Dodson of Yerkes-Dodson fame

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Does anyone know the following details about John Dillingham Dodson, who co-authored an article with Robert Yerkes in 1908 on what became known as the Yerkes-Dodson law? Nationality, country of birth if different, year of birth, year of death (if dead), and discipline (was he a psychologist, rather than, say, a zoologist)?

-- Andrew M. Colman (amc@le.ac.uk), May 10, 2001

Answers

I can't help much. I looked into him a few years ago but cannot recall the source. In my article, (Dewsbury, D. A. (1992). Triumph and tribulation in the history of American comparative psychology. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 106, 1-19), I wrote that "John Dillingham Dodson (1879-1955) received a master of arts degree from Harvard in 1908 and went on for a doctorate at the University of Minnesota in 1918." (p. 8). I find no references in PsychInfo. A quick check in Diss. Abst. online shows the title of the dissertation as : AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE RELATIVE VALUES OF REWARD AND PUNISHMENT IN HABIT FORMATION. Don Dewsbury

-- Donald A. Dewsbury (dewsbury@ufl.edu), May 11, 2001.

The Yerkes-Dodson Law shows that there are limits to performance of individuals in stressful situations. The law shows an "inverted-U" relationship. As stress increases the person's performance of a task improves to a point where it then begins to decrease.

You may take clues from the following:

http://mentalhelp.net/perspectives/columns/be0996.htm regarding the application of this law in eye-witness testimony.

Robert Yerkes was the president of the APA in 1917 and was a physiological psychologist. I could not locate any information about Dodosn in mentalhelp.net and apa.org, which may suggest that he was not considered as a psychologist. But I am not sure about this.

-- Shirley Lao (laosx@yahoo.com), May 13, 2001.


I have access to a database of the members of the APA from 1892 to 1942. I though there might be something on Dodson there, but he isn't listed as an APA member in this database.

-- Warren Street (warren@cwu.edu), May 15, 2001.

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