Tolman's Theory

TOLMAN'S INTRODUCTION

  Tolman was an American psychologist who made significant contributions to the studies of learning and motivation. Considered a cognitive behaviorist today, he developed his own behaviorism when the likes of Watson were dominating the field (Kimble et al, 1991). Tolman was born in Newton, Massachusetts in 1886. He remained there as he grew up and was educated in the Newton Public Schools.

He lived in a family of "upper middle" socioeconomic status and had a father who was the president of a manufacturing company.

His brother, Richard, was five years older than he was and both he and Richard were expected to go into the family business. He and his brother decided to seek academic careers, against their family's wishes. Both went on to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Richard pursued a career in academics, ultimately becoming a world-renowned theoretical chemist and physicist, and Edward initially sought a bachelor's degree in electrochemistry. Tolman changed the course of his career during his senior year after reading the works of William James.

He decided to become a philosopher. After graduation in 1911, he attended summer school and took a course in philosophy and psychology. He concluded that he wasn't quite smart enough for philosophy and that psychology was more to his liking. That coming fall, Tolman enrolled at the Harvard Graduate School as a philosophy and psychology graduate student. At that time, the disciplines were a combined department. A course in ethics, taught by Ralph Barton Perry, as well as readings of McDougall, eventually led to his interest in motivation. After his first year as a graduate student, he went to Giessen in Germany to study for his PhD examination in German (at that time all PhD examinations were conducted in French, German, or Russian).

It was in Germany where he was introduced to Gestalt psychology through the teachings and readings of Koffka (Kimble et al, 1991).Upon returning to Harvard from his summer in Germany, Tolman studied in the laboratory under Hugo Munsterberg and Langfeld researching nonsense syllable learning. His PhD dissertation was a study of retroactive inhibition (Hilgard, 1987). He received his doctorate in 1915. He later returned to Giessen to learn more about Gestalt psychology during the fall of 1923.

Tolman became an instructor at Northwestern University and taught for three years after receiving his doctoral degree. He described himself as being self-conscious, inarticulate, and fearful of his classes. His pacifist views led him to lose his job when, during World War I, he was called to the Dean for anti-war statements reported in a pacifist student publication (Kimble et al, 1991).

Tolman went on to become an instructor at the University of California in Berkeley in the fall of 1918 where he remained for the rest of his life. Similar to his stand for academic freedom shown at Northwestern University, his passion for the pursuit of truth led to his refusal to sign the California loyalty oath. During the "Year of the Oath" (1949-50), the university attempted to impose loyalty oaths on their faculty, in compliance with state law. He advised his peers to sign and to leave the contest up to those like him, who were able to afford it. This act of courage gave him tremendous recognition. He credited his wisdom in psychology to his years at Berkeley and his happy marriage (Kimble et al, 1991)

 TOLMAN'S CONTRIBUTION TO PSYCHOLOGY

His contributions, like his accomplishments, are numerous. Tolman had four main contributions to psychology. The first was showing cognitive maps in rats. The second was latent learning in which he also used the rats to back up his findings. The third was the concept of the intervening variable, and lastly was his support of rats for subject use.To successfully show that rats used cognitive maps rather than just running and turning right, he used his rats as examples. He would run them through a maze similar to the one pictured below.A was the starting point for the rats. B was the goal at which he wanted them to reach. He ran several experiments in which one would have the rats start at A and learn to run to B to get the food. In doing so, they would have to turn right to get the food. Once the rats learned, this he tried a different method. He would start them at point C; if the rat turned right and went to section D, then they were not using cognitive maps, but instead he found they turned left and went to section B proving the use of cognitive maps. (a2zpsychology.com, 2002)This idea that rats don’t just learn movements for only rewards but instead learn even when there are no rewards suggests a latent learning theory. Again, by using a rat to run a maze, he could show how this latent learning was possible. The setup would be three different groups with as a control that would start with food automatically. Another second experimental group would not get food until the 7th day. Finally, another third experimental group would not get the food until the 3rd day. Surprisingly, in the two experimental groups, once food was given at the goal point, the rats began to improve their routes after the reward was introduced. After they were fed, the rat began to run the maze better on the next trial, showing that even though there was no reward the rat was still making a cognitive map of the maze. This was evident when the reward was introduced. Tolman coined this phenomenon, “latent learning” and said that this experiment could be extended to humans and that we too use latent learning everyday. (a2zpsychology.com, 2002)From this latent learning theory, he also found “intervening variables”. These were variables that could not be observed and. For example, hunger was an intervening variable. He showed that these variables were the actual determinants of a behavior. It forced behaviorists to think in a new light. They could no longer only use the model S-R (stimulus to response), but now had to add the organism in to become S-O-R (stimulus to organism to response). (a2zpsychology.com, 2002)Finally, Tolman was the psychologist who helped make white rats to be used as the subject as widely as they are today for experiments. He was quoted in 1945 that “let it be noted that rats live in cages; they do not go on binges the night before one has planned an experiment; they do not kill each other off in wars; they do not invent engines of destruction, and, if they did, they would not be so inept about controlling such engines; they do not go in for either class conflicts or race conflicts; they avoid politics, economics, and papers in psychology. They are marvelous, pure and delightful. And, as soon as I possibly can, I am going to climb back again out on that good old phylogenic limb and sit there, this time right side up and unashamed, wiggling my whiskers at all the silly, yet at the same time far too complicated, specimens of homo sapiens, whom I shall see strutting and fighting and messing things up, down there on the ground below me." (Tolman, 1945, csbsju.edu) He wasn’t always so happy with rats; early on in his career he was quoted to say “I don’t like them. They make me feel creepy.” Tolman’s need for control changed his mind on rats. He loved to use rats because he had to be in control of everything. He felt ordinary people were far too unreliable, especially when he had rats at his disposal.All in all, Tolman can be considered the pioneer to today’s cognitive psychology. He was a man who believed in change. Unlike many others, when information came to show something was wrong, he wasn’t afraid to change the way he thought about it and adapt. His contributions were all very important, especially the concept of intervening variables. Intervening variables made it possible for unseen behaviors to now be considered important and to be measured

 TOLMAN’S EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS

Typical learning problems are

Capacity:

The learning of a task depends upon the capacity of the learner

Practice:

Tolman’s believes that practice cannot help the learner in the initial selection of a right response. Mere frequency without belongingness does not establish a connection.

Motivation:

Motivation does not help in learning something new. It simply encourages the performance as such.

Understanding:

Tolman believes in learning by creative inference, inventive ideation and so on. Insightful learning is emphasized.

Transfer:

Transfer of training depends upon applicability of the essential relationship perceived by the learner in one situation to some other situation.

Forgetting:

Repression and ratio-active inhibition cause forgetting Tolman attributes forgetting to the resistance of cathexis(relationship between drive and object also)