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Born: Mar. 6, 1902; Died: May, 1971.
Donald Adams attended Yale and obtained his Ph.D. in 1927, studying with Yerkes. He was from the outset interested in the potentiality of mind in animals. In his earliest publications, he held forth for a comparative method based on rigorous self-observation toinfer the existence of mind in other organisms, rather than ruling it out of hand immediately as a nonparsimonious hypothesis (Adams 1928). In his early experimental work with cats, in which he utilized many variations on puzzle boxes and other problems, he criticized the views of Thorndike that cats lacked sophisticated mental functions. Instead he conceptualized cats’ behavior in terms of “foresight” and “practical ideas” (Adams 1929) and advanced the ideas and interpretations of McDougall, Tolman, and Yerkes regarding the complexity, adaptiveness, and purposiveness of animal behavior. He held these views through his career: much later, he affirmed the view...
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References
Adams, D.K. (1928). The inference of mind. Psychological Review, 35(3), 235–252.
Adams, D.K. (1929). Experimental studies of adaptive behavior in cats. Comparative Psychology Monographs, 6(1), 1–168.
Adams, D.K. (1937). Note on method. Psychological Review, 44(3), 212–218.
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Adams, D.K. (1948). Review of “Cats in aPuzzle Box”. Psychological Bulletin, 45(6), 548–550.
Adams, D.K. (1953). The organs of perception: Sentiments. Journal of Personality, 22, 52–59.
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Adams, D.K. (1954b). Learning and explanation. In D.K. Adams, O.H. Mowrer, R.B. Ammons, D. Snygg, J.M. Butler, K.W. Spence, R.B. Cattell, D.D. Wickens, H.F. Harlow, J.R. Wittenborn, & N.R. Maier (Eds.), Learning theory, personality theory, and clinical research: The Kentucky symposium. New York: Wiley.
Adams, D.K. (1954c). Conflict and integration. Journal of Personality, 22, 548–556.
Adams, D.K. (1962). Perceiving the world of others. Psychologische Beitrage, 6(3–4), 416–425.
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Devonis, D.C. (2012). Adams, D. K.. In: Rieber, R.W. (eds) Encyclopedia of the History of Psychological Theories. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0463-8_77
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