page_title: Edward C. Tolman
section_title: Other psychological work
hierarchical_section_title: Edward C. Tolman / Career / Other psychological work
caption_attribution_description: English: dedication of Tolman Hall, University of California, Berkeley
context_page_description: Edward Chace Tolman was an American psychologist and a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Through Tolman's theories and works, he founded what is now a branch of psychology known as purposive behaviorism. Tolman also promoted the concept known as latent learning first coined by Blodgett. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Tolman as the 45th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
  Tolman was one of the leading figures in protecting academic freedom during the McCarthy era in early 1950s. In recognition of Tolman's contributions to both the development of psychology and academic freedom, the Education and Psychology building on Berkeley campus, the "Tolman Hall", was named after him.
context_section_description: Aside from the contributions Tolman made to learning theory such as purposive behaviorism and latent learning, he also wrote an article on his view of ways of learning and wrote some works involving psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Tolman was very concerned that psychology should be applied to try to solve human problems, and in addition to his technical publications, he wrote a book called Drives Toward War.  Moreover, in one of his papers, "A theoretical Analysis of the Relations between Psychology and Sociology", Tolman takes independent, dependent, and intervening variables under the context of psychology and sociology. Then he puts them together and show the interrelations between the two subjects in terms of variables and research. In another publication, "Physiology, Psychology, and Sociology", Tolman takes the three subjects and explains how all three depend or interrelate with each other and must be looked at as a whole. Tolman creates a hypothetical situation and shows the conditions and interrelations between the three subjects in the situation.
  Tolman developed a two-level theory of instinct in response to the debate, at the time, of the relevance of instinct to psychology. Instinct was broken down into two parts: determining or driving adjustments and subordinate acts. Adjustments are motivations or purposes behind subordinate acts, while the subordinate acts fulfill that purpose. Adjustments are the response to a stimulus and can be arranged in a hierarchy with the lowest adjustment producing subordinate acts. Subordinate acts are randomized independent actions, excluding reflexes, that are part of larger groups of activity. While considered infinitely numerous, the amount found in a grouping is limited with identifiable boundaries. The cycle begins with a stimulus that produces a determining adjustment or a hierarchy of adjustments. The lowest adjustment then cues subordinate acts that persist until the purpose of the adjustment is fulfilled.
  Humans are unique in that we can think out our actions ahead of time. Tolman called this thoughts-of-acts or thinking-of-acts. This prevents us from acting completely random until something finally works. Thinking-of-acts triggers an inhibitory process that prevents the determining adjustment from cuing subordinate acts. Following the thinking, a prepotent stimulus turns those thoughts into acts. There are two ways a stimulus would be considered prepotent: (a) the original adjustment is favorable to the act produced by the foresee stimulus, or (b) the stimulus creates an alternative adjustment more favorable than the original.
  An example of this theory in action could be being trapped in a burning building. Without thinking, the lowest determining adjustment would be to escape, producing various acts where you may run around randomly trying to stumble upon an escape route. Or, you could stop and think, inhibiting that first process. You remember that the door in the corner leads to a hallway, to a stairwell, to a set of doors to the street. This would be an example of thinking-of-acts. The street would be the prepotent stimulus because it produces a favorable act to the original stimulus. Alternately, you could think that it might be dangerous to use the stairwell as smoke tends to pool in them and instead run to a window to call for help. This would be another version of a prepotent stimulus because it produces an alternative adjustment that is more favorable than the original. This might be because you learned that it may be safer to stay near a window and call for help than to go further into the burning building, creating a self-preservation adjustment.
  
  In 1948 Tolman wrote an article regarding the life of Kurt Lewin after Lewin's death in 1947. It contained some of Lewin's background, his contributions, and honest criticisms of his research. Overall Tolman wrote about him in a very positive light. Tolman regarded him along with Sigmund Freud as psychologists who would be well recognized in the future.
caption: Tolman Hall Dedication Ceremony, 1963, left to right Clark Kerr, Kathleen Tolman, Edythe Brown (wife of department chair), Chancellor Edward Strong, Ernest R. Hilgard (guest speaker)
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