Law Of Effect: Thorndike's Law Of Effect

1. In the video we see Thorndike using a hungry cat and putting that cat in a box in which food is in clear site outside the box, all the cat has to do is to find its way out by pulling or stepping on the treadle or pulling on a wire. When Thorndike first placed the cat in the box he was unable to see any flashes of insight and the successful actions appeared by chance and once the cat realized how to escape they were able to do it quicker and quicker. He doesn’t believe that the animals understand the consequence of their behavior until it happens and this is where trial and error comes from. Animals don’t just come in and see the puzzle and are able to solve it instead they try multiple things might fail or commit error a couple of times and learning from those errors they are able to learn and succeed. A real life example of this is for example a little kid being curious of touching the stove. The little kid doesn’t know the consequence of his or her actions. So when the child touches the hot stove and realizes it was a mistake to do it because it caused pain then the child might not repeat the

Thorndikes’s Law of Effect describes the relationship between the action or behavior of what one does and its consequence. It is clearly describe’s that when a individual does a behavior and gets positive consequences that behavior is most likely to be reproduced and when the action or behavior causes pain or discomfort then when repeated the response will be weaker. Such as the cat pulling the string to get food and since that was rewarding it will do it again and also the child touching the stove and receiving pain and discomfort will not touch the stove again. The text also describes four key elements that are important to the “law of effect” which are the environment in which the behavior occurs, the behavior that occurs, the change in the environment after the behavior has taken place and lastly the change in behavior produced by the outcome. (Chance,