Clark Leonard Hull

Hull, Clark Leonard 

Born May 24, 1884, in Akron, N.Y.; died May 10, 1952, in New Haven, Conn. American psychologist, neobehaviorist.

Hull was a professor at Yale University from 1929. Following E. Tolman, he introduced into the basic stimulus-response scheme of behaviorism the concept of mediating variables, treatment them as inherent factors in the organism and regarding need as the most important variable. Hull considered the reduction of need as the basic principle for regulating behavior. Following K. Lewin, Hull attempted to develop a mathematically deductive theory of behavior that would predict complex forms of behavior by deriving them from some initial unit of elementary habit. Hull’s principal works dealt with learning problems.

WORKS

Essentials of Behavior. New Haven, Conn., 1951.
A Behavior System: An Introduction to Behavior Theory Concerning the Individual Organism. New Haven, Conn., 1952.
Mathematico-Deductive Theory of Rote Learning. Westport, Conn., 1970.

REFERENCE

Antsyferova, L. I. Materialisticheskie idei v zarubezhnoi psikhologii. Moscow, 1974.