Premium
THORNDIKE'S PUZZLE BOXES AND THE ORIGINS OF THE EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR
Author(s) -
Chance Paul
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.1999.72-433
Subject(s) - animal behavior , behavioral analysis , cognitive science , psychology , field (mathematics) , behavioural sciences , foundation (evidence) , animal cognition , cognitive psychology , cognition , neuroscience , history , zoology , mathematics , archaeology , pure mathematics , psychotherapist , biology
The year of Thorndike's dissertation on animal intelligence, 1898, may mark the beginning of the field that eventually became known as the experimental analysis of behavior. The dissertation began a major shift in thinking about animal and human learning, provided important methodological innovations, and carried the seeds of later research and theory, particularly by B. F. Skinner. Although Thorndike was an associationist in 1898, the dissertation began the systematic search for fundamental behavioral processes, and laid the foundation for an empirical science of behavior.