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II. Studies Driven by the Behaviourist School
Some of the earliest and most influential experiments in psychology were aided with the availability of video recording technology. Following the Structuralistic, Functionalistic Psychoanalytic and Gestalt schools of thought came
Classical Experiments Series: A Watchlist
Some of the most influential experiments in psychology are aided with video footage. Compiling links and sources of these, this series contains documentaries, reenactments and representations of these experiments. Get
I. Foundational Work and Studies
Although this series is primarily intended to delve into video footage dug up from archives around the internet of classical experiments that have shaped psychology as a science today, we’d
1) Wundt, Titchener and James: The Foundations
First, the founder of experimental psychology, Wilhelm Wundt. Wundt established the first psychology laboratory in the world, in 1879, at the University of Leipzig, Germany, which is largely accepted as
3) Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka: Gestalt school and The Mentality of Apes
Another important school of thought to emerge at the turn of the 20th century was the Gestalt school. Convinced that the segmented approach of most psychologists to the study of human
4) Ivan Pavlov: Classical Conditioning
Despite featuring as one of the first experimenters in our series with footage, Ivan Pavlov didn’t really start out with his experiment hoping to contribute to the study of psychology.
5) John Watson: Little Albert Experiment
John Watson, an American psychologist made the study of psychology more scientific by starting a new school of thought, Behaviourism. He defined psychology as the “study of observable behaviour” (which
6) B. F. Skinner: Operant Conditioning
Following Pavlov’s exploration of the phenomenon of Classical Conditioning came a large number of experiments and studies into the methods and processes of learning. Subsequently, this era shaped and greatly
7) Edward Thorndike: Puzzle Box
A worthwhile mention, before we proceed onto the other implications of both classical and operant conditioning studies, is Thorndike’s work with cats, which eventually led to his Law of Effect,
9) Miller and Hart: Motivation and Reward in Learning
With this segment, we move to another decade of experiments, the 1940s. A large amount of progress in the field came from this era too, as we’ll be seeing with
8) Mowrer: Social Behaviour in Rats
Mowrer’s classical experiment on Social Behaviour in Rats is n excellent example of the generalizability of behaviouristic research (although Mowrer himself went on to work upon ideas from many different