List at least 10 contributions psychologists have made to our understanding of human behavior

1. Frances Galton: Maintained that personality and ability depend almost entirely on genetic

inheritance(human traits are inherited)

2. Charles Darwin: Theory of evolution, survival of the fittest-origin of the species

3. John Watson: Founder of behaviorism- Did the study of generalization

4. Little Albert: Watson’s study on the generalization of fear. Conditioning subject to be afraid

5. Alfred Adler: Neo Freudian, believed that childhood social not sexual tensions are crucial for personality formation

6. Gordon Allport: Three levels of traits: 1. Cardinal trait-it is the dominant trait that characterizes your life; 2.Central trait-one common to all people; 3. Secondary trait- it surfaces in some situations and not in others

7. Albert Ellis: Rational Emotive Therapy-focuses on altering client’s patterns of irrational thinking to reduce maladaptive behaviour and emotions

8. Albert Maslow: Hierarchy of needs-Needs at the lower level dominate an individual’s motivation as long as they are unsatisfied. Once these needs are adequately met, the higher needs occupy the individual’s attention

9.Noam Chomsky: Disagreed with Skinner and said there an infinite number of sentences in a language. He said that humans have an inborn native ability to develop language.

10.. Erik Erikson: People evolve through 8 stages over the life span. Each stage marked by psychological crisis that involves confronting “who am I”

Explanation: