Key thinkers
Discover more about pychology’s ‘Key Thinkers’ throughout history.
Thomas Malthus (1776–1834)
Malthus was an economist who made his greatest contribution to population studies. His basic idea was that human population increases lead to ever greater increases in population from one generation to the next.
Download the Key Thinker document to find out more.
Gregor Mendel (1822–1884)
Mendel was an Austrian monk and botanist whose selective breeding of plants, during the 1860s, led to the realization of hereditary transmission of characteristics based on dominant and recessive characteristics. In this Mendel established the rules of inheritance (the ‘laws of Mendelian inheritance’) but his worked remained unknown until it was rediscovered in 1900.
Download the Key Thinker document to find out more.
For a greater explanation of Mendel and modern assessments of his research, see: http://arstechnica.com/science/2010/04/breaking-mendels-laws-the-value-of-informative-errors/
John Dewey (1859–1952)
When the history of Cultural Psychology is being discussed one often encounters the names of Lazarus, Steinthal, and Wundt in Germany, Rivers and Bartlett in Britain, and Vygotsky in the former Soviet Union. Missing from mention is the name of the American John Dewey. This is understandable since he did not explicitly formulate a theory of culture and psychology but, nonetheless, the theme runs throughout his numerous publications.