MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM: CLARK L. HULL'S PRINCIPLES OF BEHAVIOR AND SOME PROBLEMS IN CONTEMPORARY SCHEDULE THEORY¹

Mathematical principles of reinforcement

“…Fifty years ago, Hull (1943) offered us his proposed Principles of behavior, and more recently (Wearden 1989) I suggested that contemporary researchers in reinforcement schedule theory are Hull's true intellectual heirs. The current target article strongly reinforces this belief, magnificently illustrating that the search for scientific understanding of behavioral phenomena is a quest still well worth pursuing.…”

INTERPRETING COGNITIVE PHENOMENA: REVIEW OF DONAHOE AND PALMER'S LEARNING AND COMPLEX BEHAVIOR1

“…It is well known too that S-R behaviorists such as Hull (1930Hull ( , 1937see Amsel & Rashotte, 1984;Wearden, 1989), Guthrie (1935), and Miller (1959 made skillful use of inferred internal responses and stimuli to construct parsimonious accounts of complex behavior in terms of acquired S-R relationships. Interestingly, Skinner's approach has sometimes been distinguished from those of the S-R theorists on the grounds that Skinner was unwilling to infer internal stimulus and response events to mediate temporal gaps between environmental cause and behavioral effect.…”

Skinner's early research: From reflexology to operant conditioning.

“…But Hull's group had adopted Skinner's technique, not his science of a functional analysis. Skinner (1944) reviewed Hull's Principles and did not like it, in spite of its many references to his own work, because “the postulates described an internal mediating system in which stimuli entered the organism, underwent various changes, and emerged as responses” (Skinner, 1979, p. 269; see also Wearden, 1989). Although Skinner initially was disturbed by Hull's lack of coverage of his functional analysis, he later wrote that I could scarcely complain, because I myself never made any use of the work of Hull or his students.…My results did not fit their theories nor their results mine.…”