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.