Tolman was born in 1886 in Massachusetts and died in 1959. He earned his BS from MIT in 1911 and his doctorate from Harvard in 1915. Tolman spent most of his career at UC Berkeley. He developed Purposive Behaviorism, rejecting stimulus-response theory. Tolman believed learning developed from understanding the environment and one's relationship to it. He identified three parts to learning - the significant, the sign, and means-end relations. Tolman also studied cognitive maps and latent learning.
2. TIMELINE OF TOLMAN’S LIFE
Born in Newton, Massachusetts on April
14,1886
Died on November 19, 1959
1911: Earned BS from Massachusetts Institute
of Technology in electrochemistry
1912: Introduced to Gestalt psychology
1915: Earned Doctorate from Harvard-
retroactive inhibition
He spent most of his career at the university of
California(Berkeley)
3. PURPOSIVE
BEHAVIORISM
-It combines the objective study of
behavior while also considering the purpose
or goal of behavior
-Tolman thought that learning developed
from knowledge about the environment and
how the organism relates to its
environment.
-He is the only behaviorist who found the
stimulus-response theory unacceptable.
4. SIGN GESTALT THEORY
-He put forth the notion that there are three parts to
learning which work together as a gestalt.
-These are the “significant,” the “sign” and
“means-end relations”
5. COGNITIVE MAP
-an internal perceptual representation of external environmental
features and landmarks.
Tolman was a “centralist.”
Tolman also worked on “Latent Learning.”
8. TOLMAN IDENTIFIED AT TLEAST
SIX TYPES OF LEARNING
I. Learning by cathexes.
II.Equivalence beliefs.
III.Field Expectancies.
IV.Field cognition modes.
V.Drive discrimination.
VI.Motor patterns.
9. TOLMAN WANTED TO DISPROVE THORNDIKE’S
LAW OF EFFECT AND REPLACE IT WITH:
A.Law of motivation
B.Law of Emphasis
C.Law of Disruption