Neal E. Miller

Neal Elgar Miller (August 3, 1909 – March 23, 2002) was an American experimental psychologist. 

In 2002, American Psychological Association (APA) ranked Miller among the ten most eminent psychologists of the 20th Century. 

With varied interests (physics, biology, and writing), he entered the field of psychology inspired by his father, professors, and leading psychologists of the time. His career in psychology started with research on "fear as a learned drive and its role in conflict". 

Over his career, Miller lectured at Yale University, Rockefeller University, and Cornell University Medical College, and wrote 8 books, and published more than 270 articles.

Neal Elgar Miller was born on August 3, 1909, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the only child of Irving E. and Lily Rose Miller. 

Miller was born into an academic family; his father was a professor of educational psychology at Western Washington State College and held a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago where he studied with John Dewey and James Rowland Angell (later president of Yale University).

Miller graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Washington in 1931. One of his teachers at the university was noted American psychologist and learning theorist, Edwin Ray Guthrie. During his second year, he grew interested in psychology, which he pursued by enrolling at Stanford University for his master's, in 1932. At Stanford, he worked with Lewis M. Terman, famed I.Q. researcher. While at Stanford, he took advanced experimental psychology with Walter R. Miles, and when Miles was invited to join the psychology faculty at Yale University, he took Miller with him for doctoral work.

At Yale, Miller worked as a research assistant and studied psychology and psychoanalysis under noted psychologist Clark L. Hull. Miller earned his Ph.D. degree in Psychology from Yale in 1935.

Hull's program at Yale showed how the principles of classical conditioning, discovered in Ivan Pavlov's lab, could be applied to understanding Edward Thorndike's trial-and-error learning, human verbal learning, and higher mental processes such as purposeful, goal-oriented and foresightful behavior, now described as cognitive. From this concept emerged the idea that the mental acts of thinking, remembering, and imagining are themselves responses that can then function as cues (response-produced cues) to which other responses can be made and are subject to the same laws of learning as are external responses and cues.

Miller noticed a similarity between Sigmund Freud's concept of repression and Pavlov's concept of inhibition. Aiming to dig deeper into this theory, he obtained a postdoctoral Social Science Research Council Fellowship to study in Vienna at Freud's Psychoanalytic Institute where he underwent a didactic analysis with a Freud's student Heinz Hartmann.

In 1936, Miller returned to Yale as an instructor in psychology and a research assistant psychologist in the multidisciplinary Institute of Human Relations.

Miller's early work focused on experimenting with Freudian ideas on behavior in real-life situations. His most notable topic was fear. Miller came to the conclusion that fear could be learned through conditioning. Miller then decided to extend his research to other autonomic drives, such as hunger, to see if they worked in the same way. His unique ideas and experimental techniques to study these autonomic drives resulted in findings that changed ideas about motivations and behavior.

Freud's idea of "aggression turned inward" led to Miller's 1939 book Frustration and Aggression, which he co-authored with sociologist John Dollard, Leonard W. Doob, and Orval Hobart Mowrer. When first formulated, the Frustration–aggression hypothesis stated that frustration always precedes aggression, and aggression is the sure consequence of frustration. Two years later, however, Miller and Robert Richardson Sears re-formulated the hypothesis to suggest that while frustration creates a need to respond, some form of aggression is one possible outcome. Therefore, the re-formulated hypothesis stated that while frustration prompts a behavior that may or may not be aggressive, any aggressive behavior is the result of frustration, making frustration not sufficient, but a necessary condition for aggression.

In 1939, Orval Hobart Mowrer hypothesized that any fear induced by a noxious situation is then acquired from the cues associated with that situation. Thus, the fear subsequently can be induced by those cues alone and can motivate responses to them. Miller confirmed this hypothesis by rigorously testing it on rats.

In 1941, Miller was promoted to Associate Professor. The same year, he and John Dollardauthored Social Learning and Imitation. The book attempted to show how a wide range of human behavior can be understood by knowing a few important principles of learning discovered in the lab plus the social-condition contexts outside the lab in which the learning takes place. They listed four fundamentals necessary for instrumental learning:

1. DRIVE (or motivation) - a person must want something. The want could be for food or money.
2. CUE (or stimulus) - a person must notice something. 
3. RESPONSE - a person must do something. For example, an overt action or a thought.
4. REWARD (or reinforcement); a person must get something that is desired.

In the mid-1940s, during World War II, Miller served as a captain in the Army Air Corps, helping develop tests to select cadets likely to succeed in pilot training. After he was promoted to major, he helped identify behavioral and perceptual areas where improvements could be made in pilot training and in hitting targets via fixed gunnery.

After being discharged, Miller returned to Yale, where he met Marion Edwards, a social worker. The two married in 1948.

In 1950, he became a full professor and in 1952, became the first appointee to the James Rowland Angell Chair of Psychology.

In 1950, Miller and Dollard co-authored Personality and Psychotherapy: An Analysis in Terms of Learning, Thinking, and Culture. The book attempts to answer such questions as "What is a neurosis and how does it interfere with the normal use of the mind?", "How can fear be good as well as bad?", "Why are early childhood experiences so important?", and "What do the therapist and the patient do in psychotherapy?" The book was immensely influential in training the first post-World War II generation of clinical psychologists in the treatment of the neuroses and was, for years, widely used as a text in learning theory. 

In 1966, Miller began teaching at Rockefeller University and afterwards spent the early 1970s teaching at Cornell University Medical College. In 1985, he returned to Yale as a research associate.

One of Miller's last and seminal prized research contributions came in 1994 when he collaborated with neuroscientist Edward Taub on "An Operant Approach to Rehabilitation Medicine: Overcoming Learned Nonuse by Shaping". It used constraint-induced movement therapy, a very effective treatment to rehabilitate stroke victims with motor impairment by overcoming their learned non-use, which in turn also promotes neuroplastic changes in the brain that further enhance motor recovery.

In his career, Miller wrote 8 books and around 276 papers and articles.

• In 1958, Miller was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
• In 1959, he received the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award.
• In 1960-61, he held the office of American Psychological Association President.
• In 1962, Miller was asked to chair a panel that made a report to the President's Science Advisory Committee on "Strengthening the Behavioral Sciences" and how to meet their needs.
• In 1964, Miller received National Medal of Science, handed to him in person by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson, and again by President Jimmy Carter when the original medal was stolen from his home. Miller was the first psychologist to receive this honor.
• In 1970, at the Society for Neuroscience's first meeting, he was voted president-elect. 
• In 1991, he received the APA Citation for Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology.
• He was also President of the Biofeedback Society of America and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research.

In 1948, Miller married Marion Edwards, a social worker, he met working at Yale University.

Miller died on March 23, 2002, in Hamden, Connecticut, at the age of 92.

Books

• Dollard, John; Doob, Leonard William; Miller, Neal E.; Mowrer, Orval Hobart; Sears, Robert R. (1939). Frustration and aggression. New Haven: Published for the Institute of Human Relations by Yale University Press. OCLC 256003.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Miller, Neal E; Dollard, John (1941). Social learning and imitation. New Haven: Published for the Institute of Human Relations by Yale University Press. OCLC 180843.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Miller, Neal E. (1947). Psychological research on pilot training. Aviation psychology program research reports. 8. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. OCLC 1473614.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Dollard, John; Miller, Neal E. (1950). Personality and psychotherapy: an analysis in terms of learning, thinking, and culture. McGraw-Hill publications in psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill. OCLC 964374.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Miller, Neal E. (1957). Graphic communication and the crisis in education. Washington, DC: Department of Audio-Visual Instruction, National Education Association. OCLC 242913.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Miller, Neal E. (1971). Neal E. Miller: selected papers. Psychonomic perspectives. Chicago: Aldine, Atherton. ISBN 978-0202250342. OCLC 133865.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link) Republished as:
  • Miller, Neal E. (2007) [1971]. Learning, motivation, and their physiological mechanisms. New Brunswick, NJ.: AldineTransaction. ISBN 9780202361437. OCLC 144328310.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Miller, Neal E. (2008) [1971]. Conflict, displacement, learned drives, and theory. New Brunswick, NJ: AldineTransaction. ISBN 9780202361420. OCLC 156810019.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Richter-Heinrich, Elisabeth; Miller, Neal E., eds. (1982). Biofeedback: basic problems and clinical applications. Selected revised papers presented at the XXIInd International Congress of Psychology, Leipzig, GDR, July 6–12, 1980. Amsterdam: North-Holland. ISBN 978-0444863454. OCLC 10751840.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Selected articles

• Sears, Robin R.; Hovland, Carl I.; Miller, Neal E. (1940). "Minor studies of aggression: I. Measurement of aggressive behavior". The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied. 9 (2): 275–294. doi:10.1080/00223980.1940.9917694.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Miller, Neal E.; Bugelski, Richard (1948). "Minor studies of aggression: II. The influence of frustrations imposed by the in-group on attitudes expressed toward out-groups". The Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied. 25 (2): 437–442. doi:10.1080/00223980.1948.9917387. PMID 18907295.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Miller, Neal E. (February 1948). "Studies of fear as an acquirable drive: I. Fear as motivation and fear-reduction as reinforcement in the learning of new responses". Journal of Experimental Psychology. 38 (1): 89–101. doi:10.1037/h0058455. PMID 18910262.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Miller, Neal E. (September 1951). "Comments on theoretical models: illustrated by the development of a theory of conflict behavior". Journal of Personality. 20 (1): 82–100. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1951.tb01514.x. PMID 14898432.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Miller, Neal E. (20 December 1957). "Experiments on motivation: studies combining psychological, physiological, and pharmacological techniques". Science. 126 (3286): 1271–1278. doi:10.1126/science.126.3286.1271. PMID 13495454.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Miller, Neal E. (16 April 1965). "Chemical coding of behavior in the brain". Science. 148 (3668): 328–338. doi:10.1126/science.148.3668.328. PMID 14261527. S2CID 32100966.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Miller, Neal E. (31 January 1969). "Learning of visceral and glandular responses". Science. 163 (3866): 434–445. doi:10.1126/science.163.3866.434. PMID 5812527.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Weiss, Jay M.; Glazer, Howard I.; Pohorecky, Larissa A.; Brick, John; Miller, Neal E. (December 1975). "Effects of chronic exposure to stressors on avoidance-escape behavior and on brain norepinephrine". Psychosomatic Medicine. 37 (6): 522–534. doi:10.1097/00006842-197511000-00006. PMID 711. S2CID 21404657.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Miller, Neal E. (1978). "Biofeedback and visceral learning". Annual Review of Psychology. 29: 373–404. doi:10.1146/annurev.ps.29.020178.002105. PMID 341785.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Miller, Neal E. (April 1985). "The value of behavioral research on animals". American Psychologist. 40 (4): 423–440. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.40.4.423. PMID 3890636.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Taub, Edward; Crago, Jean E.; Burgio, Louis D.; Groomes, Thomas E.; Cook, Edwin W.; DeLuca, Stephanie C.; Miller, Neal E. (March 1994). "An operant approach to rehabilitation medicine: overcoming learned nonuse by shaping". Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. 61 (2): 281–293. doi:10.1901/jeab.1994.61-281. PMC 1334416. PMID 8169577.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)