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Edward Thorndike

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Edward Thorndike

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Also known as Edward Lee Thorndike, Edward L. Thorndike

American psychologist

OverviewAI-generated

Edward Thorndike (1874–1949) was an author whose body of work included eight titles. His notable publications include *Education*, *Empirical Studies in the Theory of Measurement*, *Human nature and the social order*, *Animal Intelligence*, and *Educational Psychology*.

He was recognized in the American Academy Arts Sciences collection. Thorndike had five children.

Synthesized by Vinony from 10 facts across 5 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, Open Library, Vinony collections, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Works
8

Top works

  • Education
  • Empirical Studies in the Theory of Measurement
  • Human nature and the social order
  • Animal Intelligence
  • Educational Psychology

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Quotes

  • The intellectual evolution of the race consists in an increase in the number, delicacy, complexity, permanence and speed of formation of such associations.
  • The statements about human nature made by psychologists are of two sorts,—statements about consciousness, about the inner life of thought and feeling, the 'self as conscious,' the 'stream of thought'; and statements about behavior, about the life of man that is left unexplained by physics, chemistry, anatomy and physiology, and is roughly compassed for common sense by the terms 'intellect' and 'character.'Animal psychology shows the same double content.
  • Selective breeding can alter man's capacity to learn, to keep sane, to cherish justice or to be happy. There is no more certain and economical a way to improve man's environment as to improve his nature.
  • If we (researchers) should keep the environment of boys and girls absolutely similar these instincts would produce sure and important differences between the mental and moral activities of boys and girls.
  • Psychology is the science of the intellects, characters and behavior of animals including man. Human education is concerned with certain changes in the intellects, characters and behavior of men, its problems being roughly included under these four topics: Aims, materials, means and methods.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

~39 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Edward Lee Thorndike ((1874-08-31)August 31, 1874 – (1949-08-09)August 9, 1949) was an American psychologist who spent nearly his entire career at Teachers College, Columbia University. His work on comparative psychology and the learning process led to his "theory of connectionism" and helped lay the scientific foundation for educational psychology. He also worked on solving industrial problems, such as employee exams and testing.

Thorndike was a member of the board of the Psychological Corporation and served as president of the American Psychological Association in 1912. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Thorndike as the ninth-most cited psychologist of the 20th century. Edward Thorndike had a powerful impact on reinforcement theory and behavior analysis, providing the basic framework for empirical laws in behavior psychology with his law of effect. Through his contributions to the behavioral psychology field came his major impacts on education, where the law of effect has great influence in the classroom.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Edward Thorndike” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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