that measure.Why would a Nobel Prize–winning psychol-

ogist not be extensively cited in introduction topsychology textbooks when his work is amongthe most highly regarded and cited in the pro-fessional literature? Should not introductorypsychology textbooks, for many people theprincipal and only exposition of psychology,present the most highly regarded work the dis-cipline has to offer? That this is largely the casehas been an explicit assumption of previousanalyses of who is cited in introductory psy-chology textbooks (e.g., Kaess & Bousfield,1954; Knapp, 1985; Perlman, 1980). However,as noted by Perlman (1980), introductory psy-chology textbooks likely often eschew presen-tation of highly technical and complicated re-search. Simon’s research on human decisionmaking very likely falls into that too-technicalcategory.One might suspect that a survey would tend

to identify as eminent the same psychologistswhose work is most often cited in journals

Table 3The 26 Psychologists Most Frequently Namedin the Survey

Rank Name Frequency

1 Skinner, B. F. 582 Piaget, Jean 333 Freud, Sigmund 284 Watson, John B. 245 Bandura, Albert 236.5 James, William 216.5 Pavlov, Ivan P. 218 Lewin, Kurt 179.5 Rogers, Carl 149.5 Thorndike, Edward 1411.5 Festinger, Leon 1311.5 Hebb, D. O. 1314.5 Allport, Gordon 1114.5 Hull, Clark 1114.5 Miller, Neal E. 1114.5 Tolman, Edward C. 1117 Erikson, Erik H. 1019 Kohler, Wolfgang 919 Maslow, Abraham 919 Vygotsky, Lev Semenovich 921 Ainsworth, Mary D. 824 Eysenck, H. J. 724 Luria, Alexander R. 724 Schachter, Stanley 724 Simon, Herbert 724 Sperry, Roger W. 7

Note. The entire list of 100 psychologists most frequentlynamed in the survey can be accessed on the World WideWeb at http://edtech.tph.wku.edu/!shaggblo/sl.htm.


and introduction to psychology textbooks andwhose names are therefore relatively familiar.Although this may indeed be true to some ex-tent, it is perhaps noteworthy that the SL alsouniquely identified many individuals as emi-nent; 48% of the names on the SL are unique tothat list. As examples, Tolman, Vygotsky, andKohler had ranks on the SL of 14.5, 19, and 19,respectively, but none of them appeared on ei-ther the JCL or the TCL. Thus, these threepsychologists are among the most eminent asmeasured by our survey, but not as measured byjournal citations or introductory textbook cita-tions. Their presence in the top 20% of the SLstrongly indicates they merit some consider-ation for the most eminent list, considerationthat, as stated earlier, would not be forthcomingwithout use of the survey measure.The foregoing, albeit selected, comparisons

among the JCL, TCL, and SL illustrate some ofthe limitations inherent in any single-criterionmeasure of eminence. Also, they strengthen therationale for our multiple-criterion approach.

Qualitative Measures of Eminence

The JCL, TCL, and SL, as described earlier,are quantitative measures. We also used threequalitative measures of eminence that were ap-plied to the 219 different names that appear onthe JCL, TCL, and SL. The qualitative variableswe used were whether or not a given psychol-ogist (a) was elected to the NAS; (b) was arecipient of the APA Distinguished ScientificContributions Award or elected APA president(as of 1999), or both; and (c) has his or hersurname in use as an eponym. We refer to thesequalitative variables as, respectively, NAS,APA, and EP. We combined APA award andAPA presidency into a single APA variable onthe assumption that, in many cases, the veryscientific contributions that led to receipt of theaward were also instrumental in an individual’selection as APA president. (In fact, roughly onequarter [24%] of the psychologists in this studywho received credit on the APA variable servedas APA president and received the OutstandingScientific Contributions Award.) Our source foreponyms was an unpublished list referenced byRoeckelein (1995) that included eponyms iden-tified by Zusne (1987).

Calculation of Composite Scores

Because frequency scores on the JCL, TCL,and SL were positively skewed, they weretransformed to logarithms. For each list, thelog-transformed scores were then converted to zscores. The three qualitative variables were con-verted to a single quantitative variable by as-signing each of the 219 names on the master lista score of 0, 1, 2, or 3 corresponding to thenumber of qualitative variables for which anindividual received credit. These scores wereconverted to z scores without being subjected toa logarithmic transformation. For each name,we then calculated a composite score represent-ing the mean z score across all four variables(JCL, TCL, SL, and the quantified qualitativevariables).For names that do not have a score on one or

more of the four variables, calculating a com-posite score as the mean z score across all fourvariables is problematic. These names must beassigned some score in place of the missingvalue(s); otherwise, the composite score will beinflated rather than reflecting the adverse con-sequences of not being on a list. The solutionthat we used for names not on the JCL or TCLrepresents a sort of compromise. In the firstplace, we think it is highly unlikely that fornames on the master list that do not appear onthe JCL or TCL, the actual number of citationsis zero. Because the actual number of citationsis somewhere between zero and one less thanthe smallest frequency required to make the list,we replaced missing values with the z score ofthe logarithm of the frequency score midwaybetween those two values. The situation is morestraightforward for names that were not on theSL or did not receive credit for any of thequalitative variables. In these cases, the realfrequency was zero. For names not on the SL,we replaced missing values with the z score fora logarithmic score of zero, and for names withno qualitative variable credit, we used the zscore for a frequency score of zero.The results of these calculations are presented

in Table 4 as a rank-ordered list of the 100 (99actually presented) most eminent psychologistsof the 20th century. For each name, Table 4 alsoshows the rank on each quantitative variableand the qualitative variables for which creditwas given by indicating the relevant date andeponym. In cases of multiple eponyms associ-


Table 4The 100 (99 Reported) Most Eminent Psychologists of the 20th Century

Rank NameJCLrank

TCLrank

SLrank NAS

APA award/president Eponym

1 Skinner, B. F. 8 2 1 1950 1958/— Skinnerian2 Piaget, Jean 2 4 2 1966 1969/— Piagetian3 Freud, Sigmund 1 1 3 — —/— Freudian4 Bandura, Albert 5 3 5 — 1980/1974 Bandura’s social learning theory5 Festinger, Leon 12 19 11.5 1972 1959/— Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory6 Rogers, Carl R. 28.5 5 9.5 — 1956/1947 Rogerian therapy7 Schachter, Stanley 46 6 24 1983 1969/— Schachter’s affiliation studies8 Miller, Neal E. 13 9 14.5 1958 1959/19619 Thorndike, Edward 40 50 9.5 1917 —/1912 Thorndike’s puzzle box10 Maslow, A. H. 37 14 19 — —/1968 Maslow’s hierarchy11 Allport, Gordon W. 51 18 14.5 — 1964/1939 Allport A–S reaction study12 Erikson, Erik H. 16 11 17 — —/— Erikson’s psychosocial stages13 Eysenck, H. J. 3 30 24 — —/— Eysenck personality inventory14 James, William — 29 6.5 1906 —/1904 James–Lange theory of emotion15 McClelland, David C. 34 10 31 — 1987/—16 Cattell, Raymond B. 7 37 31 — —/— Cattell 16 Factor Personality Questionnaire17 Watson, John B. — 17 4 — —/1915 Watsonian behaviorism18 Lewin, Kurt 47 73.5 8 — —/— Lewinian psychology19 Hebb, D. O. 58 — 11.5 1979 1961/1960 Hebbian20 Miller, George A. 43 46 67 1962 1963/196921 Hull, Clark L. 73 73.5 14.5 1936 —/1936 Hullian22 Kagan, Jerome 20 23 67 — 1987/—23 Jung, C. G. 50 40 39.5 — —/— Jungian24 Pavlov, Ivan P. — 22 6.5 — —/— Pavlovian25 Mischel, Walter 48 24.5 67 — 1982/—26 Harlow, Harry F. 100 7 51 1951 1960/195827 Guilford, J. P. 10 61 — 1954 1964/1950 Guilford–Martin personnel inventory28 Bruner, Jerome S. 14 70.5 31 — 1962/196529 Hilgard, Ernest R. 67 27 51 1948 1967/194930 Kohlberg, Lawrence 39 16 97 — —/— Kohlberg stages of moral development31 Seligman, Martin E. P. 93 13 31 — —/199832 Neisser, Ulric 59 71 31 1984 —/—33 Campbell, Donald T. 11 — 67 1973 1970/1975 Campbell’s design approach34 Brown, Roger 30 8 — 1972 —/—35 Zajonc, R. B. — 21 39.5 — 1978/— Zajonc social facilitation36 Tulving, Endel 32.5 47.5 — 1988 1983/—37 Simon, Herbert A. 32.5 — 24 1953 1969/—38 Chomsky, Noam — 28 39.5 1972 1984/—39 Jones, Edward E. 57 44.5 — — 1977/— Jones’s correspondent inference theory40 Osgood, Charles E. 9 — 97 1972 1960/1963 Osgood’s transfer surface41 Asch, Solomon E. 74 31 97 — 1967/— Asch situation42 Bower, Gordon H. — 15 67 1973 1979/—43 Kelley, Harold H. 72 35 — 1978 1971/— Kelley’s attribution theory44 Sperry, Roger W. — 64 24 1960 1971/—45 Tolman, Edward C. — — 14.5 1937 1957/1937 Tolman’s purposive behaviorism46 Milgram, Stanley — 12 67 — —/— Milgram’s obedience studies47 Jensen, Arthur R. 28.5 56 97 — —/—48 Cronbach, Lee J. 15 — — 1974 1973/1957 Cronbach’s coefficient alpha49 Bowlby, John 55 — 31 — 1989/—50 Kohler, Wolfgang — — 19 1947 1956/1959 Kohler’s prism experiments51 Wechsler, David 49 — 39.5 — —/— Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale52 Stevens, S. S. 27 — — 1946 1960/— Stevens’s power law53 Wolpe, Joseph 21 43 — — —/—54 Broadbent, D. E. 41 — — 1970 1975/— Broadbent’s filter model55 Shepard, Roger N. 56 — — 1977 1976/— Kruskel–Shepard scaling


ated with the same name, only one is presented.Dashes or empty cells indicate that no creditwas given for the corresponding variable.6The logarithmic transformations applied to

frequency scores and the quantification of thequalitative variables were procedures not usedin the originally submitted manuscript. These

procedures were recommended by a reviewerand the editor. In the original manuscript, fre-

6 Table 4, including an alphabetical version, is availableon the World Wide Web at http://edtech.tph.wku.edu/!shaggblo/Table4.htm.

Table 4 (continued)

Rank NameJCLrank

TCLrank

SLrank NAS

APA award/president Eponym

56 Posner, Michael I. 61 — 97 1981 1980/—57 Newcomb, Theodore M. 76 81.5 — 1974 1976/1956 Newcomb’s attraction studies58 Loftus, Elizabeth F. — 20 51 — —/—59 Ekman, Paul — 26 97 — 1991/—60 Sternberg, Robert J. — 24.5 51 — —/—61 Lashley, Karl S. — — 39.5 1930 —/1929 Lashley’s jumping stand62 Spence, Kenneth 66 — 51 1955 1956/—63 Deutsch, Morton 38 — — — 1987/— Deutsch illusion64 Rotter, Julian B. 18 — — — 1988/— Rotter locus of control scale65 Lorenz, Konrad — 39 97 1966 —/—66 Underwood, Benton J. 23 — — 1970 1973/—67 Adler, Alfred — 55 67 — —/— Adlerian68 Rutter, Michael 44 — 97 — 1995/—69 Luria, Alexander R. — — 24 1968 —/— Luria–Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery70 Maccoby, Eleanor E. 68 — 67 1993 1988/—71 Plomin, Robert 86 70.5 51 — —/—72.5 Hall, G. Stanley — — 67 1915 —/1924 Hall’s theory of interpersonal zones72.5 Terman, Lewis M. — — 67 1928 —/1923 Terman–McNemar Test of Mental Ability74.5 Gibson, Eleanor J. — — 31 1971 1968/—74.5 Meehl, Paul E. — — 31 1987 1958/196276 Berkowitz, Leonard 42 75 — — —/—77 Estes, William K. 64 — 97 1963 1962/—78 Aronson, Eliot — 32 — — 1999/—79 Janis, Irving L. — 33 — — 1981/—80 Lazarus, Richard S. — 34 — — 1989/—81 Cannon, W. Gary — 68 — 1914 —/— Cannon–Bard theory of emotion82 Edwards, A. L. 17 — — — —/— Edwards’s personal preference schedule83 Vygotsky, Lev Semenovich — — 19 — —/— Vygotsky test84 Rosenthal, Robert 22 — — — —/— Rosenthal effect85 Rokeach, Milton 25 — — — —/— Rokeach value survey88.5 Garcia, John — — 97 1983 1979/— Garcia effect88.5 Gibson, James J. — — 97 1967 1961/— Gibson theory of space perception88.5 Rumelhart, David — — 97 1991 1996/— Rumelhart–Lindsay–Norman process model88.5 Thurston, L. L. — — 97 1938 —/1933 Thurston Attitude Scale88.5 Washburn, Margarete — — 97 1931 —/1921 Cannon–Washburn experiment88.5 Woodworth, Robert — — 97 1921 —/1914 Woodworth personal data sheet93.5 Boring, Edwin G. — — 51 1932 —/192893.5 Dewey, John — — 51 1910 —/189993.5 Tversky, Amos — — 51 1985 1982/—93.5 Wundt, Wilhelm — — 51 1909 —/— Wundt’s emotional laws96 Witkin, Herman A. 31 — — — —/— Witkin field independence97 Ainsworth, Mary D. — — 21 — 1989/—98 Mowrer, O. Hobart 77 — 51 — —/195499 Freud, Anna 45 — 97 — —/—

Note. JCL # journal citation list; TCL # textbook citation list; SL # survey list; NAS # National Academy of Sciences;APA # American Psychological Association.


quency scores (rather than logarithms) on theJCL, TCL, and SL were converted to z scoresthat were then averaged across the three lists toproduce a rank-ordered list of 219 names. Thequalitative variables were then used to “adjust”the position of names upward or downward onthe list. We think it reflects favorably on thepresent use of six separate measures of emi-nence that the logarithmic transformation andquantification of the qualitative variables, a sub-stantial change in the treatment of the data, hadalmost no effect on who made the final list.Only 10 names from the original list were re-placed by new names, and 9 of those changesoccurred in positions 76 to 100. Of the originaltop 25, only 5 were replaced by new names, butthose names all came from relatively high po-sitions (26 to 44) in the original list, and only 2of the top 10 changed. For the entire list, themean change in ordinal position due to therevised analysis was 2.05 positions (SD #16.79). This is a testament to the robust natureof the combined measures.7

Predictors of Eminence

For the 219 different psychologists on themaster list (which comprised the JCL, TCL, andSL), the best predictors of eminence were thequalitative variables. Of the 100 most eminentpsychologists, 28 received credit for all threequalitative variables, and 59 received credit forat least two qualitative variables. Only 8 madethe final list without credit for a qualitativevariable (Jensen, Wolpe, E. Loftus, Sternberg,Plomin, Berkowitz, A. Freud, and No. 100). Ingeneral, these individuals all had relatively highscores on two of the three quantitative variables.The NAS and APA variables were equally pre-dictive, followed closely by the EP variable.The master list contained 67 NAS members. Ofthose, 53 made the most eminent list. Thus,given that an individual on the master list was amember of NAS, the probability of that individ-ual being on the most eminent list was .79. ThatNAS membership should be such a strong pre-dictor of eminence is not surprising. Over(1981) reported data suggesting that less thanone tenth of 1% of all American psychologistsare likely to be honored by election to NAS.Having been APA president or a recipient of

the APA Distinguished Scientific ContributionsAward was an equally good predictor of emi-

nence. A total of 89 psychologists on the masterlist received credit for the APA variable. Ofthose, 70 made the most eminent list, a proba-bility of .79. Simonton (1992), in presenting aprofile of the typical eminent American psy-chologist, noted that he or she would have al-most a .50 probability of being honored byelection to the APA presidency. Althoughonly 32 of the 100 psychologists on our mosteminent list were elected APA president, Sim-onton (1992) studied eminent psychologistswho were deceased by 1967. The present mosteminent list included many contemporary psy-chologists who, because of the growth in num-ber of psychologists and outstanding presiden-tial candidates and the decreasing trend of elect-ing academic psychologists, very likely hadmuch less of a chance of being elected APApresident (Simonton, 1992).We found eponyms associated with 77 of the

219 names on the master list. Of those 77, 52made the most eminent list, representing a pre-dictive probability of .74. The eponym variableis somewhat problematic because there seemsintuitively to be quite a difference between ep-onyms such as “Skinnerian,” “Freudian,” or“Pavlovian,” on the one hand, and eponymssuch as “Festinger’s cognitive dissonance the-ory” or “Newcomb’s attraction studies,” on theother hand. Then, too, there are eponyms thatseem to be somewhere in between those ex-tremes, for example, “Maslow’s hierarchy” and“James–Lange theory of emotion.” As one re-viewer asked, “Why don’t we say ‘Miller’smagical number seven’ or ‘Sperry’s split-brainstudies’?”Actually, we suspect we do use these expres-

sions in print. However, our source for eponymswas a list referenced by Roeckelein (1995) thatincluded eponyms reported by Zusne (1987).Roeckelein constructed his list of eponymsfrom the entries in 7 different dictionaries ofpsychology, entries in the subject index from 30specialty area textbooks published from 1953 to1994, and Zusne’s book. That is a reasonablywide net, and the eponyms listed in Table 4 areevidently in sufficiently widespread use to havebeen caught by it. Of the 52 eponyms listed in

7 A description of the original data analysis and resultingmost eminent list is available on the World Wide Web athttp://edtech.tph.wku.edu/!shaggblo/greatestold.htm.


Table 4, 36 (69%) appeared in two or more ofthe sources used by Roeckelein (1995). Themany possible eponyms one could conceivablyassociate with the remaining names appearingin Table 4 were evidently below the threshold ofdetection of the Roeckelein (1995) study. Thisis simply on a par with the fact that 37 names onthe most eminent list were not on the JCL. Asnoted earlier, it is unlikely they have citationfrequencies of zero; they were simply below thethreshold of detection for the JCL.Among the quantitative variables, the best

predictors of eminence were journal citationsand the survey. The JCL contributed 63 namesto the most eminent list (p # .63), and the SLcontributed 76 (of a total of 117; p # .65).Introductory textbook citations turned out to bethe weakest predictor of eminence. The TCLcontributed only 55 (of 102) names to the mosteminent list (p # .54). We remain undecided asto whether this informs us about the value oftextbook citation frequency as a measure ofeminence or informs us about the quality ofintroductory psychology textbooks.

Bias

It was suggested to us that the measures ofeminence used in this study might have favoredAmerican psychologists. Some measures mightalso have favored those whose significant con-tributions occurred more toward the latter partof the 20th century. Consider first the possibilityof temporal bias. We suggest that the qualitativevariables NAS, APA, and EP are largely free oftemporal bias. The NAS and APA variablesspan the century. The NAS was established in1863, and the first psychologist elected to NASmembership was James McKeen Cattell in 1901(Over, 1981). The APA Distinguished ScientificContributions Award dates only to 1956 andmight somewhat favor psychologists who weremost productive in the latter part of the 20thcentury, but the APA presidency dates to 1892.Moreover, some of the earliest recipients of theAPA award made significant contributions topsychology relatively early in the century (e.g.,Kohler, K. Spence, and Tolman). Finally, al-though it might sometimes take time for aneponym to become established and used, andover time some eponyms will fall into disuse,the EP variable is not time dependent in anysystematic way. For the most part, it seems

likely that the qualitative variables would workto partially mitigate any temporal bias thatmight arise from the quantitative variables.The JCL, TCL, and SL were based on data

collected mostly in the latter part of the century.Prima facie, we think the JCL, despite the factthat Freud ranked first on that list, would tend tofavor more contemporary psychologists be-cause journal articles usually cite relatively con-temporaneous works.8 On the other hand,whereas introductory psychology textbooks docite contemporarily important psychologists,they give considerable emphasis to historicallyolder, well-established authorities. Gorenflo andMcConnell (1991) reported that it takes about20 years for an article to acquire the status ofa “classic” work and become consistently citedin introductory psychology textbooks. Thus,whereas the JCL might involve a recency bias,the TCL might involve an offsetting historicallyolder bias even though it was based on rela-tively recent textbooks. Finally, because surveyrespondents were free to name psychologistsfrom any part of the century, we would notexpect the SL to have a systematic temporalbias.One might attempt an empirical evaluation of

the JCL, TCL, and SL to determine whether anyone of them contains a disproportionate numberof names from the early, middle, or late part ofthe century. However, it is not clear what thecorrect proportions should be. There were rela-tively few “psychologists” at the beginning ofthe century; today there are more than 159,000who are members of APA and a very sizablenumber more who are not members of APA. Inour view, approximately 25% of the most emi-nent psychologists listed in Table 4 might rea-sonably be said to have made their significantresearch contributions during the first half of thecentury. Given the growth in the number ofpsychologists during the century, that figuredoes not strike us as obviously disproportionate.

8 We were not aware of any empirical data to support thisassertion, so we examined the reference list of one quasi-randomly selected article from each of eight different psy-chology journals published between 1969 and 1994. Theage of a reference was calculated by subtracting the publi-cation year of the reference from the publication year ofthe article in which it was cited. The mean age of the141 references listed in these articles was 8.38 years(SD # 9.19). The modal age was 4 years.


Much more problematic is the extent towhich the most eminent list has an Americanand English-language bias. This is difficult toevaluate because contemporary psychology isso dominated by Americans (Simonton, 1992).Nevertheless, our sources were all essentiallyAmerican sources. Although the NAS variableincluded foreign associates (e.g., Broadbent,Milner, and Piaget), and non-American psy-chologists have received the APA Distin-guished Scientific Contributions Award, itseems likely that such recognition would bedisproportionately conferred upon Americanpsychologists. Moreover, we used Americanjournals and textbooks, and we essentially sur-veyed American psychologists. Although all ofthese sources contributed non-American names,and non-American names do appear in the mosteminent list, the variables we used are never-theless likely to have favored American psy-chologists. Only the eponym variable seemssomewhat neutral with respect to nationality,but even there our sources were American prod-ucts. Thus, the most eminent list reported here isprobably somewhat biased in favor of Americanpsychologists.

Comparisons With Other Studies andMeasures of Eminence

The most eminent list reported here, for themost part, included the names of psychologistsother studies and measures have identified asamong the most eminent. Annin et al. (1968),for example, assembled a list of names ofsome 1,040 people they judged to be importantto the history of psychology from 1600 to 1967.Excluded from the list were any psychologistsstill living in 1967. Nine psychologists thenrated each name on a scale of 1 to 3. A scoreof 1 indicated that the juror recognized the namebut could not specify the person’s contributionto psychology. A score of 2 meant that the jurorwas at least somewhat familiar with the per-son’s contribution. A score of 3 was given if, inthe juror’s opinion, the person was “of suchdistinction that his name should surely be in-cluded in a list of the 500 most important psy-chologists since 1600 and not living” (Annin etal., 1968, p. 304). A total score for each namewas calculated by summing scores across ju-rors. The total scores were used to construct alist of 538 important contributors to psychology

arranged into rank-ordered categories. Names inthe highest category all received a total scoreof 27 (i.e., 3 points from each of the ninejurors). Names in the next category received 26points, and so on.Of the names on the Annin et al. (1968)

list, 21 appear on the most eminent list reportedhere, and 17 of those 21 were in the top cate-gory of the Annin et al. list, a category with atotal of 53 names. If one removes from the topcategory of the Annin et al. list the names ofindividuals not generally considered to be psy-chologists (e.g., Charles Darwin, Rene Des-cartes, and David Hume) and the names ofpsychologists whose contributions were notmade in the 20th century (e.g., Gustav Fechnerand Johann Herbart), roughly one half of theremaining names appear on the most eminentlist reported here.Coan and Zagona (1962) asked experts

(mostly teachers of history of psychology) torate 142 candidate psychologists according to“importance of contributions to psychologicaltheory” (p. 316). They reported a list of the 75most highly rated. They also reported a listof 54 that comprised the top 50 overall and thetop 10 in each of nine decades from 1880–1889to 1950–1959. After removal of non-20th-cen-tury psychologists, our list captured 47% oftheir top 75 and 58% of the list of 54.We think this degree of agreement between

our 100 most eminent list (Table 4) and (a) thetop category of 53 names in the Annin et al.(1968) list and (b) the two lists reported byCoan and Zagona (1962) is actually quite good.All three lists were based on a single measure ofeminence, expert ratings, and were compiled inthe 1960s. The proportion of 20th-century psy-chologists in each of these three lists appearingin Table 4 is about the same as the proportion ofnames in Table 4 contributed by any one of thevariables used here. Moreover, there has been athird of a century of psychology since those listswere compiled.Korn et al. (1991) surveyed historians of psy-

chology and psychology department chairs, ask-ing both groups to list the most important psy-chologists of all time and the most importantcontemporary psychologists. They reported fourshort (9 to 11 names) rank-ordered lists of themost important psychologists: historian all time,historian contemporary, department chair alltime, and department chair contemporary. Only


three 20th-century psychologists on the Korn etal. lists are not on the most eminent list reportedin Table 4 here. The least agreement was withthe historian all time list, which included Binetand Ebbinghaus, neither of whom appearamong the names in Table 4 (both, however, didappear in the SL). All of the 20th-century psy-chologists’ names on the historian contempo-rary and department chair all time lists appear inTable 4, and only one name (Rescorla) on thedepartment chair contemporary list is not in-cluded in Table 4. Thus, we identified as amongthe most eminent virtually all of the psycholo-gists identified by Korn et al.Moore and Seberhagen (cited in Myers,

1970) asked department chairs to name, in rankorder, the 10 most influential contemporary psy-chologists and the 10 most influential from anytime period. Myers (1970) presented the result-ing two lists of the top 10 names. All but one20th-century psychologist (Binet) on those listsappeared in our most eminent list. To the best ofour knowledge, nine psychologists have beenawarded the National Medal of Science: AnneAnastasi, William Estes, Eleanor Gibson,George Miller, Neal Miller, Herbert Simon,Roger Shepard, B. F. Skinner, and RogerSperry. All except Anastasi (who made the SL)appear in Table 4 here.The preceding comparisons with other stud-

ies and measures of eminence are not intendedto be exhaustive. Rather, they show that ourapproach to measuring eminence in psychol-ogy resulted in a most eminent list that verylikely includes the vast majority of psychol-ogists who should be on such a list. Bear inmind that, in relation to the very large numberof 20th-century psychologists, our most emi-nent list is a very short list and necessarilyomits many truly eminent psychologists. Wewould argue, for example, that psychologistswho meet our NAS or APA criteria but do notappear in our most eminent list are neverthe-less very eminent psychologists, but they maynot be among the 100 most eminent (or, ofcourse, a psychologist may be No. 100 andnot reported here). Does our most eminent listinclude some false positives? We think it verylikely does, but because a specific case is farfrom obvious, we are reluctant to speculate onthis point.

Applications

As stated earlier, we believe that the mosteminent list reported here will be of consider-able interest to the psychological community.Beyond that, the list has much potential for usein studies in the psychology of science, in his-torical studies of 20th-century psychology, andin the psychology classroom. Just a few of thepossibilities are described subsequently.Simonton (1992) described characteristics of

the typical eminent American psychologist.How general is that characterization of emi-nence? Would a similar characterization emergefrom an analysis of the present most eminentlist? What distinguishes the roughly one half ofthe psychologists in NAS who are on the mosteminent list from the remainder who are not? Itwould be informative to know whether thesetwo groups can be distinguished on the basis ofthe dimensions of theoretical orientation usedby Simonton (2000).The psychology of science review article by

Feist and Gorman (1998) is also a rich source ofquestions that could be asked about the psychol-ogists on the most eminent list. Perhaps histo-rians of psychology will find the most eminentlist useful for purposes such as evaluating howpsychology evolved over the century and howdifferent schools of thought are represented ormay have shaped the list.Finally, teaching applications, especially for

introductory psychology and history of psychol-ogy classes, are practically limitless. For exam-ple, one could have students (a) identify theseminal contribution(s) of one or more of thepsychologists on the list, (b) debate the relativerankings of two psychologists, (c) develop anargument for why a particular psychologist whois not on the most eminent list should be (or viceversa), or (d) write one or more biographies ofeminent psychologists. Moreover, a book ofreadings comprising the seminal works of thepsychologists on the most eminent list wouldmake a tremendous overview of 20th-centurypsychology.

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Received March 16, 2001Revision received September 5, 2001

Accepted September 7, 2001 !
