1874-1949
American educational psychologist best known for his experimentally derived theories of learning and his influence on behaviorism.

Edward Thorndike was born in Williamsburg, Massachusetts, and grew up in a succession of New England towns where his father served as a Methodist minister. After receiving his bachelor's degree from Wesleyan University, Thorndike did graduate work in psychology, first at Harvard under the guidance of William James and later at Columbia under James McKeen Cattell. His first major research project—undertaken while he was still a graduate student—involved trial-and-error learning, using first chickens and then cats. Observing the behavior of cats attempting to escape from enclosed "puzzle boxes," Thorndike noted that responses that produced satisfaction—escape from the box and...