Clark Leonard Hull
Essay by review • December 18, 2010 • Essay • 582 Words (3 Pages) • 1,748 Views
Clark Leonard Hull
(1884-1952)
* Hull's life
* U. of Wisconsin: studied mining engineering before psychology
* 1918: Ph.D. from Wisconsin
Clark Hull
* early work
o concept formation
o effects of tobacco on behavioral efficiency
o test and measurements
o applied area: Aptitude Testing (1928)
o practical methods of statistical analysis
o invented a machine for calculating correlations
o hypnosis and suggestibility: 10 years, 32 papers, 1 book (1933)
Clark Hull
* 1929: research professor at Yale
* theory of behavior based on Pavlov's laws of conditioning
o his final research interest
o 1927: read Pavlov
o 1930s: articles about conditioning
o 1940: Mathematico-Deductive Theory of Rote Learning
o 1943: Principles of Behavior
o 1952: A Behavior System
Clark Hull
* The spirit of mechanism
* omitted mentalistic terms, including consciousness and purpose
* used mechanistic terms
* human behavior
o mechanistic, robotic
o automatic
o reducible to the language of physics
* machines could be constructed that would display human cognitive functions
Clark Hull
* Objective methodology & quantification
* objective experimental methods
* quantitative
* laws of behavior expressed in language of mathematics
o equations
o empirical constants
o theorems and corollaries
Clark Hull
* objective definitions
* rigorous deduction
* four methods
o simple observation
o systematic controlled observation
o experimental testing of hypotheses
o the hypothetico-deductive method
o establish postulates
o deduce experimentally testable hypotheses
o submit them to experimental test
o method necessary for psychology to be a science
Clark Hull
* Drives
* motivation
o a state of bodily need
o arises from a deviation from optimal biological conditions
* drive
o an intervening variable
o a stimulus arising from a state of tissue need
o arouses or activates the behavior
Clark Hull
o its strength is empirically determined
o is nonspecific
o energizes behavior
o does not direct behavior
o direction of behavior determined by environmental stimuli
o reinforcement: reduction or satisfaction of a drive
Clark Hull
* primary drives
o arise from a state of physical need
o are vital to the organism's survival
* secondary drives
o are learned
o are situations or environmental stimuli associated with the reduction of primary drives
o as a result of the association, become drives themselves
Clark Hull
* Learning
* has a key role in Hull's system
* focuses on principle of reinforcement (Thorndike's law of effect)
o law of primary reinforcement
o defined in terms of the reduction of a primary need
o primary reinforcement is the basis for learning
o secondary reinforcement
Clark Hull
* S-R
...
...