Motivation in Behavior
a) What does Tolman's theory of animal learning tell us about the motivation for human learning?
Unlike John Watson, B.F. Skinner and the other strict behaviorists, or the Russian physiologists like Ivan Pavlov, Edward C. Tolman argued that the behaviorist theory that learning was a matter of stimulus-response (S-R) and positive and negative reinforcement was highly simplistic. Although he rejected introspective methods and metaphysics, he increasingly moved away from strict behaviorism into the areas of cognitive psychology. In short, he became a mentalist without actually using that term to describe himself and concluded that all behavior was "purposive" (Hergenhahn, 2009, p. 428). All of his experiments with rats moving through mazes at the University of Berkeley proved to his satisfaction that behavior was actually the dependent variable, with the environment as the independent variable, with mental processes as intervening variables. Tolman summarized this basic theory, which he applied to humans and rats, as "environmental experience gives rise to internal, unobservable events, which, in turn, cause behavior" (Hergenhahn, p. 431). Even rats in a maze could develop a cognitive map based on predictions, expectations, and trial and error, while learning could occur without positive or negative reinforcement. In fact, we are all learning constantly from our environment and continually updating our mental maps, which are far more complex and sophisticated than those developed by rats.
b) How does what we learn about motivation for human learning affect the way we should teach both formally and informally?
Tolman actually thought that rats were superior to human beings in many ways in that they were not racist, did not fight wars, building nuclear weapons or produce politicians, economists and psychologists. So carrying that thought to its logical conclusion, people have a great deal to learn from rats. In all seriousness, though, if rats with their relatively small brain pans and memories should evidence of thinking, cognition and other mental processes, then human beings obviously possess these as...
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