Clark L. Hull

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Lore & Background

Hull was born in a log house in Akron, New York on May 24, 1884. He was born to a powerful father who was known to have a violent temper. His father was largely uneducated and married his mother, a shy woman from Connecticut, when she was 15. At the age of three or four, Hull and his family moved to a farm in Michigan. Here, he and his younger brother, Wayne, helped the farm by performing manual labor and chores around the house. Hull was educated at a small, one room school in the village of Sickels where there were about twenty to thirty people. He often missed school to help work on the farm. He displayed an early proficiency for mathematics, but found grammar a bit difficult. When he was 11 or 12, he was forcibly converted by a religious group known as the Christian Crusaders. This experience caused him to rethink his religious identity, eventually renouncing religion entirely. At the age of 17, he passed a teacher's examination test and became a teacher in a similar small schoolhouse. A combination of his religious crisis and his experience teaching inspired him to seek further education. He attended a high school in west Saginaw County, living with the superintendent of schools in exchange for household chores. Hull's atheism almost caused the superintendent to kick him out, but his wife got him to reconsider. After completing high school, Hull went on to study at Alma Academy. He continued to excel in mathematics, particularly geometry. His interest in geometry inspired him to begin thinking about how the mind can create new connections based on what is already known. It was during his time at Alma Academy that he read the works of Baruch Spinoza, whom he admired, though ultimately disagreed with. As he was about to graduate from the academy, he attended a banquet where the food was contaminated, and contracted a near deadly case of typhoid, which delayed his return to college. Many died during that time and Hull himself almost died. He was left with permanent amnesia and a general bad memory for names which affected him throughout the rest of his life. As his health improved, he returned to Alma College, where he studied math, physics, and chemistry, intending to become an engineer. After two years at Alma College, Hull moved to Hibbing, Minnesota to work as an apprentice mining engineer. However, after two months he was afflicted by polio, which left him paralyzed in one leg, causing him to recover at his parents home for a year and forcing him to reconsider his life path. He considered becoming a minister of Unitarianism, because he found their philosophy focused sermons appealing. His love of philosophy eventually led to his interest in psychology, which he studied during his recovery. He began his journey by reading William James' The Principles of Psychology. He also took a particular interest in the works of Watson and Pavlov. A year later, he decided to teach back home in the one room school, which had expanded to two rooms. After his two years teaching, he married Bertha Iutzi with very little money. After marrying Bertha Iutzi, they both began attending the University of Michigan. Here he began his formal study of psychology and graduated with his bachelor's degree in 1913. After teaching in Kentucky, Hull accepted a teaching assistant position at the University of Wisconsin under Joseph Jastrow in order to join their graduate program. While taking classes and working, he privately worked on research based on the evolution of concepts, which he later applied to his dissertation, 'Quantitative Aspects of the Evolution of Concepts.'

In 1929 he began employment at Yale University, where he would serve as a Sterling Professor until his death. In addition to his other teachings, he was able to teach a psychological test and measurement course. Because he loved the mathematical portion of the course, he changed the class to aptitude testing, which focused on scientific basis of vocational guidance. On the side, Hull also conducted research to build a machine that could perform all the correlational work for him automatically. After teaching the aptitude testing class, Hull went on to teaching an introductory class for premedical students. While teaching this class he particularly took notice of suggestion and hypnosis. This was the starting point of his experimental testing in this field in which Hull focused on the quantitative methodology in experimental psychology. After ten years of in-depth research, he wrote the book Hypnosis and Suggestibility in 1933. After writing the book, he decided to continue in experimental field by teaching this course in addition to the premedical course. In 1929 he was called to the Institute of Psychology at Yale University as a research professor of psychology where he worked on the problems concerning systematic behavior theory. In 1930, he came to several conclusions about psychology: the first was that he believed that psychology is a true natural science. The second was that its primary laws are expressed quantitatively by moderate number equations and that all complex behavior or single individuals will be derived as second laws. The third was that the primary laws with the behavior (based on the condition) can also be derived as quantitative laws from the same primary equation. He and other psychologists (Neal E. Miller, John Dollard, and O.H Mower) looked into these ideas more, they sought to understand what underlined conditioned reflex and behavior while also seeking to understand Freud and others like him. This eventually led to his work that he is primarily known for, Principles of Behavior.

Reader's Guide

Clark L. Hull's significance lies in his attempt to establish a rigorous, scientific framework for psychology, grounded in quantitative laws and biological terms. His drive theory posited that organisms suffer deprivation, which creates needs, activates drives, and leads to goal-directed behavior. This model dominated learning theory in its time, particularly through his 1943 book Principles of Behavior. Hull is perhaps best known for the 'goal gradient' effect or hypothesis, wherein organisms spend disproportionate amounts of effort in the final stages of attainment of the object of drives. Although behaviorism has since declined in popularity, and Hull's work is often considered obsolete, more recent cognitive psychology research has found renewed support for goal-gradient-like effects in effortful cognitive tasks. A 2002 Review of General Psychology survey ranked Hull as the 21st most cited psychologist of the 20th century, indicating his lasting influence despite the shift away from behaviorist paradigms. His emphasis on quantitative methodology and controlled experiments also influenced later research in learning and motivation. Hull's primary interest was in theories of learning and behaviors that lead to learning. In both his drive theory and hypnosis research, Hull made sure that his experiments were under strict control. Also, in his work he emphasized quantitative data so everything could be analyzed more precisely, and less open to interpretation than previous studies on the topics.

Did You Know?

• Hull was born in a log house in Akron, New York on May 24, 1884.
• At age 11 or 12, he was forcibly converted by a religious group known as the Christian Crusaders, which led him to renounce religion entirely.
• He contracted a near deadly case of typhoid from contaminated food at a banquet, which left him with permanent amnesia and a poor memory for names.
• After two months as an apprentice mining engineer, he was afflicted by polio, which left him paralyzed in one leg.
• A 2002 Review of General Psychology survey ranked Hull as the 21st most cited psychologist of the 20th century.