Norman Maier


Norman Raymond Frederick Maier was an American experimental psychologist who worked primarily at the University of Michigan. He invented the two-cords problem and co-authored Principles of Animal Psychology.

Biography

Although rarely discussed today, Maier's research received extensive publicity in its day.
In 1931, he invented the two-cords problem.
Together with his student Theodore C. Schneirla, Maier authored the classic textbook, Principles of Animal Psychology. His research on rats during the 1930s and 1940s challenged the reigning behaviorist paradigm, by postulating cognitive processes akin to what was then being described by psychoanalysis.
In the 1950s he changed his area of research to industrial psychology, he claimed in response to prejudicial treatment of him in the profession.
Maier graduated with a BA from the University of Michigan in 1923. After a year of graduate work, he studied at the University of Berlin during 1925 and 1926, and completed his PhD at Michigan in 1928. He was a National Research Council Fellow with Karl Lashley at the University of Chicago in 1929-1931, and joined the faculty at Michigan in 1931.
The formative influences on Maier included John F. Shepard at Michigan; Wolfgang Köhler, Max Wertheimer, and Kurt Lewin in Berlin; Karl Lashley and Heinrich Kluver at Chicago.

Books

On animal psychology
On I/O psychology