the behaviourist approach

What do behaviourists believe

Humans are born as blank slates and out behaviour is caused by our environment aka tabula rasa

What is classical conditioning

Humans learn through association, research by Pavlov

Explain pavlov’s dog study

Found that dogs can be conditioned to salivate to the sound of a bell when is associated with the unconditioned stimulus food. The bell is now a conditioned stimulus causing the response of salivation without the food being present

What is operant conditioning

We learn through our consequences

Explain skinner’s rat study

Rats put in a skinner box and exposed to 2 conditions, press lever for food and the floor is electrified, so press another lever to temporarily stop the electricity, rat presses lever more frequently

What did the 2 conditions in skinner’s study represent

Food lever was positive reinforcement and electricity lever was negative reinforcement

What is extinction

When a response to a conditioned stimulus diminishes due to absence of UCS

What is recovery

Sudden reemergence of a learned response following a period of extinction

What is stimulus generalisation

stimuli that are similar to the CS will produce the CR

What is timing

if neutral stimulus cannot be used to predict the UCS or the time interval between the two is too long then conditioning does not take place