Thorndike found that the cats would become faster and faster at escaping, while never showing any insight into how the puzzle box was solved. There was no sudden drop in escape time, which would be expected if the cat had solved the puzzle mentally or realised how its actions led to escape; this provides support for the behaviourist view that only behaviours are important and not cognitions: the escape behaviour was simply strengthened by the reward of a piece of fish. From this Thorndike developed his 'law of effect', that behaviours that have a pleasant outcome are stamped in and those that have unpleasant consequences are stamped out.