FACI NEO-BEHAVIORISM

MODULE 8 - NEO BEHAVIORISM: TOLMAN & BANDURA

It has aspects of behaviorism but it also reaches out to the cognitive perspective. (focused on more internal elements).

TOLMAN'S PURPOSIVE BEHAVIORISM

Also been referred to as Sign Learning Theory and often seen as the link between behaviorism and cognitive theory.

• founded on 2 psychological views:

Gestalt Psychologist & John Watson (Behaviorists).

Tolman believed that learning is a cognitive process. It involves forming beliefs and obtaining knowledge about the environment and revealing knowledge through purposeful and goal-directed behavior.

Tom stated in his sign theory - an organism  learns by pursuing signs to a goal, “learning is acquired through meaningful behavior”. 

Tolman's form of behaviorism stressed the relationship between stimuli rather than stimulus-response. Tolman said that a new stimulus (the sign) becomes associated with an already meaningful stimulus (the significate) through a series of pairings.

• TOLMAN'S KEY CONCEPTS

Learning is always purposive and goal-directed. He held the notion that an organism acted or responded for some adaptive purpose. He believed individuals do more than merely respond to stimuli; they act on beliefs, attitudes, changing conditions, and they strive toward goals. Tolman saw behavior as holistic, purposive, and cognitive.

Cognitive maps in rats. Most famous experiment. The group that had the food in the same location performed much better than the other group, supposedly demonstrating that they had learned the location rather than a specific sequence of turns. This tendency to “learn location” signified that rats somehow formed cognitive maps that help them perform well on the maze. He also found out that organisms will select the shortest or easier path to achieve a goal.

Latent Learning. A kind of learning that remains or stays with the individual until needed. Learning that is not outwardly manifested at once. He demonstrated this in his rat experiments, “learned the maze” by forming cognitive maps of the maze, but manifested this knowledge of the maze only when they needed to. 

The concept of intervening variables. Variables that are not readily seen but serve as determinants of behavior. Tolman believed that learning is mediated or influenced by expectations, perceptions, representations, needs and other internal or environmental variables. 

• Ex: experiments with rats he found out that hunger was an intervening variable. 

Reinforcement is not essential for learning. Although it provides an incentive for performance. In his studies, he observed that rats were able to acquire knowledge of the way through a maze; to develop a cognitive map, even in the absence of reinforcement.

BANDURA'S SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

Focuses on the learning that occurs within a social context. It considers that people learn from one another, including such concepts as observational learning, imitation and modeling. 

• GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

1. People can learn by observing the behavior of others and the outcomes of those behaviors.

2. Learning can occur without  a change in behavior. Social learning theorists say that because people can learn through observation alone, their learning may not necessarily be shown in their performance. Learning may or may not result in  behavior change.

3. Cognition plays a role in learning. Over the last 30 years social learning theory has become increasingly cognitive in its interpretation of human learning. Awareness and expectations of future reinforcements or punishments can have a major effect on the behaviors that people exhibit.

4. Social learning theory can be considered a bridge or a transition between behaviorist learning theories and cognitive learning theories.

• HOW THE ENVIRONMENT REINFORCES & PUNISHES MODELING

1. The observer is reinforced by the model.

2. The observer is reinforced by a third person. The observer might be modeling the actions of someone else.

3. The imitated behavior itself leads to reinforcing consequences. Many behaviors that we learn from others produce satisfying or reinforcing results

4. Consequences of the model's behavior affect the observer's behavior vicariously. Known as Vicarious reinforcement. This is where the model is reinforced for a response and then the observer shows an increase in the same response. Bandura illustrated this by having students watch a film of a model hitting an inflated clown doll.

• CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL LEARNING PERSPECTIVE OF REINFORCEMENT AND PUNISHMENT

1. Contemporary theory proposes that both reinforcement and punishment have indirect effects on learning. They are not the sole or main cause.

2. Reinforcement and punishment influence the extent to which an individual exhibits a behavior that has been learned.

3. The expectation of reinforcement influences cognitive processes that promote learning. Therefore, attention plays a critical role in learning, and attention is influenced by the expectation of reinforcement. 

• COGNITIVE FACTORS IN SOCIAL LEARNING

Operant factors

1. Learning without performance: Bandura makes a distinction between learning through observation and the actual imitation of what has been learned. Similar to Tolman's latent learning.

2. Cognitive processing during learning: Social learning theorists contend that attention is a critical factor in learning.

3. Expectations: As a result of being reinforced, people form expectations about the consequences that future behaviors are likely to bring. They expect certain behaviors to bring reinforcements and others to bring punishments. The learner needs to be aware, however, of the response reinforcements and response punishment. Reinforcement increases response only when the learner is aware of that connection.

4. Reciprocal causation: Bandura proposed that behavior can influence both the environment and the person. In fact each of these 3 variables, the person, the behavior, and the environment can have an influence on each other.

5. Modeling: There are different types of models. There is the live model, an actual person demonstrating the behavior. There can also be a symbolic model, which can  be a person or action portrayed in some other medium, such as television, videotape, computer programs.

• BEHAVIORS THAT CAN BE LEARNED THROUGH MODELING

Aggression can be learned through models. Research indicates that children become more aggressive when they observe aggressive or violent models. Moral thinking and moral behavior are influenced by observation and modeling. This includes moral judgements regarding right and wrong which can, in part, develop through modeling.

• CONDITIONS NECESSARY OR EFFECTIVE MODELING TO OCCUR

1. Attention — The person must first pay attention to the model.

2. Retention — The observer must be able to remember the behavior that has been observed. One way of increasing this is using the technique of rehearsal.

3. Motor Reproduction — the ability to replicate the behavior that the model has just demonstrated. This means that the observer has to be able to replicate the action, which could be a problem with a learner who is not ready developmentally to replicate the action.

4. Motivation — the final necessary ingredient for modeling to occur. Learners must want to demonstrate what they have learned. These 4 conditions vary among individuals, different people will reproduce the same behavior differently.

• EFFECTS OF MODELING ON BEHAVIOR: 

1. Teaches new behaviors.

2. Influences the frequency of previously learned behaviors.

3. May encourage previously forbidden behaviors.

4. Increases the frequency of similar behaviors.

• EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

1. Students often learn a great deal simply by observing other people.

2. Describing the consequences of behavior can effectively increase the appropriate behaviors and decrease inappropriate ones.

3. Modeling provides an alternative to shaping for teaching new behaviors. Instead of using shaping (operant conditioning), modeling can provide a faster, more efficient means for teaching new behavior. To promote effective modeling — 4 essential conditions: attention, retention, motor reproduction, and motivation.

4. Teachers and parents must model appropriate behaviors and take care that they do not model inappropriate behaviors.

5. Teachers should expose students to a variety of other models. This technique is especially important to break down traditional stereotypes.