Theme collection about Tolman's Purposive Behaviorism

1. Tolman's purposive behaviorism
By B.R Bhandari
Lecturer , T.U
Nepal

2.  Edward Chace Tolman was an
American psychologist.
 He was born on April 14 1886 and
died on November 19 1959.
Books:
1. The purposive behavior in animal
and man.
2. Drives towards war .
3. Collective pattern in psychology.

3.  Purposive behaviorism has also been referred to as
sign learning theory and is often seen as the link
between behaviorism and cognitive theory.
 Tolman's theory was founded on two psychological
views those of the Gestalt theory and those of John
Watson, the behavior theory.
 Tolman's believe that animal were acquiring
knowledge about their surroundings he called
cognition.
 Tolman's theory of learning is known by several names
such as sign significance theory, expectancy theory,
purposive behaviorism or simple sign theory

4.  Learning is purposive and goal directed.
 Organisms will select the shortest or easiest
path to achieve a goal.
 Behavior is not mechanical. Behavior as a
complete purposeful exercise.
 Behavior can be modified by experience and
training.
 Reinforcement is not essential for learning.
 Cognitive interpretation by the individual.

5.  Goal directedness
 Cognitive maps
 Latent learning
 Intervening variables
 Reward Expectancy
 Place Learning Versus Response Learning

6.  Tolman asserted that learning is always
purposive and goal directed .He held the
notion that an organism acted or responded for
some adoptive purpose.
 He believes individual do more than merely
respond to stimuli they act on beliefs, attitudes,
changing conditions, and they strive toward
goals.

9.  This is tendency to 'learn location'.
In this famous experiment( rats
mazes).
 He found out that organisms will
select the shortest or easiest path to
achieve a goal.
 This signified that somehow, rats
formed cognitive maps that help
them perform well on the maze.

11.  Latent literally means hidden, and latent learning
is learning that becomes obvious only once a
reinforcement is given for demonstrating it.
 Latent learning is a kind of learning that remains
or stays with individual until needed. It is
learning that is not outwardly manifested at once.
 According to Tolman's it can exist even without
reinforcement. He demonstrated this in his rat
experiment wherein rats apparently 'Learned the
maze' by forming cognitive maps of the maze, but
manifested this knowledge of the maze when they
needed to.

14.  Intervening variables are variables that are not
readily seen but serve as determinants of
behavior.
 Tolman's believe that learning is mediated or is
influenced by expectation, perceptions,
representations, needs and other internal or
environmental variables.
 Example in his experiments with rats he found
out that hunger was and intervening variable.

16.  Individual does not learn specific responses to
specific stimuli as mentioned by S-R theorist
but tries to learn about the places, where things
actually lie.
 We learn about the overall path by visualizing
a total picture of the environment.
 As per the need of the environment we change
our movements.

17.  We learn to expect or gain something as a result of
our efforts.
 We expect a reward as a result of our performance.
 Not getting or getting less than expected reward
may lead to disrupted of behavior involving
frustration.
 The organism has a selective preference for the
"principle of least effort", for arriving at the goal.
 We select the shortest possible route to achieve the
goal.

20.  Cognitive interpretation by the individual.
 In Tolman's Experiment: Rats used to stop at
the choice point and look at the alternative
paths.

21. TOLMAN'S EXPERIMENT

22.  Tolman's selected three groups of rats group 'a'
(reward groups).
 Group 'b' (delayed reward group).
 Group 'c' (no reward groups).
 They were kept into the maze one by one for 17
days.
 The food was placed at the exit door for group 'a'
rats regularly.

23.  For group 'b' the food was placed at
the exit door after 10 days.
 For group 'c' food was never placed at
the exit door.
 For first 10 days group 'a' rats came
out from the maze in less time than 'b'
and 'c'.
 But after 10 days when the food was
placed for group 'b' they came earlier
even than group 'a'.

25.  Group I: Rewarded
 Day 1-17: Every time they got to end, given
food (reinforced).
 Group II: Delayed reward.
 Day 1-10: Every time they got to end, taken out.
 day 11-17: Every time they got to end, given
food (reinforced).
 Group III: No Reward
 Day 1-17: Every time they got to end, taken out.

26.  Tolman's concluded that reinforcement is not
essential for learning. Although it provides an
incentive for performance.
 In his studies, he observed that a rat was able to
acquire knowledge of the way through to develop
a cognitive map, even in the absence.
 Tolman's believed individual do more than
merely respond to stimuli.

27.  Reinforcement was not necessary learning to
occur.
 Cognitive map is an internal representation of
external environmental features or landmarks.
 He felt behavior is mainly cognitive.
 He coined the term 'Cognitive Map'.

28. THANK YOU