Neal E. Miller

For those of a similar name, see Neil Miller (disambiguation).

Neal E. Miller
Born	August 3, 1909 Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Died	March 23, 2002(2002-03-23) (aged 92) Hamden, Connecticut
Nationality	American
Fields	Psychology
Alma mater	University of Washington
Known for	Biofeedback

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

Life and career

Miller was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1909. He received a B.S. degree from the University of Washington (1931), an M.S. from Stanford University (1932), and a Ph.D. degree in Psychology from Yale University (1935). He was a social science research fellow at the Institute of Psychoanalysis, Vienna for one year (1935–36) before returning to Yale as a faculty member in 1936. He spent 30 years at Yale University (1936–1966), where he became the James Rowland Angell Professor of Psychology, and 15 more years at Rockefeller University (1966–1981) before becoming Professor Emeritus at Rockefeller (1981-1985) and Research Affiliate at Yale (1985-?).

Miller was instrumental in the development of biofeedback. He discovered that even the autonomic nervous system could be susceptible to classical conditioning.

Neal Miller along with John Dollard and O. Hobart Mowrer helped to integrate behavioral and psychoanalytic concepts. They were able to translate psychological analytic concepts into behavioral terms that would be more easily understood. These three men also recognized Sigmund Freud's understanding of anxiety as a "signal of danger" and that some things in Freud's work could be altered to fix this. Neal, John and Hobert believed that a person who was relieved of high anxiety levels would experience what is called "anxiety relief". These three men also realized that classical conditioning could be followed by operant conditioning.

In 1964 he received the National Medal of Science from President Johnson.

His best known student is Philip Zimbardo.

Key texts

Books

Miller wrote eight books, among them:

• "Frustration and Aggression"
• "Social Learning and Imitation." Yale Univ. Press, New Haven (1964)
• "Personality and Psychotherapy"
• "Graphic Communication and the Crisis in Education"
• "Selected Papers on Learning, Motivation and Their Physiological Mechanisms". MW Books, Chicago, Aldine, Atherton, 1971. ISBN 0202250385
• "Conflict, Displacement, Learned Drives and Theory." Aldine, ISBN 9780202361420

Papers

• 1948: Minor studies in aggression: The influence of frustrations imposed by the in-group on attitudes expressed by the out-group. (with R. Bugelski), Journal of Psychology, 25, 437-442

References

• Jonas, Gerald. 1973. Visceral Learning. Viking.

External links

• A picture [not of Neal E. Miller]
• Obituary in the New York Times
• Noted psychologist Neal E. Miller, pioneer in research on brain and behavior, dies
• Neal Miller - 100 Year Anniversary