John Dillingham Dodson (1879 in Allen County Ky – 1955 in Warren County Ky),[1] was an American psychologist.
In 1908, together with Robert Yerkes, Dodson proposed the Yerkes–Dodson Law relating motivation and habit.
[2] He obtained a master's degree from Harvard University and was the first PhD graduate of the psychology department of the University of Minnesota.
[1] His fate after the publication of his seminal paper with Yerkes became a mystery with inquiries first raised in 1921 and continuing through 2001.
[1] Research published in 2012 finds he spent much of his academic life teaching at the Bowling Green College of Commerce,[1] which became part of Western Kentucky University.