Yerkes-Dodson Law

1908

Robert M. Yerkes (1876–1956), John D. Dodson (1879–1955)

One of the best known principles in modern psychology is named after the comparative psychologist Robert M. Yerkes and his Harvard University graduate student John D. Dodson. As first formulated, the Yerkes-Dodson law states that moderate levels of motivation are best for learning and recall. Initially, the two men thought that high levels of motivation would produce the highest rates of learning. They used a painful shock as a motivating stimulus and found that increasing the intensity of the shock leads initially to higher rates of learning to avoid it, but once the intensity passed a moderate level, it actually interfered with learning. This results in an inverted U-shaped learning curve.

Hundreds of studies have been conducted since Yerkes and Dodson first reported their surprising results in 1908. Over the course of the twentieth century, researchers began to use the word arousal rather than motivation to describe how the law works, and they described levels as optimal rather than moderate. The Yerkes-Dodson law is now seen as part of a more general arousal theory whose basic principle is that performance varies with arousal. The principle found in the law has been tested in terms of athletic performance, stress response, test taking, and dozens of other settings. Results have varied; thus what counts as a moderate or optimal level of arousal has been shown to differ across types of tasks. Optimal levels of arousal for arduous physical tasks are higher than for intellectual tasks. The optimal arousal level for learning difficult material or for material that requires intense concentration is lower than for learning comparatively simpler or boring material. A clinical variation suggests that anxious individuals are likely to perform better than nonanxious individuals when a test is easy, but worse when the test is difficult.

SEE ALSO Antianxiety Medications (1950), Universal Expression of Emotions (1971)

A humorous cartoon from the 1936 Berlin Olympics envisages the year 2000: television technology has progressed to the point where spectators can watch events at home while radio, applying “wireless” technology, carries their promptings and applause to loudspeakers in the stadium. Yerkes-Dodson law contends that athletes require high levels of arousal for peak performance.

A classroom in Mennonite Heritage Village in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada. According to the Yerkes-Dodson law, the optimal arousal level for learning difficult material is lower than for learning simple material.