Lattal, K.A. (1998).
A century of effect: Legacies of E.L. Thorndike’s <i>Animal Intelligence</i> monograph.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,
70, 325-336.
Edward L. Thorndike's monograph, Animal Intelligence: An Experimental Study of
the Associative Processes in Animls, is reviewed with respect to three
contemporary issues: the relation between human behavior and that of other animals,
the law of effect, and research methods for studying behavior. Thorndike employed
an experimental analysis, rather than relying on either anecdote or naturalistic
observation, to study problem solving and other behavioral processes of cats,
dogs, and chicks. His analysis focused on whether the similarities between
humans and other animals were homologous, that is, functionally equivalent,
or whether they were merely analagous in form. Concluding the latter, he used
the law of effect, not stated as such until long after the monograh was
published, to account for the behavioral processes he studied, without
appeal to reason or other cognitive mechanisms. His combination of applying
experimental methods to the study of animal behavior and insisting on
objectivity in behavioral description was prescient of such later
behaviorists as Watson and Skinner.
Key words: E. L Thorndikke, intelligence,human-animal comparisons
homologues, analogues, law of effect, research methods