Analysis Of Edward Thorndike's Theory Of Law Of Effect

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Edward Thorndike best known for his theory of law of effect on how cats escape from a puzzle box in 1898 was the first psychologist to study the consequences of behavior. Thorndike used cats and dogs. Thorndike put together what he called a puzzle box. The idea was that the cat has to get through the maze by doing different puzzles such as step on a lever or hit a lever with their tail. At the end of the puzzle box the cat or dog would receive a bowel of food for getting out. Thorndike would do this several times and time each animal to see how fast they can do the course each time. The cats would learn to escape from the puzzle box, however only when there was only one response. (Jr, 1998)
Thorndike came to the conclusion that “the puzzle …show more content…

Skinner is known as the father of operant conditioning, his theory comes from Thorndike’s theory of Law of Effect. In 1938 Skinner sparked the term operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is “A process of behavior modification in which a subject is encouraged to behave in a desired manner through positive or negative reinforcement, so that the subject comes to associate the pleasure or displeasure of the reinforcement with the behavior” (Dictionary.com, 2014). Skinner in his theory testing used a box that he referred to as the Skinner box, which was similar to the puzzle box that Thorndike used.
Skinner designed a box as a chamber that consists of a key or a bar that pigeons can press to achieve food and/or water; this is considered as reinforcement. Skinner then added a machine that would record the pigeon’s responses and how many times they received food or water. Sometimes the offered other stimuli to be given such as mages, light and sound, in some chambers the floor was wired to give of electric shocks. As skinner referred to the box as the Skinner box it was used as a controlled environment and it also helped Skinner and his researches to figure out the schedule of reinforcement had the highest rate of response. (Iversen, …show more content…

Bandura held an experiment what is known at the Bobo Doll experiment using seventy two children all together thirty six boys and thirty six girls ranging from the ages of three to six. Bandura broke the children up into three different groups. Group A consisted of twelve boy and twelve girls, they watched a male and female hit, punch, and kick the Bobo doll. Group B consisted of another twelve boys and twelve girls watched a male and female play nice with the Bobo dole. However group C that consisted of twelve boys and twelve girls did not watch either. Each group was put in another room that was filled with toys, games, and a Bobo doll for twenty minutes. Group A when in the room imitated what they saw the other male and female doing to the Bobo doll such as hitting and kicking the doll for no reason. Group B and Group C where fine and played nice with BoBo. (Albert Bandura, 1963)
Bandura came to the conclusion that when a child is exposed to aggression in any form they will react on this, imitation goes a long way and with young children see the will imitate. This experiment has been done multiple times over the years using different methods using music, fight movies, and videogames. Each experiment comes to the same conclusion that Bandura has come up

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