Most+Important+People

**Mo﻿st Important People**

//**__Ivan Pavlov__**// **(1849-1936)**
 * Born the son of a village priest in Ryazan, he was educated in church values growing up. Inspired by a Russian physiologist, Pavlov gave up religion to pursue a career in science (Nobel Lectures, 1967).
 * The bulk of his research was dedicated to the study of the digestion system. His discoveries led him to conclude that the nervous system was the key player involved in the regulation of the digestive system (Nobel Lectures, 1967)
 * This research led him to study the science of conditioned reflexes (Nobel Lectures, 1967). Pavlov began noticing that that the dogs in his study would salivate before the presentation of food. This finding led him to experiment with presenting various stimuli (most famous was the ringing of a bell) before the presentation of food, and observe the findings. He discovered that after repeated associations the dogs began salivating from the presentation of the stimulus alone (without the pairing of the food); he then termed this occurrence as a conditioned reflex (Cherry, 2011).




 * Pavlov’s research on reflexes (Classical Conditioning) inspired Behaviorist psychologists to investigate how conditioning can be related to how individuals learn (Cherry, 2011). His hard work paid off in 1904 when Pavlov was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology (Nobel Lectures, 1967).
 * Ivan Pavlov died in Leningrad in February 1936; his work still lives on today (Cherry, 2011).

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//**__Edward Tho__﻿__rndike__**// **(1874- 19﻿49)**
 * Edward Thorndike, son of a Methodist minister, was born in Massachusetts in 1874 (Cherry, 2011). Initially Thorndike had no interest in psychology, but became inspired by // The Principles of Psychology // by William James (Cherry, 2011).
 * Thorndike is most well-known for his involvement with animal research, which led to his theory called the law-of-effect. He used a trial-and-error approach to test the ability of a cat to figure out how to get out of a puzzle-box (Cherry, 2011)

__﻿__
 * The results of his research led Thorndike to believe that rewards, such as escaping the unpleasant environment of a box, strengthen the associations between stimulus and response both directly and automatically ( Medin, Ross, & Markman, 2005).
 * Thorndike, the “father of modern day educational psychology”, is associated with the school of thought known as functionalism and became the president of the American Psychological Association in 1912 (Cherry, 2011).
 * He passed away in August of 1949 (Cherry, 2011).

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<span style="color: #376092; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">//** __Jean Piaget__ **// <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">** (1896-1980) ** <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">//"The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done."// --Jean Piaget


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Born in Switzerland, young Piaget had a knack for biology and began researching and writing scientific papers even at the young age of eleven (Cherry, 2011).
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Over the years Piaget grew interested in psychoanalysis. After working with Alfred Binet on testing the intelligence level of children, Piaget became capable of predicting the common mistakes children made at specific times in their lives (Soylent, 2011). He began probing children for answers, and their logical explanations behind those answers, to questions about the natural world (Solyent, 2011). The findings of his experiment led Piaget to the study of work he is most famous for, developmental psychology.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Piaget developed the “Theory of Cognitive Development”, where every individual over the course of their childhood encounters and conquers four stages of their intellectual development (Cherry, 2011). The four stages of Piaget’s theory are: 1. The Sensorimotor Stage (birth-2 years of age) 2.The Preoperational Stage (age 2-7) 3.The Concrete Operational Stage (age 7-11) and 4. The Formal Operation Stage (age 11-15) (Solyent, 2011). According to Piaget, children first begin to develop cognitive structures through their interaction with the world, and at the end of the four stages are capable of expressing abstract thought (Soylent, 2011)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Piaget’s work with children has greatly impacted today’s educational system, by shedding insight into the minds of youth and the appropriate ways of going about teaching them.

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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">__** Lev Vygotsky **__ <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">** (1896-1934) ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> //"Learning is more than the acquisition of the ability to think; it is the acquisition of many specialised abilities for thinking about a variety of things."// - Lev Vygotsky


 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Lev Vygotsky was born in the Russian Empire in 1896, the son of a banker and an aspiring teacher (New World Encyclopedia, 2011).
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Vygotsky’s most popular work dealt with Developmental Psychology and the educational system (Cherry, 2011). Through his work with special needs children, Vygotsky concluded that in order to further psychological development children must have interaction with those who are older and wiser(New World Encyclopedia, 2011).
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Lev Vygotsky created two categories for Human Development:


 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Zone of Proximal Development
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">The gap between what a child is capable of, and their future potential if being guided by a capable peer (New World Encyclopedia, 2011).
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Sociocultural Theory
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Human development results from the dynamic interaction between the individual and society (Cherry, 2011).
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Vygotsky died in 1934 from tuberculosis; yet his work lives on and is frequently researched to this day (Cherry, 2011).

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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">**//__ ALBERT BANDURA __//** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 150%;">**//__ (1925 - ) __//**



<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> **Albert Bandura was born on December 4 1925 in the northern part of Alberta, Canada. (**Cherry,2011)

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> In 1953, he started his teaching career at Stanford University. It was there that he wrote his first book called //Adolescent Aggression// in 1959.


 * He continues to work at Stanford University to this day.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> ~According to Bandura, “learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effect of their own actions to inform them what to do.” (Bandura, 1977) <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> ~Albert Bandura is famous for his “Bobo Doll” study that was an aggression experiment in 1961. An experiment helped shape the Social Learning Theory. It was about the importance of observational learning. (Cherry,2011)

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">__Social Learning Theory-__ a concept that the impulse to behave aggressively is subject to the influence of learning, socialization, and experience. Social learning theorists believe aggression is learned under voluntary control, by observation of aggressive behavior in others, and by direct experience. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 8th edition. © 2009, Elsevie

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> ~__ QUOTES BY ALBERT BANDURA~ __

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> “People with high assurance in their capabilities approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than as threats to be avoided.” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> –Encyclopedia of Human Behavior, 1994

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> “People not only gain understanding through reflection, they evaluate and alter their own thinking.” <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">– Social Foundations of Thought and Action, 1986

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">* The following video is the "Bobo Doll" experiment. *

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<span style="color: #376092; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 230%;"> **//KURT LEWIN//** <span style="color: #376092; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 230%;">**(1890-1947)**

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 19px; line-height: 115%;">**//__“Father of Modern Social Psychology”__//** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> * Kurt Lewin was born in a village in the Prussian Province of Posen on September 9, 1890. He immigrated to the United States in 1933, and became a citizen in 1940. (Cherry, 2007)

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">*He used experiments to test hypothesis. Kurt Lewin is one of the first psychologists to test human behavior; he also applied Experimental psychology, Social psychology, and Personality psychology into his testing.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">*He developed a theory that paid special attention to interpersonal conflict, and importance of individual personalities.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">*Kurt Lewin has published more than 80 articles and 8 books in the Psychology field. (Greathouse,1997)

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">*Argued that behavior is caused by both personal characteristics and the environment.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">*He passed away on February 2, 1947 after suffering from a heart attack in Massachusetts. (Cherry, 2007)

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">**//__ The Field Theory- __//** is the proposition that human behavior is the function of both the person and the environment.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">**//B = f (P, E)//** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">His cycle of action, reflection, generalization, and testing is characteristic of experiential learning:



<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">**__Experiential Learning-__** “knowledge, skills, and/or abilities attained through observation, simulation, and/or participation that provides depth and meaning to learning by engaging the mind and/or body through activity, reflection, and application." (Craig 1997).

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">**__*QUOTES BY KURT LEWIN* :__** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">"If you want truly to understand something, try to change it. "  <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">"Social action, just like physical action, is steered by perception." <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">"Learning is more effective when it is an active rather than a passive process." <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">**__﻿﻿__**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">** __Burrhus Frederic Skinner__ ** <span style="color: #376092; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 140%; text-align: center;">**(1904-1990)**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">**__﻿﻿__**


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">B.F Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania on March 20, 1904. His father was an attorney and his mother stayed at home. He had a younger brother who dies at 16 years old of a cerebral aneurism (Vargas, 2005). Given that he appreciated working with his hands, he spent his childhood creating things such as a steam canon, a cabin in the woods, roller scooters, and steerable wagons, and so on (Vargas, 2005).


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Skinner attended Hamilton College where he studied English Literature including Romance Languages (Swenson, 1999). Subsequently, he pursued a profession in writing and went to Middlebury School of English in Vermont (Swenson, 1999). He published a book and a series of short newspaper articles but soon felt like it was not going anywhere. While working at a bookstore he came across books by Ivan Pavlov and John B. Watson and found them to be both impressive and exciting (Vargas, 2005). He went on to enroll in the Psychology Department of Harvard University.


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Skinner believed that it would be more beneficial to observe behavior rather than studying internal occurrences such as thinking and emotions (McLeod, 2007). He proposed that the greatest way to study behavior was to observe the causes of an action and the consequences that followed it, an approach he called Operant Conditioning (McLeod, 2007). He was considered the father of Operant conditioning, a term that he coined; however it was influenced by Thorndike’s law of effect (McLeod, 2007). He labeled three categories of responses that follow behavior known as, neutral operants, reinforcers, and punishers (McLeod, 2007).


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">He ran tests using animals, which he placed in a “ Skinner Box ”, comparable to Thorndike’s puzzle box (McLeod, 2007). He demonstrated how **//Positive Reinforcement//**, **//Negative//** **//reinforcement//**, **//Positive//** **//punishment,//** and **//Negative//** **//punishment//** worked using hungry rats, where he also found two learning responses identified as Escape Learning and Avoidance Learning (McLeod, 2007).

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">instructional development.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Because of Skinner’s research,Operant Conditioning has been broadly used in clinical setting, teaching, and

<span style="color: #376092; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 220%;">**John Broadus Watson** <span style="color: #376092; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 220%;">**(1878-1958)﻿** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; height: 269px; width: 240px;">
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">John B. Watson was born on January 9,1878 in Greenville South Carolina to a religious mother, Emma, and an alcoholic and cheating father, Pickens (Watson, 1999). His father left the house when he was twelve years old. He enrolled at Furman University at 16, although he went through a difficult time after his father left, thanks to one of his professors there, he changed his bad ways and graduated 5 years later with his masters (Cherry, 2011).
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">He later went on to attend the University of Chicago where he met his first wife, Mary Ikes with whom he had two children, Mary and John (Watson, 1999). He also developed a curiosity for comparative psychology and studies on animals (Watson, 1999).
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> Behaviorism, the study of human behavior, became known as a movement in 1903 after Watson put out his article entitled “//Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It”//(McLeod, 2008). He believed that every individual difference was because of different ways of learning (McLeod, 2008).
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">With the help of his graduate assistant Rosalie Rayner, who became his second wife, Watson did an experiment known as the “LittleAlbert” experiment (Cherry, 2011). He conditioned a 9-month-old child to become afraid of a white rat (McLeod, 2011). Watson associated the white rat with a loud noise repeatedly, which later made little Albert afraid just by seeing the rat (Cherry, 2011). He showed that classical conditioning could be used to form aphobia (Cherry, 2011) and could be that little Albert fear could be linked to other white and furry things (McLeod, 2008).
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">In 1935, his wife Rosalie died; he had two children with her, James and Williams (Watson, 1999). After her death, his relationship with his children deteriorated and he retired to his farm in Connecticut up until he died in 1958 (Cherry, 2011).

<span style="color: #651287; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 220%;">**Honorable Mentions**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> //**__Edward Tolman__**// **(1886-1959)**


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Edward Tolman believed that there was always an adaptive purpose behind every behavior (Sahakain, 1976).
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Tolman placed emphasis on “Latent Learning”, the type of learning that the individual is unaware of at the time, but manifests itself in the future when cued (Sahakain, 1976).
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">According to Sahakain (1976), Tolman identified six types of learning:
 * <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Learning by cathexes, equivalence beliefs, field expectancies, field cognition modes, drive discrimination and motor patterns.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">**Tolman's System of Varibles**:



<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> //__**Edwin Guthrie**__// ** (1886-1959) **

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">*He worked a lot of objectivity and observational aspects of behavior. He believed movements are learned, not behaviors.
====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">*He worked at the University of Washington, first in the field of Philosophy, and then 5 years later changed to Psychology. (Lefrancois, 1972) ====

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Created the Guthrie-Horton experiment, also known as the Puzzle Box Experiment.
====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">It consisted of cats repeating the same order of movements associated with their previous escape from the box. This is a form of Stereotyped Behavior. (Wolman, 1973) ====



<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Edwin Guthrie was a Behaviorist psychologist that is known for the “One-Trial Learning” approach (Kearsley, 2002).

====<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Guthrie believed that the best way to study behavior was through objective observations, and that the relationship between a stimulus and a response was known as a “habit” (Kearsley, 2002). ====

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> //__**Clark Hull**__// **(1884- 1952)**

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> Best known for his Drive Reduction Theory: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Behavior is in response to individual’s natural “drives”; which when reduced encourage learning through reinforcement (Sahakain, 1976).

**__ Martin Seligman __** **__ (1942-present) __** **<span style="color: #000000; display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 21px; line-height: 115%; text-align: center;">Learned Helplessness **

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> * He was born in Albany, New York on August 12, 1942. (Cherry, 2011)

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">* Martin Seligman is the Director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. (Meek, 2009)

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> * He has written over 200 articles on motivation and personality as well as 20 books. (meek, 2009)

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">Many Psychologists admire his theory of Learned Helplessness.

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">Developed the theory that animals or humans have learned to act or behave helplessly in a certain situation. (Cherry, 2011)

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">**__ Learned Helplessness __** - Learned helplessness is a psychological state where people feel powerless to change their self or situation. This is primarily caused when people attribute negative things in life to internal, stable and global factors. Essentially, it means that the person feels as if change is not possible, since there is a pervasive and unchangeable personal problem (Meek, 2009).

<span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">Quote By Martin Seligman- <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; line-height: 160%;">// "Success requires persistence, the ability to not give up in the face of failure. I believe that optimistic explanatory style is the key to persistence." -Martin Seligman // (Janine, 2011)