Study: Law of effect (Thorndike, 1898)

• Law of effect principle


  Responses that produce a satisfying effect in a particular situation become more likely to occur again in that situation, and responses that produce a discomforting effect become less likely to occur again in that situation
• Edward Thorndike

  Famous in psychology for his work on learning theory that leads to the development of operant conditioning within behaviorism
• Classical conditioning


  Developing associations between events
• Operant conditioning


  Learning from the consequences of our behaviour
• Skinner's theory of operant conditioning is built on the ideas of Edward Thorndike
• Thorndike's puzzle box experiment

  1. Place cat in box

  2. Observe cat's behaviour and attempts to escape

  3. Log time taken to escape

  4. Repeat experiment
• Thorndike's puzzle box experiment

  • Cats initially moved randomly but eventually learned to trigger the release mechanism
  • Cats took longer to figure out more complicated release systems but learning patterns were similar
• 1. R Theory

  Learning results from associating stimuli (S) and responses (R)
• Law of Effect

  Responses to stimuli that lead to a positive result will be repeated, responses that lead to a negative result will be eliminated