Edward Thorndike facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Edward Thorndike
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Thorndike in 1912
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Edward Lee Thorndike
August 31, 1874 |
| Died | August 9, 1949 (aged 74) |
| Education | Wesleyan University (BS) Harvard University (MA) Columbia University (PhD) |
| Occupation | Psychologist |
| Known for | Father of Educational Psychology Law of Effect Behavior Modification |
| Spouse(s) | Elizabeth Moulton (m. 1900) |
| Children | 4, including Frances |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Teachers College, Columbia University |
| Doctoral advisor | James McKeen Cattell |
| Other academic advisors | William James |
| Doctoral students | Walter V. Bingham William S. Gray Alan S. Kaufman Laurance F. Shaffer Knight Dunlap Truman Lee Kelley Percival Symonds Leta Stetter Hollingworth Irving Lorge |
Edward Lee Thorndike (born August 31, 1874 – died August 9, 1949) was an American psychologist. He spent almost his whole career at Teachers College, Columbia University. His studies on how animals and people learn helped create the idea of connectionism. This also laid the scientific groundwork for educational psychology.
Thorndike also worked on solving problems in the workplace, like creating tests for employees. He was a leader in the field and served as president of the American Psychological Association in 1912. Many people consider him one of the most important psychologists of the 20th century. His idea called the Law of Effect was very important for understanding how we learn. This law has had a big impact on teaching in classrooms.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Edward Thorndike was born in Williamsburg, Massachusetts. His father was a Methodist minister. Edward went to The Roxbury Latin School and then to Wesleyan University. He earned his first degree there in 1895.
Later, he studied at Harvard University, getting his master's degree in 1897. While at Harvard, he was very interested in how animals learn. He worked with a famous psychologist named William James. After Harvard, he became interested in how humans learn.
In 1898, he finished his PhD at Columbia University. His advisor was James McKeen Cattell, who helped start the field of psychometrics (measuring mental abilities). In 1899, Thorndike started teaching psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. He stayed there for the rest of his career. He studied how people learn, education, and mental testing. He also became the second president of the Psychometric Society in 1937.
On August 29, 1900, he married Elizabeth Moulton. They had four children, including Frances, who became a mathematician.
Connectionism and Puzzle Boxes
Thorndike was a pioneer in studying how we learn. He was also one of the first to use animals in his experiments. He developed a theory of learning based on his research with animals. His main research was about "Animal Intelligence," which was the first time psychology used non-human subjects in this way.
Thorndike wanted to know if animals could learn by watching others or by imitating them. To find out, he created special "puzzle boxes." These boxes were about 20 inches long, 15 inches wide, and 12 inches tall. Each box had a door that would open when an animal pressed a lever or pushed a button inside.
Thorndike mostly used cats in his puzzle boxes. He would put a cat inside and measure how long it took for the cat to escape. When the cat pressed the right lever or button by accident, the door would open, and the cat would get a reward, usually food.
At first, the cats would wander around and meow, not knowing how to get out. But after accidentally hitting the switch once, they would escape faster each time they were put back in the box. Thorndike found that cats did not learn by watching other cats escape. They also didn't learn if he moved their paws to the correct spot. This showed him that animals learned through "trial and error."
By recording the escape times, Thorndike created "learning curves." These curves showed that animals learned slowly at first, then faster and faster, until they reached a point where they escaped very quickly. This showed that learning happens step-by-step.
How Adults Learn
Thorndike used his testing skills to help the United States Army during World War I. He helped create the Army Beta test. This test was used to evaluate new soldiers who couldn't read, hadn't gone to school, or didn't speak English.
Thorndike believed that learning ability doesn't really decline until around age 35. After that, it only drops a little bit each year. He also came up with the Law of Effect. This law says that if a behavior leads to a good result, it's more likely to be repeated. If it leads to a bad result, it's less likely to be repeated.
Thorndike also identified three main types of intelligence:
- Abstract intelligence: This is the ability to understand different ideas and concepts.
- Mechanical intelligence: This is the ability to work with physical objects.
- Social intelligence: This is the ability to interact well with other people.
Key Learning Principles
Thorndike's research led to several important ideas about how we learn:
- Learning is gradual: We learn things bit by bit, not all at once.
- Learning happens automatically: It's not always something we try to do.
- All animals learn in similar ways: Even though they learn at different speeds.
- Law of Effect: If an action is followed by a "satisfying" outcome, it will be strengthened. If it's followed by an "annoying" outcome, it will be weakened.
- Law of Exercise: This has two parts:
- Law of Use: The more often a connection is used, the stronger it becomes.
- Law of Disuse: The longer a connection is not used, the weaker it becomes.
- Law of Recency: The most recent action or response is the one most likely to happen again.
- Multiple Response: When faced with a problem, an animal (or person) will try different things until something works. This is like trial and error.
- Set or Attitude: Animals are naturally ready to act in certain ways.
- Prepotency of Elements: A learner can focus on the important parts of a problem and ignore the unimportant ones.
- Response by Analogy: If you learn something in one situation, you might use that knowledge in a similar new situation.
- Identical Elements Theory of Transfer: How much you can use what you learned in one situation in a new one depends on how similar the two situations are. The more alike they are, the more your learning will "transfer."
- Associative Shifting: You can teach a response that happens with one thing to happen with another thing instead.
- Law of Readiness: This refers to how ready a person or animal is to act or learn. For example, you're more ready to eat when you're hungry than when you're full.
- Identifiability: Being able to recognize and understand a situation is the first step in learning. Learning often involves getting better at identifying different parts of a situation.
- Availability: This is how easy it is to make a specific response. Some actions are easier to learn than others.
Developing the Law of Effect
Thorndike's research focused on "instrumental learning." This means learning happens when an organism does something. For example, he put a cat in a wooden box. The cat tried many ways to get out. Eventually, it hit a lever by chance, and the door opened. The next time, the cat learned to hit the lever much faster.
At first, Thorndike thought that both good results (rewards) and bad results (punishments) were equally important for learning. But later, he found that rewards were much better at motivating learning than punishments. He also stressed that the reward needed to happen right after the action for the lesson to stick.
Impact on Education
Thorndike's ideas helped start the field of educational psychology. This field uses scientific methods to solve problems in schools. He was one of the first to combine learning theories, mental testing, and practical research for school subjects.
He believed that schooling should improve on a person's natural abilities. Unlike some other psychologists of his time, Thorndike used statistics to study education. He collected information to help teachers deal with real-world problems in the classroom.
His theory was about associations, meaning connections between a stimulus (something that happens) and a response (how you react). He believed that a reward or confirmation made these connections stronger. He also thought that being motivated was very important for learning.
The Law of Effect showed how rewards (reinforcers) and punishments work. Even though his ideas were not complete, they led to more research by other psychologists, like B.F. Skinner.
In the classroom, Thorndike's ideas mean that teachers can use praise to encourage good behavior. When students are praised for doing something right, they are more likely to do it again. Teachers can also use "planned ignoring" to stop unwanted behaviors. For example, if a student whines for attention, and the teacher ignores it, the student learns that whining won't get them what they want.
Thorndike's Word Books
Thorndike wrote three different word books to help teachers with reading and word instruction.
- The Teacher's Word Book (1921)
- A Teacher's Word Book of the Twenty Thousand Words Found Most Frequently and Widely in General Reading for Children and Young People (1932)
- The Teacher's Word Book of 30,000 Words (1944)
These books listed words based on how often they appeared in common English reading materials. Thorndike explained that the lists helped teachers decide which words to focus on. Words that appeared often should be taught well so students would remember them. Words that were rare only needed to be understood for the moment.
He counted words from many sources, including:
- Children's books like Black Beauty and Little Women.
- Classic literature like the Bible and Shakespeare.
- Everyday texts like the U.S. Constitution and cookbooks.
Thorndike's Influence
Edward Thorndike made many important contributions to psychology. His work greatly influenced animal psychologists, especially those who studied how behavior can change. He helped pave the way for behaviorism, a school of thought that focuses on observable behaviors.
His ideas about measurement also influenced many fields, including education, military training, and social services. Psychologists from different schools of thought, like Gestalt psychology and behaviorism, all studied Thorndike's research.
Thorndike was one of the first to apply psychological principles to how people learn. His research led to many theories and laws of learning. His Law of Effect is often seen as his greatest achievement.
In 1929, Thorndike looked back at his early theories. He realized that practice alone didn't always make a connection stronger, and that time alone didn't always make it weaker. He also found that while rewards strengthen learning, punishment isn't as effective at changing behavior. He emphasized that the consequences of our actions are very important for what we learn.
His work helped psychology move from focusing on how the mind works to focusing on learning theory. Thorndike's ideas greatly influenced later psychologists like B. F. Skinner and Clark L. Hull. Skinner, like Thorndike, used animal experiments to study learning.
Accomplishments
- In 1912, Thorndike was elected president of the American Psychological Association.
- In 1917, he became a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.
- He was accepted into the National Academy of Sciences in 1917, one of the first psychologists to join.
- He is famous for his animal experiments that supported the Law of Effect.
- In 1934, Thorndike was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Selected Works
- Educational Psychology (1903)
- Introduction to the Theory of Mental and Social Measurements (1904)
- The Elements of Psychology (1905)
- Animal Intelligence (1911)
- The Teacher's Word Book (1921)
- The Psychology of Arithmetic (1922)
- The Measurement of Intelligence (1927)
- Human Learning (1931)
- A Teacher's Word Book of the Twenty Thousand Words Found Most Frequently and Widely in General Reading for Children and Young People (1932)
- The Fundamentals of Learning (1932)
- The Psychology of Wants, Interests, and Attitudes (1935)
- The Teacher's Word Book of 30,000 Words (co-authored with Irving Lorge) (1944)
See also
In Spanish: Edward Thorndike para niños
