By David W. Carroll
I
say it will be my last review, because over the summer I learned that
the journal is shuttering at the end of this year. That is very
unfortunate for the field, and while APA claims it will be doing
something to create an outlet for book reviews, it would have been a
much better service to the field to revitalize the existing vehicle.
Given the circumstances, I'm going to paste the whole review below:
The Path Through the
Maze of Tolman’s Life
Compelling stories typically
revolve around contradiction; for Edward Chace Tolman, the seeming
contradiction is between a man who deeply felt that “everything important in
psychology” can be covered by a thorough analysis of how rats behaved at a
choice point in a maze (Tolman 1938), and a man deeply concerned with uniquely
human problems. Carroll’s timely biography of Tolman attempts to resolve this
contradiction, showing how Tolman’s interest in rats was never independent of
his interest in humans, and showing that his interest in social justice and
humanitarian issues was a consistent trait, rather than a late-emerging
phenomenon. Fortuitously, this biography has arrived to keep Tolman’s legacy in
our minds during the very same year that Tolman Hall, which has held Berkeley’s
Psychology Department for half a century, is scheduled for demolition. This book
will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in the history and theory of
psychology, and perhaps beyond that to those interested in the broader
intellectual milieus of the eras through which the narrative passes, including the
history of social activism within academia.
Tolman is important both to the
field of psychology, to the history of academia, and – in at least one instance
– to the history of his country. It is a rare feat, which only a few other
psychologists could be said to have achieved. Tolman held a central position in
two important phases of the history of the field: He was a prominent
behaviorist; as one of the three great “neo-behaviorists,” he fought the tide
of Watsonian reductionism, to help kept texture and depth in the study of
behavior. He later served as a key inspiration for much of the “cognitive revolution,”
and as such both his old and new work continued to influence the field long
after behaviorism had been declared passé. Seemingly separately, shortly before
retirement, Tolman also lead a group of faculty in their fight against the
McCarthy era loyalty-oath craze. When California’s Supreme Court ruled such
oaths unconstitutional, they were deciding in the case of Tolman vs. Underhill. David W. Carroll’s book covers those major parts
of Tolman’s life well, but it’s strength lies in what is added on top of that:
A solidly researched narrative of the intellectual and cultural context in
which Tolman and his ideas developed. This not only shows the continuity
between the above referenced parts of Tolman’s life, it also adds considerably
to the professional and personal morals that can be gleaned.
Central to that narrative is
illuminating Tolman’s continuous interest in bettering the state of human
affairs. Influenced strongly by his Quaker grandmother, Tolman intervened
(sometimes successfully, sometimes not) on behalf of colleagues facing social
injustice throughout his career, especially over issues such as anti-Semitism. He
was also involved in several field-specific and several broadly-academic
organizations dedicated to social causes. Most notably, he was a founding
member, and one time president, the Society for the Psychological Study of
Social Issues (SPSSI). It is easy to view these efforts, which collimated in
his refusal to sign the anti-communist loyalty oath, as unrelated to his
interest in rats, but Carroll argues convincingly that we should not view it
that way.
Tolman’s interest in psychology can
be traced back to his interest in helping to better people’s lives, and the
appeal of behaviorism can be understood – in part – as a function of the
zeitgeist that science was a solid method for improving the human condition.
Even when engaging in hard-science experimental work, under a behaviorist impetus,
Tolman latched on to the version of behaviorism that sought depth and
complexity in the behavior of animals. During that phase, he studied the
ability to orient towards certain aspects of the world, to learn and develop,
and to choose between behavioral options. This was the “New Realist” version of
behaviorism, inspired by William James’s later work, and pushed for by a group
that included key James’s disciples, Edwin Bissell Holt and Ralph Barton Perry
(Charles, 2011a). The human concern can be seen in key later works of Tolman,
for example when he backed up each logical point in his argument for the
importance of academic freedom and tenure with solid data about the conditions
under which rats experience peak learning and performance (Tolman, 1954).
If there is
one weakness in the book – and reviewers are obligated to find at least one,
are they not? – it is my feeling that there are deeper places to explore
regarding Tolman’s turn from his original New-Realist flavored “Purposive
Behaviorism” towards his latter more cognitive orientation. The former held
strongly that terms like “choice” and even “hypothesis” referred to
characteristics of behavior observable under certain (arrangable) conditions. Tolman
later viewed those terms as referring to “intervening variables,” and still
later he viewed those terms as referring to internal processes. Carroll agrees
with Smith’s (1986) argument that Tolman’s initial was working within an
American Philosophy tradition, growing out of Charles Sanders Peirce’s Pragmatism,
rather than out of Vienna-Circle Logical Positivism, as has been asserted by
others. A rare treat in the book is how accurately and respectfully Carroll
treats the intellectual lineage from Peirce, to James, to Holt and Perry, to
Tolman. While this set up allows Carroll’s narratives to improve quite a bit on
past efforts to explore Tolman’s transition, one cannot help but feel there is
more to be uncovered. Why, when his position was being challenged in earnest, did
Tolman turn to operationalism, instead of doubling down on pragmatism? And what
problems would such a shift be expected to create in a theory otherwise
originating within the pragmatist tradition? Some sense of that is certainly
gleaned in this book, but a biography can only do so much regarding such issues
of theory. Should future work on the topic come into being, and I hope it does,
I have no doubt it will be strongly grounded on the foundation Carroll has
provided.
Conclusion
Tolman’s
life and work crosses the major divisions that are still visible in the field
of psychology, and as such his biography illustrates at least one method of
straddling the divides. That said, he was a man never satisfied to simply drift
along with the mainstream ideas of his time. If he were somehow still around, one
wonders, might he not have spent the last few decades drifting away from his
more cognitive outlook? Would he have moved towards the burgeoning movements closer
to his original stance, such as embodied cognition and enactivism, or towards
movements such as ecological psychology, which explicitly came from a
Jamesian-Holtian starting place similar to where Tolman began? (Heft, 2001,
Charles, 2011b) To even wonder such things, however, requires knowing and
understanding quite a bit about Tolman’s work, about how that work fit into
certain happenings in the field, and about how that work drove the field
forward. It is no small endorsement to note that Carroll’s book will provide
the reader with sufficient background in Tolman-the-man, Tolman-the-researcher,
and Tolman-the-thinker, to allow him or her to consider such ideas.
References
Charles, E. P.
(2011a). A New Look at New Realism: The
Psychology and Philosophy of E. B. Holt. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction
Publishers (an affiliate of Rutgers University Press).
Charles, E. P.
(2011b). Ecological psychology and social psychology: It is Holt or nothing!
Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Sciences, 45, 132-153.
Heft, H. (2001).
Ecological Psychology In Context: James Gibson, Roger Barker, and William
James's Radical Empiricism. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Smith, L. D.
(1986). Behaviorism and Logical
Positivism: A Reassessment of the Alliance. Stanford, California: Stanford
University Press
Tolman, E. C. (1938). The determinants of behavior at a choice point. Psychological Review, 45, 1-41.
Tolman, E. C. (1954). Freedom and the cognitive mind. American Psychologist, 9, 536-538.
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