EDWARD LEE THORNDIKE

Connectionism
Theory
EDWARD LEE THORNDIKE , born on
August 31, 1874, at Williamsburg,
Massachusetts, U.S.

He received his undergraduate degree

from Wesleyan University and began
his graduate work at Harvard. By age
23, he completed his PhD from
Columbia University. 

He was an American psychologist

whose work on animal behavior and
the learning process led to the theory
of connectionism.
Thorndike began his professional career
at the Women’s College of Western
Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio,
where he taught for one year, before
accepting a teaching position at
Teachers College at Columbia University
in 1899.

Thorndike remained at Teachers College

until his retirement in 1940; his career
focused largely on evaluating the
learning process and testing
intelligence.
In 1912, Thorndike acted as president of the
American Psychological Association.
Thorndike also served as president of the
Psychometric Society, after the first president
and founder Louis Leon Thurstone, stepped
down in 1937. Thorndike is also known as
“Father of Educational Psychology”.

Thorndike married Elizabeth Moulton in 1900

and they raised four children.

He died on August 9, 1949, near age 75.

 Thorndike‘ s
CONNECTIONISM THEORY
The Learning Theory of Thorndike represents the
original S-R framework of behavioral psychology:

Learning is a result of associations forming

between stimuli and responses. Such associations
or “habits” become strengthened or weakened by
the nature and frequency of the S-R pairings.
Thorndike’s connectionism theory consists of three primary laws:

(1) law of effect – responses to a situation which are

followed by a rewarding state of affairs will be
strengthened and become habitual responses to that
situation and punishments or failures will decrease in
strength.
(2) law of readiness – states that the more “ready” an
individual to respond to a stimulus, the stronger will be
the bond between them.

This law emphasizes the role of motivation.

Animals and humans must be motivated to develop
an association or to exhibit a previously established habit.
(3) law of exercise – connections become
strengthened with practice and weakened when
practice is discontinued.
 Thorndike Puzzle Box
He placed a cat in the puzzle box, which was encourage
to escape to reach a scrap of fish placed outside. 
Thorndike would put a cat into the box and time how
long it took to escape.  The cats experimented with
different ways to escape the puzzle box and reach the
fish.

Eventually they would stumble upon the lever which

opened the cage.  When it had escaped it was put in
again, and once more the time it took to escape was
noted.  In successive trials the cats would learn that
pressing the lever would have favorable consequences
and they would adopt this behavior, becoming
increasingly quick at pressing the lever.
 Principles

• Learning requires both practice and rewards (laws of effect /exercise)

• A series of S-R connections can be chained together if they belong to
the same action sequence (law of readiness).
• Transfer of learning occurs because of previously encountered
situations.
• Intelligence is a function of the number of connections learned.