AO3 Behaviorism

one strength of the behavourist approach is that it has support from research studies

eg. case study of Little albert conducted by Watson and Rayner (1920) to study whether the theory of cc could be applied to humans. they found that using cc they could teach a baby to fear a white rat through associating the rat with a loud noise. this supports the behaviourist approach as it provides reliable evidence for the theory that behaviour can be learnt in humans. therefore, one strength of the behaviourist approach is that it has case studies which support the theory.

one strength of the behaviourist approach is that it has real life applications

the idea that behaviour can be learnt has been applied to treatments and therapies. eg. the theory of cc is the basis of systematic desensitisation, which is a therapy for people with phobias. this specific therapy focuses on relaxing the anxiety response to a feared stimuli with a relaxation response so that the person no longer fears the phobia. this therapy is found to have very high success rates and is considered a popular and effective treatment. therefore, one strength of the behaviourist approach is that the theories can be applied to real life scenarios.

one strength of the behaviourist approach is that it is scientific

eg. Skinner’s research into oc used the experimental method such as lab exp which can be seen in his Skinner box experiments. by using laboratory experiments this ensured that the results of his experiments were objective and reliable. by controlling the conditions, this allows for a cause and effect relationship to be determined which shows objective and scientific support for oc and the behaviourist approach. therefore, one strength of the behaviourist approach is that the research which supports it is scientific.

one limitation of the behaviourist approach is that it lacks generalisability

both Pavlov’s and Skinner’s research used animals as pps instead of humans.Pavlov’s research focused on conditioning dogs, whilst Skinner’s research focused on conditioning rats. by using non-human participants, it can be argued that their research reveals little about human behaviour.critics of the behaviourist approach state that humans have free will and higher level cognitive skills that means that would not learn or respond in the same way as animals, so the results of the research cannot then be generalised and applied to explaining human behaviour.therefore, one limitation of the behaviourist approach is that it lacks generalisability to the human population.

one limitation of the behaviourist approach is that it is reductionist

the behaviourist approach argued that all human behaviour is driven by our environment and stimuli around us, which is an example of environmental reductionism. however, it can be argued that we cannot fully understand all human behaviour without taking into other factors. the behaviourist approach ignores the role of mental process when learning behaviours. other approaches such as slt do take these factors into account and argue that they are just as important in understanding human behvaiour. therefore, one limitation of the behaviourist approach is that it reduces human behaviour and ignores other factors.

what does controlling the conditions of a laboratory experiment allow to be determined

a cause and effect relationship

name another approach which takes into account mental processes

social learning theory