Edward Lee Thorndike

Edward Lee Thorndike

Edward Lee Thorndike (born August 31, 1874 in Williamsburg , Massachusetts , USA ; † August 9 or 10, 1949 in Montrose , New York ) was an American psychologist and the founder of instrumental conditioning . His behavioral studies on animals and specifically on learning led to the theory of behaviorism .

Life

Thorndike studied at Wesleyan University until 1895 and at Harvard University until 1896 . He earned his doctorate in 1898 from Columbia University with a dissertation on Animal Intelligence . For a year he then taught at Western Reserve University , but in 1899 returned to Columbia University and taught psychology at Teachers College . At Columbia University he was finally active from 1904 to 1940 as a professor , most recently as director of the faculty of psychology. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1917, the American Philosophical Society in 1932, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1934 .

An obituary by Robert S. Woodworth in Science stated that in his first publication - his dissertation - Thorndike had shown in 1898 "as a pioneer in the field of laboratory studies for animal learning" that such experiments "can shed light on many difficult ones Questions of psychology ”; at the same time, he added a particularly important one to the previously known “laws of learning”, the Law of Effects .

Thorndike learning theory

Thorndike is particularly known for his numerous studies with the so-called problem cage ("puzzle box"). This consisted of a small locked chamber, the door of which could be opened by a simple mechanism. The task of the test animal was to discover this mechanism; for example, they had to pull a string, press a lever, step on a platform, or even perform various combinations of these behaviors. His subjects consisted mainly of hungry cats, dogs or chickens, who were rewarded with food after successfully opening the problem cage.

A typical laboratory animal initially explored the hitherto unknown cage, apparently without a plan, and usually only showed the reaction that opened the door after a long time. So Thorndike assumed that the animal's first correct reaction was purely by chance. For this purpose, he created “learning curves” by graphically showing the length of time the test animals stayed in dependence on the number of repeated exercises. In this way he wanted to find out, among other things, whether the animals (comparable to an " aha experience ") are suddenly able to solve the problem - whether one can ascribe insight to them - or whether they learn through trial and error . In the case of insightful behavior, the learning curve should change abruptly from one test to the next, in the other case it should change gradually. Thorndike found that cats learn gradually, through trial and error.

He also wanted to investigate whether the animals, after they had shown the correct reaction for the first time, would show this reaction again immediately in a second run - i.e. whether they had learned which reaction in this situation led to the satisfactory consequences (to the food). In fact, he found that when the test runs were repeated, the latency time until the "correct" reaction occurred became shorter and shorter from run to run. Thorndike explained these findings on the basis of association learning and therefore assumed that the strength of the SR connection must have increased over the course of the investigation, with the stimulus (S) the interior of the problem cage and the response (R) the behavior that the cage previously opened was. As the reason for the increasing strength of the connection, he gave the subsequent positive consequences. He said that the food "strengthened" the behavior in the problem cage that was necessary for escape.

Furthermore, in his learning theory (1898) he formulated three important principles for learning:

• Law of (training) Effect ( Law of Effects ): If in a given situation a particular reaction from satisfactory consequences ( "reward" followed), the association between the situation (the present is charms / stimuli) and the reaction strengthened or . reinforced. If the organism comes into this or a similar stimulus situation again, it is more likely to show the reaction than before.
  • The reverse is also known as the Negative Law of Effect : If a behavior is followed by negative (aversive) consequences in a certain situation, the probability of this reaction occurring in the situation decreases.
• Law of readiness ( Law of Readiness ): There are combined to achieve a specific target different reactions.
• Law of the exercise ( Law of Exercise ): The more often a learning task is repeated, the more you can memorize the course material.

Together with John B. Watson , Edward Thorndike became one of the founders of behaviorism ; Burrhus Frederic Skinner's learning theory was rooted in his theoretical considerations on instrumental conditioning , and his problem cages designed for cats were a forerunner of the Skinner box .

Further research

Thorndike's considerations also flowed into dictionaries in the 1930s that he compiled for children and young adults - and were used as a theoretical foundation for the tiring school drill of schoolchildren in the first half of the 20th century, misunderstood as pedagogy.

Thorndike was also the first to empirically examine andragogy (adult education).

Thorndike was a believer in eugenics .

Fonts (selection)

• Animal Intelligence: Experimental Studies. Macmillan, New York 1911.
• Edward L. Thorndike, Arthur I. Gates: Elementary Principles of Education. MacMillan, New York 1930.

Web links

• Literature by and about Edward Lee Thorndike in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biographical Memoirs National Academy, pdf

Individual evidence

1. ^ According to Meyers-online and according to Lexikon der Naturwissenschaften , Spektrum Akademischer Verlag (1996), August 10th is the day of death; according to Encyclopedia britannica [1] it is August 9th
2. ^ Animal Intelligence: An Experimental Study of the Associative Processes in Animals. In: The Psychological Review. Vol. 2, No. 4, 1898, pp. 1-109.
3. ^ Robert S. Woodworth : Edward Lee Thorndike: 1874-1949. In: Science . Volume 111, No. 2880, 1950, pp. 250-251, doi: 10.1126 / science.111.2880.250