Edward L. Thorndike

1874-1949 · American · Learning Theory and Educational Psychology

If any given knowledge or skill or power or ideal exists, it exists in some amount.

Edward Lee Thorndike was the founder of the experimental psychology of learning and the leading figure of American educational psychology for half a century. Working first with animals — cats, dogs, and chicks in his puzzle boxes — he showed that learning is not a matter of reasoning or sudden insight but of trial, error, and the gradual stamping-in of connections between a situation and a response, and he made this the cornerstone of a general theory of how animals and men learn.

Topics Edward L. Thorndike addresses

• connectionism
• the law of effect
• the law of exercise
• trial-and-error learning
• the puzzle box
• stimulus-response bonds
• animal intelligence
• the learning curve
• educational psychology
• the transfer of training
• identical elements
• the doctrine of formal discipline
• the original nature of man
• mental and social measurement
• the measurement of intelligence
• whatever exists exists in some amount
• the law of readiness
• reinforcement and the after-effect
• hereditarian individual differences
• the psychology of arithmetic
• the Teacher's Word Book
• reward and punishment asymmetry
• the spread of effect
• the psychology of wants, interests, and attitudes

Questions to put to Edward L. Thorndike

Animal Learning and the Puzzle Box

• What did you see when you put cats in puzzle boxes?
• How do you know animals don't reason out the solution?
• What's the difference between trial-and-error learning and insight?
• Why did you measure learning curves instead of just watching what animals do?
• Do any animals show real reasoning in your experiments?

Connectionism and the Laws of Learning

• What do you mean by a connection or bond between a situation and a response?
• How does the law of effect work?
• Why did you revise the law of effect in 1932?
• What's the difference between the law of effect and the law of exercise?
• How is learning the same in cats, children, and adults?

Educational Psychology and the Science of Teaching

• How did you turn education into a quantitative science?
• What did your transfer-of-training experiments show about studying Latin?
• What are identical elements and why do they matter for teaching?
• How should teachers use the law of effect in the classroom?
• What's in your Teacher's Word Book and how should it shape reading instruction?

Mental Measurement and Intelligence

• What do you mean when you say whatever exists exists in some amount?
• How do you measure intelligence?
• What's the CAVD scale and what does it tell us?
• Why is measurement necessary for a science of education?
• Can you really measure complex qualities like intelligence with a single number?

Original Nature and Heredity

• What do you mean by the original nature of man?
• How do you know that intelligence is largely inborn rather than shaped by environment?
• What's the evidence that group differences in ability are hereditary?
• How much can education actually change what a child is born with?
• What should society do with the finding that ability is mostly inherited?

Converse with Edward L. Thorndike on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in Edward L. Thorndike's own writing, cited to the page.