Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T13:20:30.655Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Learning—Acquisition or Selection—Possibility versus Probability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

James B. Klee
James B. Klee*
Affiliation:
Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is quite common in our texts and periodicals to run across formulations of the learning process in which the word acquire is used in some way as part of the description. Individuals are said to “acquire” habits or skills or languages or attitudes or solutions or emotions. The organism is said to “acquire” certain of its traits from the environment (sometimes through experience, sometimes not) and even to “acquire” from heredity. Such usage is not technically incorrect. Webster defines acquire as follows:

acquire. 1. To gain by any means, usually by one's own exertions; to get as one's own. 2. To take on as part of one's nature or qualifications; to establish by means of repetition or effort, as characteristic in one's behavior or range of ability; as to acquire a habit. Syn., attain, procure, win, earn, secure; receive, learn, adopt, cultivate, affect. See obtain.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , July 1947 , pp. 231 - 241
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1947

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Arnold, Magda G. Physiological differentiation of emotional states. Psychol. Rev., 1945, 52, 35–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2. Klineberg, O. Social psychology. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1940.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3. Maier, N. R. F. Reasoning in humans. I. On direction. J. of Comp. Psychol., 1930, 10, 115–144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4. Maier, N. R. F. An aspect of human reasoning. Brit. J. of Psychol., 1933, 24, 144–155.Google Scholar
5. Malinoski, B. A scientific theory of culture and other essays. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1944.Google Scholar
6. Morgan, C. T. Physiological psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1943.Google Scholar
7. Padilla, S. G. Further studies on the delayed pecking of chicks. J. Comp. Psychol., 1935, 20, 413–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8. Schlick, M. Problems of ethics. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1939.Google Scholar
9. White, L. A. Mind is minding. Scientific Monthly, 1939, 48, 169–171.Google Scholar
10. White, L. A. Mind is minding—but or still? Scientific Monthly, 1940, 50, 365–366.Google Scholar