Behaviourist Approach

Eduqas GCE A-Level Psychology - Component 1 - Behaviourist Approach

What is the first assumption of the behaviourist approach?

What is the first assumption of the behaviourist approach?

Humans are born as a blank slate.

Why are humans born a blank slate?

Behaviourists believe that people learn from their environment, supporting the nurture side of the nature vs nurture debate.

What is meant by 'ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINISM'?

Behaviour is caused by forces external to the individual.

KEY EXAMPLE: Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment

Bandura (1961) had a sample of 36 boys and 36 girls.

24 children (12 boys and 12 girls) watched a male or female model behaving aggressively towards a Bobo doll. The adults attacked the Bobo doll in a distinctive manner.

• Children who observed the aggressive model made far more imitative aggressive responses than those who were in the non-aggressive or control groups.

• There was more partial and non-imitative aggression among those children who had observed aggressive behaviour.

• The girls in the aggressive model condition also showed more physical aggressive responses if the model was male, but more verbal aggressive responses if the model was female.

• Boys were more likely to imitate same-sex models than girls.

• Boys imitated more physically aggressive acts than girls.

What is the second assumption of the behaviourist approach?

Behaviour is learned through conditioning.

What are the two types of conditioning?

Classical and Operant.

What is classical conditioning?

Learning via association.

What is operant conditioning?

Learning via consequence.

What are the stages of classical conditioning?

STAGE 1 - Before Conditioning:

UNCONDITIONED STIMULUS ---------> UNCONDITIONED RESPONSE

NEUTRAL STIMULUS -----> NO RESPONSE

STAGE 2 - During Conditioning:

UCS and NS are repeatedly paired, forming an UNCONDITIONED RESPONSE.

STAGE 3 - After Conditioning:

CONDITIONED STIMULUS -----------> CONDITIONED RESPONSE

KEY EXAMPLE: Pavlov's Dogs

Unconditioned Stimulus = Food Neutral Stimulus = Bell Unconditioned Response = Salivation

NS + UCS are paired.

Conditioned Stimulus = Bell Conditioned Response = Salivation

What are the three main components of operant conditioning?

• Positive Reinforcement

• Negative Reinforcement

• Punishment

What is positive reinforcement?

Providing rewards to increase the likelihood of a behaviour being increased.

What is negative reinforcement?

Removing an unpleasant experience to increase the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated.

What is punishment?

Imposition of consequences to reduce a behaviour.

What is Thorndike's 'Law of Effect'?

Any behaviour that is followed by positive consequences is MORE likely to be repeated, and a behaviour that is followed by negative consequences is LESS likely to be repeated.

KEY EXAMPLE: The Skinner Box

Skinner's 'Skinner Box' Experiment showed how positive reinforcement worked.

When the lever in the box is pressed, food, water, or some other type of reinforcement might be dispensed. Other stimuli can also be presented, including lights, sounds, and images. In some instances, the floor of the chamber may be electrified.

Where can operant conditioning be applied in society?

• Prisons (Token Economy)

• The Home

• Education

• Dog Training

What is the third assumption of the behaviourist approach?

Humans and Animals learn in similar ways.

KEY EXAMPLE: John Watson's 'Little Albert' Experiment compared to Pavlov's Dogs.

Little Albert Experiment:

What is Systematic Desensitisation?

A method developed by Wolpe (1958) used to treat phobias, such as arachnophobia by counter-conditioning the patient.

How does systematic desensitisation work?

Feared stimuli are conditioned through therapy to be associated with relaxation. This will lead to extinction of the fear response. This fear response is replaced with a response of relaxation.

Systematic Desensitisation employs the concept of counter conditioning. If a phobia is learned, it can be unlearned.

What is the first component of systematic desensitisation?

The client is given training in various relaxation techniques such as:

• Breathing Control

• PMR (Progressive Muscle Relaxation)

• Mental Imagery

What is the second component of systematic desensitisation?

The client and therapist work together to construct an anxiety hierarchy.

What is an anxiety hierarchy?

This is a series of imagined scenes, each one causing slightly more anxiety than the previous.

What is the third stage of systematic desensitisation?

Exposure to phobic stimuli.

• Done either IN VIVO (real life) or IN VITRO (imagined).

---------------

The client works their way through the hierarchy, utilising their relaxation technique.

Due to reciprocal inhibition*, they should after a while be able to visualise the stressful situation whilst remaining relaxed.

*Relaxation and fear cannot be felt at the same time.

What is the final stage of systematic desensitisation?

The client moves onto the next step in the anxiety hierarchy, continuing on after they have mastered each step. The therapy moves at the pace decided by the client (graduated exposure).

What is one piece of research that supports the effectiveness of systematic desensitisation?

McGrath (2000) found that SD is successful for a wide range of phobias, with 75% of patients responding to treatment.

McGrath used SD on a 9-year-old girl with a noise phobia, using a fear thermometer (rating scale 1-10).

The girl's fear rating dropped:

• From 7 to 3 for balloons popping.

• From 9 to 3 for party poppers.

What is one factor that suggests systematic desensitisation is not effective?

Biological Preparedness.

We have phobias of things that were a danger to us in our past (adaptive response), such as NYCTOPHOBIA. Systematic Desensitisation is not suitable for these 'ancient fears' as they are fears we are genetically programmed to have, rather than fears that are learned - meaning we cannot unlearn them.

What are some ethical considerations of systematic desensitisation?

• SD may be easier to administer to children as they have less life experience, making their behaviour easier to manipulate.

• Children may find SD more suitable as there are no side effects and may find other therapies difficult.

• In comparison to flooding, the graduated exposure means that experienced anxiety is minimal.

The Little Albert experiment shows stimulus generalisation. What is stimulus generalisation?

The same response is caused or elicited by stimuli that are similar.

What is stimulus discrimination?

The response only occurs to a very narrow range of specific stimuli.

What was the methodology used by Watson and Rayner?

A controlled observation within a hospital.

How did Watson and Rayner establish a baseline for Albert’s responses?

• At 9 months old, they tested Albert’s reactions to a white rabbit, dog, monkey, mask, cotton wool and a burning newspaper. (He showed no fear to any of these objects).

How old was Albert during the first observation?

11 months, 3 days.

What was the procedure for the first controlled observation?

Can a fear of a neutral stimulus be conditioned?

→ Established the conditioned response.

• White rat presented to Albert and just as he touched it, the bar was struck behind him.

No further tests given for a week.

What were the findings of Albert’s first observation?

• Albert jumped violently and fell forward, burying his face in his mattress, whimpering.

How old was Albert during the second observation?

11 months, 10 days.

What was the procedure for Albert’s second controlled observation?

Can a conditioned response be transferred?

→ Tested the conditioned response.

• Rat presented to Albert.

• Albert given blocks to test to see if they were in the conditioning planning but most frequently to calm him down.

• Joint stimulation of the rat and bar.

• Rat presented alone.

What were the findings of Albert’s second observation?

• Steady fixation and tentative reaching movements.

• Withdrawal of body once physical contact made.

• Turning away from the rat.

• Crying.

• Crawling away frantically.

How old was Albert during the third observation?

11 months, 15 days.

What was the procedure for Albert’s third controlled observation?

Can a conditioned response be transferred?

→ Tested the generalisation and endurance of the conditioned response.

• Albert was given blocks after each stimulus to calm him down.

• Presented with the rat.

• Albert presented and came into contact with a white rabbit.

• Dog presented, allowed to approach.

• Wool in a paper package placed on his feet.

• Santa Claus Mask presented to Albert.

What were the findings of the third controlled observation?

• Played with blocks, showing no general transfer of conditioning to other objects.

• Leaning away from the stimuli.

• Whimpering and crying.

• Crawling away and kicking (the wool).

How old was Albert during the fourth observation?

11 months, 20 days.

What was the procedure for the fourth controlled observation?

Does this conditioned response change over time?

→ Tested the generalisation and endurance of the conditioned response.

• Offered blocks throughout to calm Albert down.

• Rat, Rabbit and Dog presented with joint stimulation throughout.

Albert was moved to a well-lighted lecture room beneath a skylight.

• Rat, Dog and Rabbit presented alone.

• Rat presented before joint stimulation occurred.

• Blocks presented.

• Rabbit presented alone.

• Dog presented, began quiet but allowed to bark afterwards.

What were the findings of the fourth controlled observation?

• Withdrawal of the body and fixation on stimuli.

• Crawling away and leaning away from the stimuli.

• Violent reaction.

• Whimpering.

Albert moved to a well-lighted lecture room beneath a skylight.

• No positive manipulatory reactions but no sudden fear reaction to the rat at first.

• Negative reaction - crying and turning away.

• Withdrawal of body and crying.

• Whimpering, fell over backwards and had to be caught.

How old was Albert in the fifth observation?

12 months, 21 days.

What was the procedure for the fifth controlled observation?

• Santa Claus mask presented. Albert forced to touch it 3 times.

• Fur Coat presented and removed randomly.

• Blocks presented.

• Rat and Rabbit presented, Albert forced to touch the rabbit.

• Active dog presented.

What are the findings of the fifth controlled observation?

• Withdrawal, gurgling and slapping of the Santa Claus mask.

• Tentatively reaching before withdrawing prior to contact.

• Fretting and head nodding.

• Allowed the rat to crawl, but heavy fixation. Once contact made, Albert withdrew his body, began to fret and covered his eyes.

• In presence of rabbit, Albert pushed it away with his feet whilst wailing “da da” but eventually touched it. When it was placed in his lap, he began to fret but eventually touched it. He immediately withdrew his hand and began sucking his thumb.

• Albert fixated on the dog, began to cry and sat motionless.

What are the conclusions of The Little Albert study?

• Fear of a neutral stimulus can be conditioned by presenting it with an established negative stimulus.

• The conditioned response can be transferred to other objects, i.e. stimulus generalisation.

• The conditioned response continues over time.

Why is the Little Albert study internally reliable and valid?

• Reliability - Standardised Procedure. Each observation followed a set structure, recorded in detail and had a control condition.

• Validity - Standardised Procedure. High control, the use of a control condition and emotional tests used as a baseline. This allowed confident conclusions to be drawn on conditioning leading to fear because extraneous variables had a limited effect.

Why is the Little Albert study NOT externally reliable and valid?

• Reliability - Couldn’t be replicated due to ethical issues. No test-retest as Albert was taken from the hospital so no observations could be repeated.

• Validity - The study was done on only one participant so we cannot assume that other people would have fear conditioned into them in the same way. Therefore the study lacks population validity*. Moreover, it is in a contrived environment so lacks* ecological validity*.*

What are the main ethical issues surrounding the Little Albert study?

• The mother did not provide informed consent to Albert’s participation in the study, she did not know what was ongoing.

• Albert was filmed without his awareness as he was too young to know he was being filmed, confidentiality?

• Albert attempted to crawl away - he was too young to verbally express right to withdraw, but did his behaviour suggest he wanted to leave?

What are the main social implications of the Little Albert study?

• Advertisement - Advertisements that use music take advantage of classical conditioning. Music that is happy and repetitive helps consumers feel happy when they hear it, causing them to associate happiness with the product and so are more likely to buy it.

• Education - Routine can be classically conditioned, for example a classroom may be associated with a specific task. Le Francois (2000) suggested that by increasing pleasant stimuli and decreasing unpleasant stimuli, students will create positive association with their environment and academic performance will improve.

• Mental Health Treatment - Systematic Desensitisation.

What is the behaviourist contemporary debate?

Using Conditioning Techniques to control the Behaviour of Children.

Why is using conditioning on children a debate?

Using conditioning techniques is a highly controversial area because it involves the manipulation of behaviour; the person whose behaviour you are manipulating may have no knowledge of this. 

• The impact of conditioning has important implications for society. 

• People who promote conditioning believe that it benefits children, parents and teachers. 

• People who oppose the idea of conditioning believe that by we are creating a generation of ‘robots’. 

Why are conditioning techniques appropriate in the home?

Gill (1998) found that when parents used positive reinforcement to encourage chores, children were more likely to complete their chores when offered material rewards in response.

• This is an appropriate use of operant conditioning because it reinforces good behaviours.

• However, a negative social implication is that it may ruin intrinsic motivation, impacting their future working lives as they will be only relying on extrinsic motivation.

Why are conditioning techniques NOT appropriate in the home?

Benjamin et al. conducted a study around the use of operant conditioning and the success of night training in young children using a sample size of 90 parents via a questionnaire. Negative interpersonal reinforcers within implicit operant conditioning (e.g. shaming, spanking etc.) significantly reduced the learning to stay dry at night.

• This is an inappropriate use of conditioning in the home because the negative reinforcement is having minimal impact on the outcome of night training, and is simply just leaving the children traumatised.

• The use of negative reinforcers has severe ethical implications - the children are more likely to develop mental health problems as a result of the mistreatment, therefore resulting in economic implications as well. The behaviour may continue into late teen years which could eventually cost money for assistance from professionals.

Why are conditioning techniques appropriate in education?

McAllister et al. conducted a study applying principles of operant conditioning to a high-school English class of 25 students using a standardised observation. They found that the combination of disapproval for negative target behaviours and the praise for appropriate behaviours reduced the number of incidents around the target behaviours (i.e. talking).

• This is an appropriate use of operant conditioning in education because it reduces the occurrence of negative behaviours in a way that is not harmful to the students.

• One social implication of this research is that children will receive a better education as behaviour is improved which creates a more educated generation of people for the workforce.

Why are conditioning techniques NOT appropriate in education?

Altman and Linton found that the classroom is the traditional place where behaviour is modified; "teachers have traditionally been assigned to change or modify the behaviour of children entrusted to them for several hours a day”. They claimed that the desired objectives are generally accomplished by the use of positive and negative reinforcement and punishment. Given time and experience, teachers determine which techniques are most effective for managing behaviour but such trial and error is unnecessary, inefficient and unsuccessful.

• This is not an appropriate use of conditioning in education because the techniques are often unsuccessful.

• There are cultural differences in terms of conditioning within schools. For example, in Western cultures teachers often have to manage behaviours through punishment, positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement.  However, in other cultures (such as East Asian) students are often more intrinsically motivated so are far less likely to require positive reinforcement or punishment as they want to do well anyway.

Why are conditioning techniques appropriate for vulnerable groups?

Moore et al. investigated the effects of classical conditioning on the attitudes of social behaviour of children associated with drinking, smoking and drugs. The procedure involved pairing words with negative connotations, with results indicating that the experimental group expressed more negative attitudes towards smoking, drinking and drugs than the control group did.

• This is an appropriate use of classical conditioning for vulnerable groups because it means that it is easier to keep children safe on the streets from anti-social behaviours.

• One social implication of this research is there are less young people on the streets that could be groomed into drug and alcohol abuse or smoking, which means that they may do better in school and access better employment opportunities in the future.

Why are conditioning techniques NOT appropriate for vulnerable groups?

A school in Massachusetts used electric shocks on special needs children to manipulate their behaviour, an attempt to correct autistic characteristics. This used a battery pack strapped to the students with cathodes fastened to the skin with the sole purpose of inflicting pain. The electrical shocks were designed to condition children into thinking that their behaviour will result in pain as a mean of making them stop that behaviour.

• This is an inappropriate use of conditioning because it is both highly unethical due to the harm inflicted upon the students, and because it is not even successful.

• One social implication of this is that the children receive a poor education so are less likely to be able to achieve highly and get into good jobs so their lives may be hindered.

How can the behaviourist approach be evaluated in terms of its successful applications?

It has applications to fear therapy.

• The theory of conditioning has led to the development of systematic desensitisation, which uses counter-conditioning to remove phobias.

• One piece of research that supports the successes of systematic desensitisation is Rothbaum et al (2000)'s research. They used virtual reality (in vitro) to help people who were afraid of flying. Following SD treatment, 93% of participants agreed to take a test flight. Anxiety levels were lower than those of a control group who had not received systematic desensitisation and this improvement was maintained.

How can the behaviourist approach be evaluated in terms of its use of animals?

It uses animals in its research.

• Skinner conducted research on animals around principles of operant conditioning that would have been unethical to perform on humans, i.e. the Skinner Box whereby rats (held in boxes) were provided rewards for specific behaviours and punished for unwanted behaviours as a way of testing how they can be operantly conditioned to perform in a certain way.

• However, animals do not behave in the same way as humans - the process of learning is often much more complex in humans; rewards do not always encourage the continuance of specific behaviours and punishments may not prevent negative behaviours. For example, a school in Massachusetts used electric shocks on special needs children to manipulate their behaviour, an attempt to correct their autistic behaviour - this will not have led to an alteration in their actions, however it could have if it were used on other animals as punishment for other behaviours.

How can the behaviourist approach be evaluated in terms of its determinism?

It takes on environmentally deterministic view on behaviour.

• Humans have no control over their behaviour as it is influenced by external forces beyond their control, e.g. the Little Albert Study which utilised classical conditioning to instil a fear of white stimuli in a child.

• However, determinism is a weakness in the way that our lack of control over our behaviour could make us feel powerless. For example, if phobias are caused by the pairing of a neutral and negative stimulus, there is very little that can be done to prevent this from taking place.

How can the behaviourist approach be evaluated in terms of nature vs nurture?

It only considers the nurture side of the debate.

• Behaviourists believe that our behaviour is a product of our environment and that nature has no influence on human behaviour.

• An example of this is the assumption of humans begin as a blank slate. The use of “tabula rasa” suggests that humans are born with no prior knowledge and all behaviours are learned through the environment - this was displayed in Bandura’s Bobo Doll Study whereby children observed adults playing with toys, imitating any aggressive behaviours that took place.