Edward Thorndike - Thorndike's Influence

Thorndike's Influence

Thorndike contributed a great deal to psychology. His influence on animal psychologists, especially those who focused on behavior plasticity, greatly contributed to the future of that field. In addition to helping pave the way towards behaviorism, his contribution to measurement influenced philosophy, the administration and practice of education, military administration, industrial personnel administration, civil service and many public and private social services. Thorndike influenced many schools of psychology as Gestalt psychologists, psychologists studying the conditioned reflex, and behavioral psychologists all studied Thorndike’s research as a starting point. Thorndike was a contemporary of Watson and Pavlov. However, unlike Watson, Thorndike introduced the concept of reinforcement. Thorndike was the first to apply psychological principles to the area of learning. His research led to many theories and laws of learning. His theory of learning, especially the law of effect, is most often considered to be his greatest achievement. In 1929, Thorndike addressed his early theory of learning, and claimed that he had been wrong. After further research, he was forced to denounce his law of exercise completely, because he found that practice alone did not strengthen an association, and that time alone did not weaken an association. He also got rid of half of the law of effect, after finding that a satisfying state of affairs strengthens an association, but punishment is not effective in modifying behavior. He placed a great emphasis on consequences of behavior as setting the foundation for what is and is not learned. His work represents the transition from the school of functionalism to behaviorism, and enabled psychology to focus on learning theory. Thorndike’s work would eventually be a major influence to B.F. Skinner and Clark Hull. B.F. Skinner, like Thorndike, put animals in boxes and observed them to see what they were able to learn. The learning theories of Thorndike and Pavlov were later synthesized by Clark Hull. His work on motivation and attitude formation directly impacted studies on human nature as well as social order. Thorndike’s research drove comparative psychology for fifty years, and influenced countless psychologists over that period of time, and even still today.