Motivation of Behavior

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 well. Even the dull-normal child is bound to have higher mental capacities and functions that the cleverest rodent. Tolman proved in the 1940s that rats could think and remember, and today MRIs and other brain scanning methods do indeed show that real mental processes are occurring all the time. He came to doubt that rewards and punishment really affected learning much at all, which means that grades, tests and diplomas seem somewhat irrelevant. If the rat mind and the human mind simply do not function in that way at all, then much of present-day teaching and learning are using incorrect methods. Whatever motivates the rat, it is not the reward of cheese at the end of the maze or the electric shocks that cause pain when it makes errors. Learners engage in purposeful, goal-directed behavior and form and test theories from experience, but learning itself does not occur because of rewards or punishments.

c) Are current views of human motivation consistent with Tolman's ideas? If current views are different, are they superior to Tolman's? Why or why not?

By the time of his death in 1959, Tolman realized that his views had evolved quite far away from classical behaviorism in the direction of the Gestalt, ego and humanistic psychology that have become dominant today. He anticipated the work of present-day cognitive psychologists and decision theorists, which now affect virtually every area in psychology. Even when dealing with severely autistic children, much less 'normal' learners, behaviorist learning methods have come in for severe criticism for their rigidity and stereotyped nature. Leaf et al. (2010) found that no-no prompting in Discrete Trial Instruction (DCI) was more effective than simultaneous prompting in teaching discrimination tasks to children with autism. This very small study consisted of three autistic children who were taught rote math skills, discrimination between two objects and the correct answers to wh- questions. DCI involves an instructor, a response and consequences to a response -- either positive reinforcement for a correct answer or negative reinforcement for an incorrect one. In this study, for example, children who had correct responses received praise and a toy, while those who were incorrect were told 'no' in a neutral tone. Simultaneous prompting on the other hand ensures that each response will be 100% correct after the instructions are given, and is always followed by positive reinforcement. It the past, it has been used successfully to teach autistic children basic skills such as dressing, hand washing, and expressive and receptive language skills (Leaf et al., p. 215). No-no prompting gives the child "the opportunity to respond independently" with 'no' or 'try again' for incorrect answers, and then only gives a simultaneous prompt on the third try (Leaf et al., p. 216). Past studies have shown that it is useful for teaching verbs, expressive labeling of words and matching-to-sample tasks in autistic children.

DCI has often been criticized by its Pavlovian-behaviorist premises centering on stimulus and response in autistic children. This method, used in isolation from other therapies, can simply reinforce and reproduce the rigid, stereotyped behavior of autistic children as well as "rote and inflexible behavior." For this reason, it is "controversial and frequently denounced" by therapists who prefer to less much less structured methods like natural environment teaching (Lund 2009). Moreover, DCI has often been poorly designed and inconsistently used, although that was definitely not the case in this study. If the work of Leaf et al. can be replicated consistently on a larger scale, than this type of no-no prompt should become part of the standard treatment in early intensive behavioral intervention in autistic children. Indeed, it proved to be effective even with a boy who had very high levels of noncompliance and aberrant behaviors.