Tolman\'S Purposive Behaviorism PDF

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Course Title : Facilitating Learner – Centered Teaching Course Code : Prof. Ed. 4 ================================================================ =========================

TOLMAN'S PURPOSIVE BEHAVIORISM 

Purposive behaviorism has also been referred to as Sign Learning Theory and is often seen as the link between behaviorism and cognitive theory.

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Tolman's theory was founded on two psychological views: those of the Gestalt psychologists and those of John Watson, the behaviorist.

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Tolman believed that learning is a cognitive process. Learning involves forming beliefs and obtaining knowledge about the environment and then revealing that knowledge through purposeful and goal-directed behavior.

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Tolman stated in his sign theory that an organism learns by pursuing signs to a goal, i.e., learning is acquired through meaningful behavior. He stressed the organized aspect of learning: "The stimuli which are allowed in are not connected by just simple one-to-one switches to the outgoing responses. Rather the incoming impulses are usually worked over and elaborated in the central control room into a tentative cognitive-like map of the environment. And it is this tentative map, indicating routes and paths and environmental relationships, which finally determine what responses, if any, the animal will finally make.”

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Tolman's form of behaviorism stressed the relationships between stimuli rather than stimulusresponse. He said that a new stimulus (the sign) becomes associated with already meaningful stimulus (the significate) through a series of pairings; there is no need for reinforcement in order to establish learning.

TOLMAN'S KEY CONCEPTS 

Learning is always purposive and goal-directed. Tolman asserted that learning is always purposive and goal-directed. He held the notion that an organism acted or responded for some adaptive purpose. He believed individuals do more than merely respond to stimuli; they act on beliefs, attitudes, changing conditions, and they strive toward goals. Tolman saw behavior as holistic, purposive and cognitive.

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Cognitive maps in rats. In his most famous experiment, one group of rats was placed at random starting locations in a maze but the food was always in the same location. Another group of rats had the food placed in different locations which always required exactly the same pattern of turns from their starting location. The group that had the food in the same location performed much better than the other group, supposedly demonstrating that they had learned the location rather than a specific sequence of turns. This is tendency to "learn location signified that rats somehow formed cognitive maps that help them perform well on the maze. He also found out that organisms will select the shortest or easiest path to achieve a goal.

Applied in human learning, since a student passes by the same route going to school everyday, he acquires a cognitive map of the location of his school. So when transportation re-routing is done, he can still figure out what turns to make to get to school the shortest or easiest way. 

Latent Learning. Latent learning is a kind of learning that remains or stays with the individual until needed. It is learning that is not outwardly manifested at once. According to Tolman it can exist even without reinforcement. He demonstrated this in his rat experiments wherein rats apparently *"learned the maze" by forming cognitive maps of the maze, but manifested this knowledge of the maze only when they needed to.

Applied in human learning, a two-year old always sees her dad operate the t.v. remote control and observes how the t.v. is turned on or how channel is changed, and volume adjusted. After sometime, the

parents are surprised that on the first time that their daughter holds the remote control, she already knows which buttons to press for what function. Through latent learning, the child knew the skills beforehand, even though she has never done them before. 

The concept of intervening variable. Intervening variables are variables that are not readily seen but serve as determinants of behavior. Tolman believed that learning is mediated or is influenced by expectations, perceptions, representations, needs and other internal or environmental variables. Example, in his experiments with rats he found out that hunger was an intervening variable.

Reinforcement not essential for learning. Tolman 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 a maze, i.e., to develop a cognitive map, even in the absence of reinforcement. ================================================================ =========================

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