Clark L. Hull
Clark L. Hull (1884-1952) was a prominent American psychologist known for his significant contributions to learning theory and motivation in psychology. Born in New York and raised in Michigan, Hull faced numerous personal challenges, including a serious illness that altered his career path from mineral engineering to psychology. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from the University of Michigan and later completed his doctorate at the University of Wisconsin, where he initially focused on concept formation.
Hull became a key figure in the scientific study of psychology, particularly during his tenure as a research professor at Yale. He aimed to apply experimental and statistical methods to psychology, striving to establish it as an exact science. His most influential work, "Principles of Behavior" (1943), introduced the drive reduction theory, suggesting that behavior is motivated by the need to satisfy biological drives such as hunger and thirst. Hull's theories, which include concepts like fractional anticipatory goal responses and incentive motivation, have had a lasting impact on the field, emphasizing a systematic, quantitative approach to psychological research. Today, he is recognized for his foundational role in behaviorism and his contributions to the study of hypnosis and learning.
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Subject Terms
Clark L. Hull
- Born: May 24, 1884, near Akron, New York
- Died: May 10, 1952
- Place of death: New Haven, Connecticut
TYPE OF PSYCHOLOGY: Learning; motivation
Hull was a leading architect of learning theory and pioneered a quantitative description of the laws of behavior.
Life
Clark L. Hull grew up on a farm in Michigan. He was educated in a one-room schoolhouse and passed the teacher’s examination at the age of seventeen. After teaching school for a year, Hull continued his own education, spending one year in high school in West Saginaw and then two years at Alma Academy, where typhoid fever almost killed him. He then enrolled at Alma College but abandoned his plans for a career in mineral engineering when poliomyelitis left him paralyzed in one leg. He eventually graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from the University of Michigan in 1913. After teaching for a year in Richmond, Kentucky, Hull entered the graduate program in psychology at the University of Wisconsin. He earned a doctorate in 1918 for his dissertation on concept formation, and he was subsequently appointed to the Wisconsin faculty in the area of applied psychology. In 1929, Hull became a research professor at Yale, where he remained for the rest of his academic career. Hull was married to Bertha Iutzi.
While a faculty member at Wisconsin, Hull worked to improve psychological tests and measurements for assessing aptitude. He designed and built a device to help compute product-moment for test validation. The results of this research formed the basis of his first book, Aptitude Testing (1928). Hull also pioneered applying experimental and statistical methods to the study of hypnosis. He continued this research briefly at Yale, summarizing his program in his second book, Hypnosis and Suggestibility: An Experimental Approach (1933).
At Yale, Hull began the task of making psychology an exact science. Influenced by his childhood instruction in geometry and the British physicist Sir Isaac Newton’sPhilosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), Hull used the hypothetico-deductive approach to develop testable principles, expressed mathematically for his global theory of behavior. Hull’s most important book, Principles of Behavior (1943), describes learning as acquiring stimulus-response habits reinforced by a reduction in drive (a biological need). With the psychologist Kenneth Spence, Hull developed the concepts of fractional anticipatory goal responses and incentive motivation to explain apparent instances of goal-directed behavior. Revisions to the theory were published in Hull’s Essentials of Behavior (1951) and A Behavior System (1952). Mathematico-Deductive Theory of Rote Learning (1940), which Hull co-wrote with several others, applied his principles to verbal learning.
When Hull died in 1952, his theory of learning, reinforcement, and motivation dominated research in psychology. Hull's legacy in the field of psychology lies in his facilitating scientific approaches to the study of psychology. His approaches to research were quantitative and systematic and brought scientific legitimacy into psychological study. In the twenty-first century, Hull's most recognized theory is the drive reduction theory, which posits that behavior is motivated by the innate need to meet biological needs, such as hunger and thirst. Hull also contributed to the study of hypnotism and behaviorism.
Bibliography
Beach, Frank A. "Clark Leonard Hull: May 24, 1884-May 10, 1952." Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 33, 1959, pp. 123-141.
Bembenutty, Héfer. Self-Regulated Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2011.
Bolles, Robert C. Learning Theory. 2d ed., New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979.
Cherry, Kendra. "Biography of Influential Psychologist Clark Hull." Verywell Mind, 19 Oct. 2023, www.verywellmind.com/clark-hull-biography-1884-1952-2795504. Accessed 25 Sept. 2024.
Gepp, Karin. "How Does Drive Reduction Theory Explain Human Behavior?" Psych Central, 16 Sept. 2021, psychcentral.com/health/drive-reduction-theory. Accessed 25 Sept. 2024.
Harasim, Linda M. Learning Theory and Online Technology. New York: Routledge, 2012.
Kimble, Gregory A. "Psychology from the Standpoint of a Mechanist: An Appreciation of Clark L. Hull." Portraits of Pioneers in Psychology, edited by Gregory A. Kimble and Michael Wertheimer. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1998.
Klein, Stephen B. Learning: Principles and Applications. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2012.
Ormond, Jeanne Ellis Ormrod. Human Learning. Boston: Pearson, 2012.