Home > Encyclopedia of Psychology > Ivan Pavlov

1849-1936
Russian physiologist and Nobel laureate best known for his development of the concept of the conditioned reflex, or conditioned response.

Ivan Pavlov was born into an impoverished family in the rural village of Ryazan, Russia. He won a government scholarship to the University of St. Petersburg and studied medicine at the Imperial Medical Academy, receiving his degree in 1883. In 1890, Pavlov was appointed to a professorship at the St. Petersburg Military Academy and a few years later joined the faculty of the University of St. Petersburg. He organized the Institute of Experimental Medicine in 1895, which was to be his research laboratory for the next 40 years.

In the 1890s, Pavlov investigated the workings of the digestive system—focusing on digestive secretions— using special surgically created openings in...