behaviourist approach

strengths of classical conditioning & pavlov’s research

• Both Pavlov and Skinner base their theories based on empirical evidence from controlled lab experiments

  • Confounding variables are controlled - same amount of food, level of hunger controlled by keeping animals at 90% body weight

  • High reliability, internal validity and scientific credibility, objective measurement

• Real world application - phobia treatments

  • Phobia treatments such as SD and flooding use the theories of behavioural conditioning to treat phobias using 

    • Gilroy et al. (2003)

• Behavioural approaches explain the onset and maintenance of phobias (Mowrer 1947)

weaknesses of classical conditioning & pavlov’s research

• Animal studies cannot be generalised to humans - low external validity when comparing to human behaviours

• Ethical doubts as if behavioural conditioning is taken too far/is too radical, then it can pose threat to individuality and free will - could lean towards fascist tendencies

• However, the behavioural approach forms the basis of the learning theory of attachment, yet has been disproven by psychologists such as Bowlby

• Behavioural approach also assumes that cognitive approaches are irrelevant

• Behavioural approaches focus significantly on the nurture side of the nature vs. nurture debate

• Behavioural approaches suffer from environmental reductionism - everything is stimulus response - too over-simplified to explain the complexities of humans

• Behavioural approaches are environmentally deterministic - everything we do has been trained in by conditioning

skinner’s research (1953)

• Skinner (1953) suggested that learning is an active process whereby humans and animals operate upon their environment

• Skinner identified three types of operant:

  • Neutral operant

    • Environmental forces that neither increase nor decrease the repetition of a specific behaviour

  • Reinforcers

    • Environmental forces that increase the repetition of a specific behaviour

    • A positive reinforcer is a behaviour which is repeated to enjoy the pleasant consequences

    • A negative reinforcer is a behaviour which is repeated to avoid unpleasant consequences

  • Punishers

    • Environmental forces that decrease the repetition of a specific behaviour

skinner box

• Skinner placed one rat at a time inside the box

• Each box contained different stimuli, including a lever that released food (the rat’s reward) and an electroplated floor (the rat’s punishment)

• Positive reinforcement was demonstrated by placing a hungry rat in the box

  • The box contained a lever which the rat initially accidentally triggered as it explored the box

  • Upon triggering the lever a food pellet was delivered (reward)

  • The rats quickly learned to go straight to the lever

  • The consequence/reward (food) of pressing the lever saw them repeating the action over and over again

• Negative reinforcement was demonstrated by placing a rat in the box and then subjecting it to an unpleasant electric shock (punishment)

  • The rat initially accidentally triggered the lever as it explored the box

  • Upon triggering the lever, the electric current was switched off (unpleasant sensations stopped)

  • The rats quickly learned to trigger the lever immediately as soon as they were placed in the box

  • The consequence/reward of escaping the electric shock saw them repeating the action over and over again