Harry Stack Sullivan

 

Born on a farm in upstate New York on February 2, 1892, Harry Stack Sullivan received his MD from the Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery, 1917. For most of his life, Sullivan served on hospital and medical school staffs, including St. Elizabeth’s in Washington, DC and the University of Maryland. At his death in 1949, he was the director of the Washington School of Psychiatry. [Read more]

Alexander Humboldt

The issue of animal electricity was resolved by German naturalist Alexander Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich von Humboldt. He concluded that Galvani’s animal electricity and Volta’s bimetallic electricity were related phenomenon. Animals do produce electricity (e.g., nerve conduction) but that does not rule out the production of electricity using metallic materials. Humbolt is also known for his exploration of Latin America, including Venezuela, Columbia, the Andes Mountains of Ecuador, and the Orinoco and Amazon river systems.

Gustav Theodore Fechner

A student of Weber, Gustav Theodore Fechner wrote Weber’s idea in the form of a formula, and called it Weber’s Law. He revised Weber’s law (showing it was logarithmic), and continued Weber’s work on jnd (just noticeable difference), applying it to weight, temperature, etc. [Read more]

Wolfgang Kohler

Born in Estonia and educated in Berlin, Wolfgang Kohler is best known for his insight experiments with apes. During WWI, Kohler was director of an anthropoid station on Tenerife (in the Cannery Islands). He was either there to study chimpanzees or as a spy to study Allied shipping; both interpretations are possible. [Read more]

Karl Marbe

A colleague of Kulpe, Karl Marbe conducted imageless thought studies, and introduced the concept of a mental set. Essentially, people acquire a rule of how to solve problems and apply that rule even after the circumstances have changed and the rule is no longer valid.

Alfred Adler

 

Born in Vienna, the 2nd of six kids, Alfred Adler has an unhappy childhood. Suffering from rickets, and having been injured in two accidents, Adler was frail and unathletic. Although he was pampered by his parents (a wealthy grain merchant), he resented Alfred resented his older brother (his mother’s favorite). [Read more]

Julian Rotter

Like other social learning theorists, Julian Rotter (1916-present) combines behaviorism plus cognition. What we know about the environment impacts what we do. And the best way to predict what people will do is to understand how they think. [Read more]