Thorndike's Legacy: Learning, Selection, And The Law Of Effect.
Thorndike’s law is a Darwinian selection rule that still anchors every reinforcement procedure you run.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Meyer (1999) looked back at Thorndike’s 1905 law of effect.
The paper placed the law inside Darwin’s idea of selection.
It used history and theory, not new data.
What they found
The law of effect is still the root of modern reinforcement.
Framing it as selection by consequences keeps the field coherent.
How this fits with other research
Malone (1999) makes the same point the same year.
Both papers call Thorndike’s law a Darwinian process.
Baum (2017) extends the idea by swapping the old law for the Price equation.
The math keeps the selection logic but adds precision.
Rojahn et al. (2012) and McDowell (2004) test the idea with virtual organisms.
They show digital creatures follow the same matching law as real ones.
Together the chain moves from story to math to computer proof.
Why it matters
When you teach staff or parents, say reinforcement is selection in action.
Use the Darwin line: consequences that work survive, the rest fade.
If you like numbers, peek at Baum’s Price equation.
If you like demos, cite the virtual critters that match like pigeons.
Either way you ground your procedures in a century-old, still-growing idea.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This introduction to a symposium on the centennial of Edward L. Thorndike's 1898 monograph on animal intelligence briefly considers the origins of his law of effect and the influence of Darwin's selectionism. It also provides the background for an unfinished book review by William W. Cumming of a biography of Thorndike. The review places in historical context Thorndike's position both on psychology as a science of behavior and on the vocabulary of that science.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1999 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1999.72-425