| Neal E. Miller | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 3, 1909 Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
| Died | March 23, 2002 (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.
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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.[1]
Miller wrote eight books, among them:
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