Tolman always said he was strongly influenced by the Gestalt psychologists, especially Kurt Lewin and Kurt Koffka. Tolman is best known for his studies of learning in rats using mazes, and he published many experimental articles, of which his paper with Ritchie and Kalish in was probably the most influential. His major theoretical contributions came in his book, Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men , and in a series of papers in the Psychological Review , "The determinants of behavior at a choice point" , "Cognitive maps in rats and men" and "Principles of performance" Although Tolman was firmly behaviorist in his methodology, he was not a radical behaviorist like B.
In his studies of learning in rats, Tolman sought to demonstrate that animals could learn facts about the world that they could subsequently use in a flexible manner, rather than simply learning automatic responses that were triggered off by environmental stimuli. In the language of the time, Tolman was an "S-S" stimulus-stimulus , non-reinforcement theorist: he drew on Gestalt psychology to argue that animals could learn the connections between stimuli and did not need any explicit biologically significant event to make learning occur.
This is known as latent learning. The rival theory, the much more mechanistic "S-R" stimulus-response reinforcement-driven view, was taken up by Clark L. A key paper by Tolman, Ritchie and Kalish in demonstrated that rats learned the layout of a maze, which they explored freely without reinforcement. After some trials, a food item was placed to a certain point of the maze, and the rats learned to navigate to that point very quickly.
However, Hull and his followers were able to produce alternative explanations of Tolman's findings, and the debate between S-S and S-R learning theories became increasingly complicated. Skinner's iconoclastic paper of , entitled "Are theories of learning necessary? The influence of Tolman's ideas faded temporarily in the later s and s. However, his achievements had been considerable. His and papers, produced to answer Hull's charge that he left the rat "buried in thought" in the maze, unable to respond, anticipated and prepared the ground for much later work in cognitive psychology, as psychologists began to discover and apply decision theory — a stream of work that was recognized by the award of a Nobel prize to Daniel Kahneman in In his paper "Cognitive Maps in Rats and Men", Tolman introduced the concept of a cognitive map, which has found extensive application in almost every field of psychology, frequently among scientists who are unaware that they are using the early ideas that were formulated to explain the behavior of rats in mazes.
Tolman assessed both response learning and place learning. Response learning is when the rat knows that the response of going a certain way in the maze will always lead to food; place learning is when the rats learn to associate the food in a specific spot each time. In his trials he observed that all of the rats in the place-learning maze learned to run the correct path within eight trials and that none of the response-learning rats learned that quickly, and some did not even learn it at all after seventy-two trials.
Furthermore, psychologists began to renew the study of animal cognition in the last quarter of the 20th century. This renewed interested in animal research was prompted by experiments in cognitive psychology. Tolman's theoretical model was described in his paper "The Determiners of Behavior at a Choice Point". The three different variables that influence behavior are: independent, intervening, and dependent variables. The experimenter can manipulate the independent variables; these independent variables e.
Independent variables are also factors of the subject that the experimenter specifically chooses for. The dependent variables e. Aside from the contributions Tolman made to learning theory such as purposive behaviorism and latent learning, he also wrote an article on his view of ways of learning. Not only did Tolman write papers regarding his research on behaviorism and cognition, but he also wrote some works involving psychology, sociology, and anthropology.
In one of his papers, "A theoretical Analysis of the Relations between Psychology and Sociology", Tolman takes independent, dependent, and intervening variables under the context of psychology and sociology. Then he puts them together and show the interrelations between the two subjects in terms of variables and research. His resistance was based on both personal liberty and the idea of academic freedom — that external pressure on educators decreases their ability to learn and teach accurate, objective truth.
Indeed, academic freedom carried particular significance for Tolman as well; throughout his life as an academic, he had felt a sense of personal release in being able to conduct research and publish his ideas freely and openly. In his defiance, he became a leader of those opposing the oath. University officials threatened Tolman with dismissal.
In response to this threat, he sued the university, taking the case to the Supreme Court of California. In the decision, Tolman v. Underhill , the requirement of the loyalty oath was removed. Tolman's courage in standing up against this rule cannot be understated. Indeed, the climate of McCarthyism made it very dangerous for anyone to take such a stance — even in the absence of Communist beliefs. In , 10 years after his refusal to sign the oath, Tolman was awarded an honorary LLD degree from Berkeley.
A few years later, a new psychology and education building at Berkeley was named Tolman Hall in his honor. Not all of Tolman's ideas have stood the test of time. In particular, his belief that laws of learning applied equally to all living creatures is dated.
Still, his legacy is strong — found not only in his theory and its anticipation of cognitive psychology, but in his students, many of them distinguished, who benefitted from his kindness and from the intellectual stimulation he provided.
Unlike other learning theorists, he did not demand loyalty to his system. He has been remembered as a gifted and passionate teacher who placed great value on his students.
Moreover, as one of his students has pointed out Gleitman, , he was always open to new ideas and willing to draw from all parts of psychology as well as other disciplines — the least dogmatic of theorists. Perhaps this openness and commitment to the exchange of ideas is what gave him the courage to stand up against the impact of McCarthyism in academia.
Gleitman, H. Edward Chace Tolman: A life of scientific and social purpose. Kimble, M. White Eds. Krech, D. Edward Chace Tolman, psychology: Berkeley. Ritchie, B. Edward Chace Tolman: Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Edward C. Tolman is best-known for cognitive behaviorism, his research on cognitive maps, the theory of latent learning and the concept of an intervening variable.
Tolman was born on April 14, , and died on November 19, Cognitive behavioral therapy CBT is a common type of talk therapy psychotherapy. You work with a mental health counselor psychotherapist or therapist in a structured way, attending a limited number of sessions.
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Tolman originally started his academic life studying physics, mathematics, and chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT. After reading William James' Principles of Psychology , he decided to shift his focus to the study of psychology. He enrolled at Harvard where he worked in Hugo Munsterberg's lab. In addition to being influenced by James, he also later said that his work was heavily influenced by Kurt Koffka and Kurt Lewin.
He graduated with a Ph. Tolman is perhaps best-known for his work with rats and mazes. Tolman's work challenged the behaviorist notion that all behavior and learning is a result of the basic stimulus-response pattern. In a classic experiment, rats practiced a maze for several days. Then, the familiar path they normally took was blocked. According to the behaviorist view, the rats had simply formed associations about which behaviors were reinforced and which were not.
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