Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, is an iconic figure who was the first to offer a scientific approach to psychology.
Pavlov studied medicine under a famed physiologist of the time, S.P. Botkin, who taught him a great deal about the nervous system. Pavlov is known primarily for his work in conditioned response.
He conducted a legendary experiment in which he trained hungry dogs to drool at the sound of a bell, or buzzer. Moments before feeding, a bell was rung to measure the dogs’ saliva production when they heard the bell.
Pavlov found out that once the dogs had been trained to associate the sound of the bell with food, they would produce saliva, whether or not food followed. Pavlov became fully convinced that human behavior could be understood and explained best in physiological terms, rather than in mentalist terms. He won the 1904 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine.