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Ivan Pavlov
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C.Lloyd Morgan
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Edward Thorndike
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John B. Watson
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C. Lloyd Morgan published "Introduction to Comparative Psychology"
Also known as Morgan’s Cannon, it states “In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher mental faculty, if it can be interpreted as the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale.” This echoes back to the principles of Occam’s razor. -
Ivan Pavlov awarded Nobel Prize
Ivan Pavlov was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology, and Medicine for the work of phisiology on digestive glands. Although he was not a psychologist, but a scientist-he developed a theory known today as classical conditioning. -
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B.F. Skinner
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Edward Thorndike formalized the "Law of Effect"
The Law of Effect means that if a creature can make a connection to something, that they can learn or unlearn a behavior. -
Edward Thorndike published "Animal Intellegence"
Edward Thorndike studied the behavioral effects of animals. He constructed puzzle boxes, and used cats. His method was for the cat to learn from its mistakes, and gradually escape the box. He said that when the cats felt pleasure, then the consequence was "stamped in", and when they felt pain, then the consequence would be "stamped out". Gradually the cats all learned how to quickly escape the box. This was his "association theory." -
Edward Thorndike elected President of the American Psychological Association
Because he was so well regarded with his psychological work with human and animal patients alike, he was elected President of the APA. -
John B. Watson published "Little Albert"
John B. Watson experimented on a young child named Albert in order to see if he could control emotional responses in humans. He did this by placing a rat in front of the child. At first the child was not afraid of the rat. He proceded to tell the child to touch the rat, and when he touched it Watson made a loud noise. The child immediately withdrew his hand from the rat and was afraid of it, even with the absense of loud noises. The child connected the emotion of fear to the rat. -
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Albert Bandura
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B.F. Skinner coins the term "operant conditioning"
Operant conditioning means that if a condition is reinforced, then a change in behavior will occur. He provides the subject with a stimulus, then looks for a reaction. He goes further and gives consequence to the matter, and then reinforces those consequences positively or negatively. -
B.F. Skinner published "The Behavior of Organisms"
In the book, behaviour is classified either as respondent or operant behaviour, where respondent behaviour is caused by an observable stimuli and operant behaviour is where there is no observable stimuli for a behaviour. The behaviour is studied in depth with rats and the feeding responses they exhibit. -
B.F. Skinner wrote "Verbal Behavior."
He wrote "Verbal Behavior" because he wanted to analyze characters or authors in literature from a psychological standpoint without giving a hypothesis. He introduced the term in 1957. -
B.F. Skinner created the "Skinner box"
Skinner studied operant conditioning by conducting experiments using pigeons and rats which he placed in a “Skinner Box” that was similar to Thorndike’s puzzle box. His method was similar to Thorndike's, but more mechanical. He tried to study through nature, not from other's theories. -
Albert Bandura co-published "Adolescent Agression"
Albert Bandura co-wrote "Adolescent Agression" with Richard Walters. Albert Bandura believed that aggression is learned through a process called behavior modeling. He believed that individuals do not actually inherit violent tendencies, but they modeled them after three principles He argued that individuals, especially children learn aggressive reponses from observing others, either personally or tfrom the environment surrounding them. -
Albert Bandura created the bobo doll experiment
Albert Bandura created his now famous bobo doll experiment. This two year experiment tested violence in children by placing the child in a room and seeing how they reacted to the doll. When the child was in the room with non violent objects, such as small toys, stickers, art supplies the child stayed calm, but when the bobo doll was introduced, then there were signs of physical and verbal agression towards the doll. A child even picked up a toy mallet and hit the doll repeatedly.
