psychology writing assignment

Influential Works and Authors in Psychology: A Survey of

Eminent Psychologists Ronald G. Heyduk Hartwick College

Allan Fenigstein Kenyan College

What works have stimulated the most eminent figures in psychology? To an- swer that question, letters were sent to 92 renowned psychologists asking them to: identify those psychology or psychology-re- lated works which have had a significant influence on your own work as a psychol- ogist. . . . Others have developed lists of significant readings in psychology by sur- veying graduate faculties for their recom- mendations to graduate students (e.g., Solso, 1979). Although the books appearing on such lists distinguish themselves as sum- maries of creative work, they are probably not responsible for generating creative work. We wish to discover those readings which have stimulated or are stimulating the most eminent scholars in the field.

We also sought to introduce a novel and perhaps more valid criterion for establishing the value of an indi- vidual's contribution to the discipline of psychology. Previous approaches to developing lists of important psychol- ogists have been based on citation fre- quency counts (e.g., Endler, Rushton, & Roediger, 1978; Garfield, 1978— both of which were used to determine our sample). But these citation-based methods may place too great an em- phasis on sheer productivity, without offering any indication that the cited reference had a significant influence on the work presented. Scientific con- tributions have historically been judged in terms of their heuristic value, that is, the degree to which they have in- spired or affected significant subse- quent developments. Thus, we felt that a more valid indicator of a psycholo- gist's impact upon the field would be the frequency with which his or her contributions were recognized by other outstanding psychologists as having stimulated their own work.

The psychologists surveyed were the 92 living psychologists named on the Endler et al. (1978) list of 102 most- cited psychologists. The Endler list was based upon a citation tally from the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) for a single year (1975). As a means of validating the Endler list, it was com- pared to a list based upon a more ex-

tensive citation tally spanning the 1969 to 1977 volumes of the SSCI (Garfield, 1978). All of the 55 most-cited psy- chologists on the Garfield list appeared on the Endler list, suggesting that se- rious errors of omission in our selection of most-cited psychologists were un- likely.

Each of the 92 surveyees was mailed a letter that first described the intent of the survey and then made a specific request:

to list, in whatever order they occur to you, only those texts or articles (up to a maxi- mum of 10) which have significantly influ- enced your work and thought, both past and present, in your major area of psy- chology. Comments regarding the works you list (e.g., how the work influenced or is in- fluencing you) would be valuable, although they are optional.

Two surveyees reported that they had been inappropriately included on the Endler list. Of the remaining 90 surveyed, 28 did not reply, 5 sent letters declining to participate, and 57 (63%) provided usable responses. Although we achieved an unexpectedly favorable response rate,' there are several ways in which our surveyees are unrepre- sentative of contemporary eminent psychologists. As Endler et al. (1978) noted, an SSCI-based list is inherently biased against physiological psychol- ogists because some of their publication outlets are not covered by SSCI. Also, our citation-based sample is skewed toward long-established contributors and away from "rising stars," because more recent contributors have not had as much opportunity to be cited. This may help to explain why only 34 books and articles with a publication date of 1970 or later were cited by our sur- veyees. Thus, it may be argued that our data are only representative of those persons who responded to our inquiry, and as a result, there may be serious errors of omission in our list- ings. But it is unlikely that the re- sponses of 57 of the most eminent psy- chologists in the world would produce any serious errors of commission—we can be confident that those works and authors who appear on our list of sources in psychology richly deserve to be labeled "influential."

Based upon their major field des-

1 In order to maintain the desired pri- vacy of some of the surveyees, names of the respondents have not been included.

ignation in the Membership Directory of the American Psychological Asso- ciation (APA, 1981), respondents were assigned to one of four fields of spe- cialization: 19 were experimental psy- chologists; 13 were from the person- ality/clinical psychology area; 9 were in developmental/educational psy- chology; and 16 were social psychol- ogists. Two of the 57 respondents, both experimental psychologists, were women.

Influential Works and Authors

The respondents provided a total of 457 citations, 438 of which included a specific work along with the author. There were no self-citations. The av- erage number of citations was 8.0 per respondent, and the range was 2 to 15. There were 330 different books and articles listed, of which only 65 were cited as influential by more than one respondent.

A total of 275 different authors were named by our respondents, and only 76 of them were named by more than one respondent. The authors whose names appeared most often on respondents' lists, along with the au- thors' most frequently cited works, are shown in Table 1. Foremost among those names was Freud. Not only was he the psychologist cited by the most respondents overall, but he was also the most frequently named person in the personality/clinical and develop- mental/educational areas, and the sec- ond most frequently cited influence among social psychologists. Even for experimental psychologists, he was one of the authors cited most often. Only five others—Lewin, Skinner, Allport, Guilford, and Koffka—were named by at least one respondent from each of the four areas of specialization (see Ta- ble 1).

The lists of commonly cited in- fluential works and authors should not obscure the findings that more than 85% of all the cited works were cited only once, and over 72% of all the named authors were named only once. Only a small number of persons or works in psychology appear to have had a significant impact upon even as few as two of our sample of eminent psy- chologists. Although an interpretation is made difficult by the lack of com- parative statistics for other samples of psychologists or other disciplines, the great diversity of sources of influence uncovered here suggests that the path-

556 May 1984 • American Psychologist

Table 1 The Authors Most Frequently Named as Influential and Their Most Frequently Cited Work(s)

Person •Number of 'Number of

respondents naming separate citations Work(s) most frequently cited

(number of citations in parentheses)

Freud

Lewin

"Hull

(4,6,3,5)18 (6,8,3,7)24

(1,1,2,6)10 (2,1,2,7)12

(4,5,0,1)10 (6,5,0,1)12

Skinner

"Woodworth

Hebb

"Dollard

Allport

Guilford

"Thurstone

Miller, N.

Stevens bJames

"Koffka

"Pavlov

"Spearman

"Tolman

Broadbent

"Adorno ef a/.

"Kohler

"Bush and Mosteller

"Shannon and Weaver

Piaget

Festinger

"McDougall

Asch

"Boring

Cronbach

(3, 3, 1 , 2) 9

(4, 2, 0, 3) 9

(5, 0, 1, 1)7

(1 , 3, 0, 2) 6

(1, 2, 1, 2)6

(1 , 2, 1 , 2) 6

(0, 4, 2, 0) 6

(1, 3,0, 1)5

(4, 0, 0, 1) 5

(3, 1, 0, 1) 5

(2, 1, 1, 1)5

(3, 2, 0, 0) 5

(0, 4, 1, 0)5

(2, 0, 2, 1)5

(4, 0, 0, 0) 4

(0, 1 , 0, 3) 4

(2,0, 1, 1)4

(2, 0, 0, 2) 4

(2, 0, 2, 0) 4

(0, 0, 2, 1) 3

(0, 0, 0, 3) 3

(1,2,0,0)3

(0, 0, 0, 3) 3

(2, 0, 0, 1) 3

(1, 1, 0, 1)3

(5, 3, 1, 2) 11

(5, 2, 0, 3) 10

(5, 0, 1, 1)7

(1 , 6, 0, 2) 9

(1, 2, 1,2)6

(1 , 2, 1 , 2) 6

(0, 4, 2, 0) 6

(1, 5,0, 1)7

(6, 0, 0, 1) 7

(3, 1,0, 1)5

(2, 1, 1, 1)5

(3, 2, 0, 0) 5

(0, 4, 1 , 0) 5

(2, 0, 2, 1)5

(5, 0, 0, 0) 5

(0, 1, 0, 3)4

(2, 0, 1, 1)4

(2, 0, 0, 2) 4

(2, 0, 2, 0) 4

(0, 0, 2, 3) 5

(0, 0, 0, 5) 5

(1, 3, 0, 0)4

(0, 0, 0, 3) 3

(2, 0, 0, 1) 3

(1, 1, 0, 1)3

"Heider

Hilgard

(0, 0, 0, 3) 3

(3, 0, 0, 0) 3

(0, 0, 0, 3) 3

(3, 0, 0, 0) 3

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, 1901 (6); 'A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis, 1924 (5); cThe Interpretation of Dreams, 1900 (4); introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis, 1917 (3)

'A Dynamic Theory of Personality, 1935 (3); 'Resolving Social Conflicts (Ed.), 1948 (2); "Principles of Topological Psychology, 1936 (2); c"The Conceptual Representation and Measure-

ment of Psychological Forces," 1938 (2)

Principles of Behavior, 1943 (7); °"A Functional Interpretation of the Conditioned

Reflex," 1929 (2); "'The Goal Gradient Hypothesis and Maze Learning,"

1932(2)

The Behavior of Organisms, 1938 (4); 'Science and Human Behavior, 1953 (4)

Experimental Psychology, 1938 (and later eds, with Schlosberg) (8)

The Organization of Behavior, 1948 (7)

Personality and Psychotherapy, (with Miller) 1950 (3); cCasfe and Class in a Southern Town, 1937 (2); 'Frustration and Aggression, (with others) 1939 (2)

Personality, 1937 (4)

Psychometric Methods, 1936 (4)

"Vectors of Mind, 1935 (2); 'Multiple Factor Analysis, 1947(2)

"Social Learning and Imitation, (with Dollard) 1941 (2)

Handbook of Experimental Psychology (Ed.), 1951 (3)

The Principles of Psychology, 1890 (5)

'Principles of Gestalt Psychology, 1935 (4)

'Conditioned Reflexes, 1927 (3)

The Abilities of Man, 1927 (4)

'Purposive Behavior in Animals and Man, 1932 (3)

'Perception and Communication, 1958 (3)

The Authoritarian Personality, (with others) 1950 (4)

The Mentality of Apes, 1927 (2)

'Stochastic Models for Learning, 1955 (3)

'A Mathematical Theory of Communication, 1948 (4)

The Language and Thought of the Child, 1955 (2)

A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, 1957 (2)

'Outline of Psychology, 1923 (3)

'Social Psychology, 1952 (2)

The History of Experimental Psychology, 1942 (3)

°"The Two Disciplines of Scientific Psychology," 1957(2)

The Psychology of Interpersonal Relationships, 1958(3)

Theories of Learning, 1948 (2)

May 1984 • American Psychologist 557

Table 1 (continued)

Person

"Kuhn

Maslow

McClelland

"Mead, G. H.

Neisser

Osgood

Rogers

"Spence, K.

"Watson

•Number of respondents naming

(1, 0, 1, 1)3

(0, 2, 1 , 0) 3

(0, 0, 0, 3) 3

(0, 0, 2, 1) 3

(3, 0, 0, 0) 3

(1, 0, 0, 2)3

(0, 0, 1 , 2) 3

(1, 1, 0, 1)3

(1, 0, 1, 1)3

•Number of separate citations

(1, 0, 1, 1)3

(0, 2, 1 , 0) 3

(0, 0, 0, 3) 3

(0, 0, 2, 1) 3

(3, 0, 0, 0) 3

(1, 0, 0, 2)3

(0, 0, 1 , 2) 3

(1, 1, 0, 1)3

(1, 0, 1, 1)3

Work(s) most frequently cited (number of citations in parentheses)

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 1 962 (3)

'Motivation and Personality, 1954 (2)

'The Achievement Motive, (with others) 1953 (3)

"Mind, Self, and Society, 1 934 (3)

Cognitive Psychology, 1 967 (3)

Method and Theory in Experimental Psychology, 1953(2)

Counseling and Psychotherapy, 1 942 (2)

"Behavior Theory and Conditioning, 1 956 (2)

'Behaviorism, 1925(2)

Note." Broken down according to the respondent's specialty area: (experimental, personality/clinical, developmental/educational, social) total. b Persons not appearing in Endler et al.'s (1978) citation-based list." Works not appearing in previous graduate- faculty surveys (Solso, 1971, 1979; Solso & Johnson, 1967; Sundberg, 1960).

Table 2 The Authors Most Frequently Named by Survey Respondents Receiving Their PhDs Between 1927 and 1950 (N = 28)

Number of Individual respondents

named naming

Freud Hull Woodworth Lewin Thurstone Koffka Pavlov James Guilford Spearman Tolman Shannon and

Weaver Kohler

13 8 7 6 5 5 5 4 4 4 4

4 3

Number of separate citations

17 12 8 8 5 5 5 4 5 4 4

4 3

ways to eminence in psychology have been wonderfully idiosyncratic.

Earlier PhD and Later PhD Respondents

The respondents (for whom the infor- mation was available) were divided into two groups on the basis of whether they received their PhD before or after 1950 (the median PhD year for the sample). There were 28 respondents, and a

nearly equal total number of citations were represented in each group. Tables 2 and 3 list the most-named persons (using a criterion of a person being named by at least three of the respon- dents in the group) for both groups of respondents. A comparison of these two tables shows that with the excep- tion of Freud, Lewin, and Hull there is no overlap in the persons commonly cited by pre- and post-1950 PhDs. This suggests a surprising lack of "staying power" for the sources that have stim- ulated our most important psycholo- gists.

An examination of Tables 2 and 3 also shows a lesser degree of consen- sus among the later PhD group. This observation is supported by the addi- tional finding that unique author ci- tations were more common for the later PhD group (80.3% of all author cita- tions) than for the earlier PhDs (66.7%). In part, this difference may be attributed simply to the expansion of the discipline and the concomitant increase in the number of potential sources of influence available to the later PhD group when they were de- veloping their ideas. It may also be that in the more empirical post-1950 era in which the later PhD group was working, fewer of the dominant psy- chologists had the kind of grand the- ories likely to serve as the common point of departure for the ideas and

Table 3 The Authors Most Frequently Named by Survey Respondents Receiving Their PhDs Between 1951 and 1967 (N = 28)

Number of Number of Individual respondents separate named naming citations

Skinner Hebb Freud Dollard and

Miller Stevens Allport Hull Lewin Bush and

Mosteller

7 6 5

4 3 3 3 3

3

g 6 7

6 4 3 3 3

3

research of a variety of soon-to-be-em- inent psychologists.

Comparisons to Previous Lists of Recommended Readings and Influential Authors

As expected, there were substantial dif- ferences between the works that were most frequently cited as influential by our eminent respondents and the read- ings that were most often recom- mended by graduate faculties surveyed in previous studies (Solso, 1971; 1979; Solso & Johnson, 1967; Sundberg,

558 May 1984 • American Psychologist

1960). Only 2 of the 31 works cited by three or more of our respondents, Woodworth's Experimental Psychol- ogy and Hebb's The Organization of Behavior, were mainstays on the earlier recommended readings lists, and they did not appear on the most recent sur- vey (Solso, 1979). Of the 29 others, only 7 appeared on any of the graduate school recommended lists (see Table 1). Conspicuously absent from the graduate faculty reading lists were the works of Freud, who had four of his works cited at least three times by the respondents to our survey. Not only were Freud and his works frequently cited in all specialty areas, he was also at or near the top of the lists of both the pre- and post-1950 PhD groups. Although it might be expected that Freud would be accorded a special place of respect in the history of psy- chology, it was surprising to find so many eminent living psychologists, especially those with more recent PhDs and those affiliated with experimental psychology, who specifically credited Freud's writings with influencing their own work.

Although it is somewhat hazard- ous to try to characterize the differ- ences between our list of readings and the recommended lists produced by graduate faculties, it appears that the works on our list tend toward the theo- retical, which might explain why they were wellsprings of so much creative activity. In contrast, the works on the graduate school lists are largely com- pendia of empirical work. If our gen- eralization has merit, it is suggested that graduate departments may be placing too great an emphasis on sur- veying previous research at the cost of not exposing their students to proven sources of ideas for new research.

A comparison between our list of influential authors and Endler et al.'s (1978) list of most-cited psychologists suggests that it is quite possible for a person's works to have a significant impact on eminent scholars without those works being among the most fre- quently cited in the general literature. For example, the second most fre- quently named author in our survey was Lewin, who was only 49th on En- dler et al.'s (1978) list. Lewin's name did not even appear among the 62 names on a citation-based list spanning 1962 to 1967 (Myers, 1970), a fairer comparison period given the advanced ages of many of our respondents. Other

striking omissions from these two most recent citation-based lists were such important figures in the history of psy- chology as Thurstone, James, Koffka, Pavlov, Spearman, and Tolman. These psychologists were all named among the top 17 sources of influence in our survey, and most of them have been better known for their conceptual rather than for their empirical contri- butions. This finding is consistent with the generalization that the works and authors most likely to have stimulated the significant contributions of our eminent respondents were oriented to- ward the theoretical.

Individual Responses

Although the responses we received collectively helped to establish a con- sensus about influential works and au- thors, each individual's response served as a brief intellectual autobiography. Sarup (1978) justifiably cautioned his- torians of psychology that their con- clusions about the historical roots of a psychologist's ideas should be based not merely on plausible inference, but on empirical evidence. For example, some aspects of Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance were anticipated by C. S. Peirce and Alexander Bain in the late 19th century, but Sarup found no factual evidence that Festinger was directly influenced by these earlier works in developing his ideas. Our re- spondents' introspective accounts of psychological works that stimulated their own contributions provide one important kind of data allowing his- torians of psychology to discriminate between mere "anticipations" and true "foundations" of a psychologist's ideas.

Twenty of the 57 respondents also offered comments in addition to their lists of influential sources. Most of the comments identified, often in great de- tail, how particular cited works or au- thors influenced the respondent; oc- casionally, additional autobiographical information was provided. A few re- spondents commented at length on the challenges of the task in which we had engaged them. Some asserted that any information provided was unreliable due to inherent problems in availability or recall. Others suggested that infor- mal personal contacts were more in- fluential than anything they read. Still others claimed that the mark of creative psychologists is that they are not overly influenced by previous work. However, most of those who made critical com-

ments submitted lists anyway, and a majority of respondents offered no in- dication of any difficulty in construct- ing their lists. Some even indicated that personal rewards were gained from re- viewing literature that influenced them.

A few respondents reflected at length, and with some enthusiasm, upon their careers in psychology. The autobiographical value of these reflec- tions (and of all the lists we received) was made especially clear to us by the deaths of several respondents soon after they replied. We recommend that in- tellectual historians of any discipline be conscientious about collecting au- tobiographical data, while such data are available.2

REFERENCES

American Psychological Association. (1981). Membership directory of the American Psychological Association. Washington, DC: Author.

Endler, N. S., Rushton, J. P., & Roediger, H. L. (1978). Productivity and scholarly impact (citations) of British, Canadian, and U.S. departments of psychology (191'5). American Psychologist, 33, 1064- 1082.

Garfield, E. (1978). The 100 most-cited SSCI authors, 1969-1977. Current Con- tents, 70(38), 5-11.

Myers, C. R. (1970). Journal citations and scientific eminence in contemporary psychology. American Psychologist, 25, 1041-1048.

Sarup, G. (1978). Historical antecedents of psychology. American Psychologist, 33, 478-485.

Solso, R. L. (1971). Recommended readings in psychology during the past 17 years. American Psychologist, 26, 1083-1084.

Solso, R. L. (1979). Twenty-five years of recommended readings in psychology. American Psychologist, 34, 703-705.

Solso, R. L., & Johnson, J. E. (1967). A survey of recommended readings in psy- chology. Psychological Reports, 20, 855- 857.

Sundberg, N. S. (1960). Basic readings in psychology. American Psychologist, 15, 343-345.

Portions of this comment were presented at the meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, New York City, April 1981. Correspondence should be sent to Allan Fenigstein, Department of Psychology, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio 43022.

2 So that the individual autobiographies we received may be given the attention we believe they deserve, the responses of all consenting participants will be donated to the Archives of the History of American Psychology in Akron, Ohio.

May 1984 • American Psychologist 559