This document discusses the history and key concepts of neobehaviorism. It began as a reaction against classical behaviorism's focus only on observable stimuli and responses. Edward Tolman was a major founder who argued that behavior is purposeful and goal-directed, not just stimulus-response associations. He introduced the concepts of cognitive maps, intervening variables, and latent learning to explain how organisms integrate information from their environment through internal cognitive processes rather than direct reinforcement. Neobehaviorism combines the objective study of behavior with consideration of internal mental states like cognition, goals, and problem-solving.

1. NeobehaviorismNeobehaviorism
created by:Hanieh Naraghicreated by:Hanieh Naraghi
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2. The history of
behaviorism
• It can start with describing the functionalist movement, which came
before it.
• The functionalist movement
• Functionalists were interested in the function of the mind: e.g. What
does the mind do? How does it do it? What is the function of
consciousness? So they were not particularly interested in the
structure of the brain (e.g. the neuronal structure).
• Functionalists were interested in the application of psychology to
everyday social problems.
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3. Falling of functionalist movement
behaviorists rejected the method of introspection.they
criticized functionalism because it was not based on
controlled experiments and its theories provided little
predictive ability.
They rejected the studying of consciousness.
Watson stated that psychology should focus on the
"behavior" of the individual, not their consciousness.
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4. • A natural science approach to psychology that emphasizes
the study of environmental influences on observable
behavior.
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5. John B Watson
• The behaviorist movement began in 1913 when John
Watson as the founder,wrote an article entitled
'Psychology as the behaviorist views it'.
• He was very critical of the functionalist movement.
• He was highly critical of introspectionism accounts of
one’s own thoughts .
• he only wanted a psychology that studied a science of
behaviour dealing only with behavioural (observable)
acts.
• Watson’s methodological behaviorism
• Focus on observable behavior
• NO reference to internal events
• …unless it could be objectively measured
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6. limitations of Behaviorism:
• 1. ignores motivation, thought, and
cognition
• 2. based on research with animals
• 3. ignores social dimensions of learning
• 4. treats the organism as passive
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7. Raise of neobehaviorism
• Meaning: It’s a behavior can not be fully understood simply in terms of
observable stimuli and reactions.
• Founer:Edward Chance Tolman (1886-1959)
• Purposive Behaviorism
• Combines objective study of behavior with
• Described in Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men (1932(
• consideration of purposiveness, or goal-orientation
• in behavior
• All behaviors are goal-directed
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8. Tolman focused his experimental work largely on white
rats learning their way through mazes. He differed from
his behaviorist predecessors by taking a more holistic
approach to behavior than they had rather than talking in
terms of atomistic, isolated stimuli and responses,
Tolman emphasized their integration with the
environment.
." In his 1932 Purposive Behavior in Animals and
Men, Tolman argued that purpose and cognition were
essential to behavior.
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9. Behaviorists & neobehaviorists:
• both of them believed that the study of learning
and a focus on objective observational methods
were the keys to a scientific psychology.
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10. Classicalbehaviorism neobehaviorism
concerned with the environment as
a determinant of behavior
stresses the interaction of the
individual and environment.
believe that learning depends on
direct external reinforcement
learning doesn’t depend on direct
external reinforcement
concerned exclusively with
observable behaviors
acknowledges the importance of
also understanding elements that
are internal to the individual
It depends on 3 elements:.S-R-
Reinforensment
Introduce mediate variables into S-
R(S-O-R)
Watson Involved stimulus-response
associations.
Tolman viewed learning as more than
just .forming S-R associations
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11. Tolman’s purposive behaviorism
• Goal directedness
• Intervening variables
• Latent learning
• Cognitive maps
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12. cognitive maps
• It’s a series of psychological transformation by
which a person codes and stores,then decodes
information about the relative locations.
• The concept was introduced by Edward Tolman in 1948
• How can a rat find its way through a
maze?
• Tolman argued that rats acquire cognitive
maps of a maze by exposure to it.
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13. Experiment
• In Tolman's experiment, a rat was placed in a cross shaped maze
and allowed to explore it. After this initial exploration, the rat was
placed at one arm of the cross and food was placed at the next arm
to the immediate right. The rat was conditioned to this layout and
learned to turn right at the intersection in order to get to the food.
When placed at different arms of the cross maze however, the rat
still went in the correct direction to obtain the food because of the
initial cognitive map it had created of the maze. Rather than just
deciding to turn right at the intersection no matter what, the rat was
able to determine the correct way to the food no matter where in the
maze it was placed.
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15. Intervening variables
• Five independent variables can function as causes of behavior
• 1) Environmental stimuli
• 2) Physiological drives
• 3) Heredity
• 4)Previous training
• 5)age
• Between these variables and the ultimate expression of behavior are an
unobserved set of factors – the intervening variables
• Intervening variables: unobserved and inferred factors within the
organism that are the actual determinates of behavior
• Now have S-O-R, where O = how the organism interprets the stimulus
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16. example of intervening variables.
• E.g. hunger can be objectively related to the amount of food that a
rat has eaten after performing a task. The concept of hunger can be
considered to be an intervening variable, which is unobservable, but
it can be defined empirically. So hunger can be an intervening
variable between a stimulus and a response.
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17. Latent learning
• Is learning that is not immediately reflected
in behavior change.
• E.g.people learn to be a teacher when they are a
student at school,but they don’t do it,because
they don’t need it.
He believed reinforcement affects motivation and
performance, but learning is independent of this.
It means that learning is independent from
reinforcement.
Tolman shows that learning can happen without
reinforcement. 17

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19. Result
• The rats' performance led to the concept of latent
learning because of the used knowledge they
gained without a reinforcement to later complete a
task quickly when a reward was involved.
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21. Thank you for your attention
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