Behavioral Learning Theories

Edward L. Thorndike's learning theory, applied to animals and human beings, added the principle of effect (success, pleasure, satisfaction) to Hermann Ebbinghaus's principle of exercise. Thorndike rid his theories of the mentalism of earlier psychologists and paved the way for the behaviorism of B. F. Skinner and John B. Watson.

1. Edward Lee Thorndike:  Psychologist, born in Williamsburg, MA. He studied at Wesleyan University and Harvard, and became professor at Teachers College, Columbia (1904-40), where he worked on educational psychology and the psychology of animal learning. As a result of studying animal intelligence, he formulated his famous "law of effect", which states that a given behavior is learned by trial-and-error, and is more likely to occur if its consequences are satisfying. His works include Psychology of Learning (1914) and The Measurement of Intelligence (1926).

2. Edward L. Thorndike:  His learning theory, applied to animals and human beings, added the principle of effect (success, pleasure, satisfaction) to Hermann Ebbinghaus's principle of exercise. Thorndike rid his theories of the mentalism of earlier psychologists and paved the way for the behaviorism of B. F. Skinner and John B. Watson. He published about 500 books and articles, including his thesis Animal Intelligence (1898), Educational Psychology (1903, later in three volumes), and Mental and Social Measurements (1904), and was president of the American Psychological Association.

3. S-R framework:  Using the Pavlovian S-R framework, he proposed to explain learning in animals and humans by investigations of animal behavior in terms of the associations formed between stimuli and responses. He explained the S-R bond as a habit or association that could be strengthened or weakened.

4. Comments on the value of experimental analysis:  In short, the anecdotes give really the abnormal or super-normal psychology of animals. Further, it must be confessed that these vices have been only  ameliorated, not obliterated, when the observation is first-hand and made by the psychologist himself.

5. Thorndike's Connectionism:  Edward Lee Thorndike was a student of James; therefore, it is not surprising that he carried over some of the principles inherent in James' work. Thorndike's connectionism can be viewed as a turning point where theories of neural association became sub-symbolic and graduated from merely implementational accounts to accounts of the functional architecture.

Created by:  Malaika Scudder, September 14, 1999.