William N. Schoenfeld

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William N. Schoenfeld
Hebrew University

William N. Schoenfeld (December 6, 1915 – August 3, 1996) was an American psychologist and author.

Born in New York City, he conducted original research in experimental psychology, and advocated

B.F. Skinner and Ivan Pavlov. In a carefully devised set of experiments in 1953 he led a team of Columbia University psychologists in discovering that anxiety caused the human heart rate to slow rather than quicken under certain timing of stimuli.[1]

He was the co-author with Fred S. Keller, a Columbia colleague, of Principles of Psychology,[2] an influential college text published in 1950 that emphasized scientific methods in the study of psychology. Students first used it in courses at Columbia College, where the two professors offered two hours of lecture and, for the first time in psychology, four hours of laboratory work a week.[3] Among their experiments, the students observed the responses of white rats to stimuli and rewards and measured human learning by testing people's ability to remember the pathways of mazes and other sensory processes.[4] Together with Keller, they pioneered the first introductory psychology course to provide a laboratory animal model for behavior, which led to so many more like his (Hearst, E., 1997). [5]

William Nathan Schoenfeld graduated from the

Queens College of the City University of New York in 1966, became chairman of the psychology department and was named a professor emeritus in 1983. Later he taught in the psychology department of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem
and at universities in Mexico, Venezuela and Brasil. He was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Guadalajara in Mexico.

Among his books were: The Theory of Reinforcement Schedules (1970)[6], Stimulus Schedules (1972)[7] and Religion and Human Behavior (1993).[8]

He was president of the division of the analysis of behavior of the

Conditional Reflex. He was also one of the major contributors to the founding of the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. [10]

Students

William N. Schoenfeld was a prolific doctoral advisor, who is said to have ultimately valued his teaching more than his research. Indeed, many of his students continued into prominence in their own right. They include:

P. J. Bersh, A. Charles Catania, W. W. Cumming, James A. Dinsmoor, Charles Ferster, Peter Harzem, Eliot S. Hearst, Francis Mechner, John Anthony Nevin, Ovide F. Pomerleau, Emilio Ribes, Murray Sidman, Carlos Bruner.

References

  1. PMID 14907926
    – via APA PsychNet.
  2. ^ Keller, F. S.; Schoenfeld, W. N. (1950). Principles of psychology: A systematic text in the science of behavior (1st ed.). Appleton-Century-Crofts.
  3. PMID 9037780
    .
  4. ^ Root, Michael J. "Keller, Fred S." In Carnes, Mark C., ed. (2005). American National Biography: Supplement 2, p. 306. Oxford University Press.
  5. PMID 9037780
    .
  6. ^ Schoenfeld, W. N. (1970). The Theory of Reinforcement Schedules. New York: Appleton-Century-Croft.
  7. ^ Schoenfeld, W. N.; Cole, B. K. (1972). Stimulus Schedules. New York: Harper & Row.
  8. ^ Schoenfeld, W. N. (1993). Religion and Human Behavior. Authors Cooperative.
  9. PMC 2733547
    .
  10. PMC 2733547
    .

External links
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