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Tolmans Purposive Behaviourism
Tolmans Purposive Behaviourism
Abstraction/Generalization
Usually people who worked on the maze activity which you just did would say they
found the second maze easier. This is because they saw that the two mazes where identical,
except that the entrance and exit points were reversed. Their experience in doing the maze A
helped them answer maze B a lot easier. People create mental maps of things they perceived.
These mental maps help them respond to other things are task later, especially if they see the
similarity. You may begin to respond with trial and error (behaviouristic), but later on your
response becomes more internally driven (Cognitive Perspective). This is what Neo
behaviourism is about. It has aspects of behaviourism that it also reaches out to the cognitive
perspective.
There are two theories reflecting neo behaviourism that’s stands out. Edward Tolman’s
Purposive Behaviourism and Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory. Both theories are
influence by behaviourism which is focused on external elements in learning, but their principles
seems to also be reflective of the cognitive perspective (Focus on more internal elements).
Purposive Behaviourism has also been referred to as Sign Learning theory and is often
seen as the link between behaviourism and cognitive theory. Tolaman’s theory was founded on
two psychological views: those of the Gestalt psychologist and those of John Watson, the
behaviourist.
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 behaviour.
Tolman stated in his sign theory that an organism learns by pursuing sign to a goal, i.e.,
learning is acquired through meaningful behaviour. He stressed the organize aspect of learning:
“The stimuli which are allowed by in are not connected by just simple one-to-one switches to the
outgoing responses. Rather than 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.”
Tolman’s form of behaviourism stressed the relationships between stimuli rather than
stimulus-response. Tolman said that a new stimulus (the sign) becomes associated with already
meaningful stimulus (the significate) through a series of paintings; there is no used for
reinforcement in order to establish learning. In your maze activity, the new stimulus or “sign”
(maze B) became associated with already meaningful stimuli, the significate (maze A). So you
may have connected the two stimuli, maze A and maze B, and used your knowledge and
experience in maze A to learn to response to maze B.
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Cognitive maps in rats. In his most famous experiment, one group of rats placed at
random starting locations in maze but the foods was always on the same location. Another group
of rats had 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 in the maze. He also found out
that organism will select the shortest or easier path to achieve a goal.
Applied in human learning, since a student passes by the same route going to school
every day, he requires a cognitive map of the location of his school. So when transformation re-
routing is done, he can still figure out what turns to make to get to school the shortest or easier
way.
Latent Learning. Latent learning is a kind of learning that remains or stay with individual until
needed. It is learning that in 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 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 changed, and volume adjusted.
After sometimes, 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 behaviour. Tolman believed that learning is mediated of is
influenced by expectations, perceptions, representations, needs and other internal or
environmental variables. Example, in his experiments with rats he founfd 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 as able to acquire knowledge of the way through a maze, i.e., to develop a cognitive maps
even in the absence of reinforcement.
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Abstraction/Generalization
People are often reinforced for modeling the behaviour of others. Bandura suggested that the
environment also reinforces modelling. This is in several possible ways:
1. The observer is reinforced by the model. For example a student who changes dress to fit
in with a certain group of students has a strong likelihood of being accepted and thus
reinforced by that group.
2. The observer is reinforced by a third person. The observer might be modelling the
actions of someone else, for example, an outstanding class leader or student. The teacher
notices this and compliments and praises the observer for modelling such behaviour thus
reinforcing that behaviour.
3. The imitated behaviour itself to reinforcing consequences. Many behaviour that we can
learn from others produce satisfying or reinforcing result. For example, a student in my
multimedia class could observe how the extra work a classmate does is fun. This student
in turn would do the same extra work and also experience enjoyment
4. Consequences of the model’s behaviour’s affect the observer’s behaviour vicariously.
This is known as vicarious reinforcement. This is where the model is reinforced for a
response and then the observer shows an increase in that same response. Bandura
illustrated this by having students watch a film of a model hitting an inflated clown doll.
One group of children saw the model being praised for such action. Without being
reinforced, the group of children began to also hit the doll.
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Social learning theory has cognitive factors as wll as behaviourist factors (actually operant
factors)
Many behaviour can be learned, at least partly, through modelling. Examples that can
be cited are, students can watch parents red, student can watch demonstrations of mathematics
problems, or see someone act bravely in a fearful situation. Aggression can be learned through
models. Research indicates that children become more aggressive when they observed aggressive
or violent models. Moral thinking and moral behaviour are influenced by observation and
modelling. This includes moral judgements regarding right and wrong which can, in part,
develop through modelling.
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Bandura mentions four conditions that are necessary before an individual can
successfully model the behaviour of someone else:
1. Attention – The person must first pay attention to the model.
2. Retention – The observer must be able to remember the behaviour that has been
observed. One way of increasing this is using the technique of rehearsal.
3. Motor reproduction – The third condition is the ability to replicate the behaviour that
the model has just demonstrated. This means that the observer has to be able to replicate
the action which could be a problem with a learner who are not ready developmentally to
replicate the action. For example, little children have difficulty doing complex physical
motion.
4. Motivation – The final necessary ingredient for modeling to occur is motivation.
Learners must want to demonstrate whish they have learned. Remember that since these
four conditions vary among individuals, different people will produce the same behaviour
differently.
Introduction
Advance Organizer
Neo Behaviourism
Tolman’s Bandura
Purposive Behaviourism Social-Learning Theory
Goal-Directiveness Principles
Four Conditions
Latent Learning
For Effective Modeling
Intervening
Varialbles