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Ivan Pavlov

Early Life:
Ivan Pavlov was born in a small village in Ryazan, Russia, where his father was the village priest. His earliest studies were focused on theology, but reading CharlesDarwin's On the Origin of the Species had a powerful influence on his future interests. He soon abandoned his religious studies and devoted himself to the study of science. In 1870, he began studying thenatural sciences at the University of Saint Petersberg.
Career:
Pavlov's primary interests were the study of physiology and natural sciences. He helped found the Department of Physiology at theInstitute of Experimental Medicine and continued to oversee the program for the next 45 years.
While researching the digestive function of dogs, he noted his subjects would salivate before the deliveryof food. In a series of well-known experiments, he presented a variety of stimuli before the presentation of food, eventually finding that, after repeated association, a dog would salivate to thepresence of a stimulus other than food. He termed this response a conditional reflex. Pavlov also discovered that these reflexes originate in the cerebral cortex of the brain.
Pavlov received considerableacclaim for his work, including a 1901 appointment to the Russian Academy of Sciences and the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology. The Soviet government also offered substantial support for Pavlov's work,and the Soviet Union soon became a well-known center of physiology research.

Contributions to Psychology:
While Ivan Pavlov was not a psychologist, and reportedly disliked the field of psychologyaltogether, his work had a major influence on the field, particularly on the development of behaviorism. His discovery and research on reflexes influenced the growing behaviorist movement, and hiswork was often cited in John B. Watson's writings. Other researchers utilized Pavlov's work in the study of conditioning as a form of learning. His research also demonstrated techniques of studying...