Edward Thorndike
Edward Thorndike
Edward Lee "Ted" Thorndikewas 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 the theory of connectionism and helped lay the scientific foundation for modern educational psychology. He also worked on solving industrial problems, such as employee exams and testing. He was a member of the board of the Psychological Corporation and served as president of the American Psychological Association in 1912. A Review...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth31 August 1874
CityWilliamsburg, MA
CountryUnited States of America
Edward Thorndike quotes about
From the lowest animals of which we can affirm intelligence up to man this type of intellect is found.
Dogs get lost hundreds of times and no one ever notices it or sends an account of it to a scientific magazine.
Human beings are accustomed to think of intellect as the power of having and controlling ideas and of ability to learn as synonymous with ability to have ideas. But learning by having ideas is really one of the rare and isolated events in nature.
When, instead of merely associating some act with some situation in the animal way, we think the situation out, we have a set of particular feelings of its elements.
For origin and development of human faculty we must look to these processes of association in lower animals.
Psychology helps to measure the probability that an aim is attainable.
The real difference between a man's scientific judgments about himself and the judgment of others about him is he has added sources of knowledge.
Whatever exists at all exists in some amount. To know it thoroughly involves knowing its quantity as well as its quality.
Nowhere more truly than in his mental capacities is man a part of nature.
Human folk are as a matter of fact eager to find intelligence in animals.
All that exists, exists in some amount and can be measured.
The dog, on the other hand, has few or no ideas because his brain acts in coarse fashion and because there are few connections with each single process.
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.
Psychology is the science of the intellects, characters and behavior of animals including man.