PSYCHOLOGISTS from Canada

Top 7

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Canadian Psychologists of all time. This list of famous Canadian Psychologists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Albert Bandura (1925 - 2021)

With an HPI of 71.72, Albert Bandura is the most famous Canadian Psychologist.  His biography has been translated into 57 different languages on wikipedia.

Albert Bandura (December 4, 1925 – July 26, 2021) was a Canadian-American psychologist. He was a professor of social science in psychology at Stanford University. Bandura was responsible for contributions to the field of education and to several fields of psychology, including social cognitive theory, therapy, and personality psychology, and was also of influence in the transition between behaviorism and cognitive psychology. He is known as the originator of social learning theory, social cognitive theory, and the theoretical construct of self-efficacy, and is also responsible for the influential 1961 Bobo doll experiment. This Bobo doll experiment demonstrated the concept of observational learning where children would watch an adult beat a doll and as a result do the same. A 2002 survey ranked Bandura as the fourth most frequently cited psychologist of all time, behind B. F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, and Jean Piaget. During his lifetime, Bandura was widely described as the greatest living psychologist, and as one of the most influential psychologists of all time.

2. Eric Berne (1910 - 1970)

With an HPI of 66.77, Eric Berne is the 2nd most famous Canadian Psychologist.  His biography has been translated into 35 different languages.

Eric Berne (May 10, 1910 – July 15, 1970) was a Canadian-born psychiatrist who created the theory of transactional analysis as a way of explaining human behavior. Berne's theory of transactional analysis was based on the ideas of Freud and Carl Jung but was distinctly different. Freudian psychotherapists focused on talk therapy as a way of gaining insight to their patient's personalities. Berne believed that insight could be better discovered by analyzing patients’ social transactions.

3. Donald O. Hebb (1904 - 1985)

With an HPI of 60.19, Donald O. Hebb is the 3rd most famous Canadian Psychologist.  His biography has been translated into 36 different languages.

Donald Olding Hebb (July 22, 1904 – August 20, 1985) was a Canadian psychologist who was influential in the area of neuropsychology, where he sought to understand how the function of neurons contributed to psychological processes such as learning. He is best known for his theory of Hebbian learning, which he introduced in his classic 1949 work The Organization of Behavior. He has been described as the father of neuropsychology and neural networks. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Hebb as the 19th most cited psychologist of the 20th century. His views on learning described behavior and thought in terms of brain function, explaining cognitive processes in terms of connections between neuron assemblies.

4. Steven Pinker (b. 1954)

With an HPI of 55.85, Steven Pinker is the 4th most famous Canadian Psychologist.  His biography has been translated into 48 different languages.

Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He specializes in visual cognition and developmental linguistics, and his experimental topics include mental imagery, shape recognition, visual attention, regularity and irregularity in language, the neural basis of words and grammar, and childhood language development. Other experimental topics he works on are the psychology of cooperation and of communication, including emotional expression, euphemism, innuendo, and how people use "common knowledge", a term of art meaning the shared understanding in which two or more people know something, know that the other one knows, know the other one knows that they know, and so on. Pinker has written two technical books that proposed a general theory of language acquisition and applied it to children's learning of verbs. In particular, his work with Alan Prince published in 1989 critiqued the connectionist model of how children acquire the past tense of English verbs, positing that children use default rules, such as adding -ed to make regular forms, sometimes in error, but are obliged to learn irregular forms one by one. Pinker is the author of nine books for general audiences. The Language Instinct (1994), How the Mind Works (1997), Words and Rules (2000), The Blank Slate (2002), and The Stuff of Thought (2007) describe aspects of psycholinguistics and cognitive science, and include accounts of his own research, positing that language is an innate behavior shaped by natural selection and adapted to our communication needs. Pinker's The Sense of Style (2014) is a general language-oriented style guide. Pinker's book The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) posits that violence in human societies has generally declined over time, and identifies six major trends and five historical forces of this decline, the most important being the humanitarian revolution brought by the Enlightenment and its associated cultivation of reason. Enlightenment Now (2018) further argues that the human condition has generally improved over recent history because of reason, science, and humanism. The nature and importance of reason is also discussed in his next book Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters (2021). In 2004, Pinker was named in Time's "The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today", and in the years 2005, 2008, 2010, and 2011 in Foreign Policy's list of "Top 100 Global Thinkers". Pinker was also included in Prospect Magazine's top 10 "World Thinkers" in 2013. He has won awards from the American Psychological Association, the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Institution, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, and the American Humanist Association. He delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh in 2013. He has served on the editorial boards of a variety of journals, and on the advisory boards of several institutions. Pinker was the chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary from 2008 to 2018.

5. Jordan Peterson (b. 1962)

With an HPI of 54.90, Jordan Peterson is the 5th most famous Canadian Psychologist.  His biography has been translated into 66 different languages.

Jordan Bernt Peterson (born 12 June 1962) is a Canadian psychologist, author, and media commentator. He began to receive widespread attention in the late 2010s for his views on cultural and political issues. Often characterized as conservative, Peterson has described himself as a classic British liberal and a traditionalist. Born and raised in Alberta, he obtained two bachelor's degrees in political science and psychology from the University of Alberta and then a PhD in clinical psychology from McGill University. After researching and teaching at Harvard University, he returned to Canada in 1998 and became a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. In 1999, he published his first book, Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief, which became the basis for many of his subsequent lectures. The book combined psychology, mythology, religion, literature, philosophy and neuroscience to analyze systems of belief and meaning. In 2016, Peterson released a series of YouTube videos criticizing a Canadian law (Bill C-16) that prohibited discrimination against gender identity and expression. Peterson argued that the bill would make the use of certain gender pronouns compelled speech and related this argument to a general critique of "political correctness" and identity politics, receiving significant media coverage and attracting both support and criticism. In 2018, he paused both his clinical practice and teaching duties and published his second book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Promoted with a world tour, it became a bestseller in several countries. In 2019 and 2020 Peterson suffered health problems related to benzodiazepene dependence. In 2021, he published his third book, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life, resigned from the University of Toronto, and returned to podcasting. In 2022, Peterson signed a content distribution deal with the conservative media company The Daily Wire and became Chancellor of the newly launched Ralston College. His various lectures and conversations, available mainly on YouTube and podcasts, have gathered millions of views and plays.

6. Robert D. Hare (b. 1934)

With an HPI of 51.45, Robert D. Hare is the 6th most famous Canadian Psychologist.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Robert D. Hare (born 1 January 1934) is a Canadian forensic psychologist, known for his research in the field of criminal psychology. He is a professor emeritus of the University of British Columbia where he specializes in psychopathology and psychophysiology. Hare developed the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-Revised), used to assess cases of psychopathy. He advises the FBI's Child Abduction and Serial Murder Investigative Resources Center (CASMIRC) and consults for various British and North American prison services.

7. Gordon Neufeld (b. 1947)

With an HPI of 47.70, Gordon Neufeld is the 7th most famous Canadian Psychologist.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Gordon Neufeld (born 1946) is a developmental psychologist from Vancouver, British Columbia. He is the author of the book Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers (co-authored with Canadian physician Gabor Maté).