behaviourist approach

what does tabula rasa mean?

- all behaviour is learnt
- we are born as a blank slate

is the theory nature or nurture?

- nurture
- every behaviour is learnt

what is Pavlov's law of contiguity?

- all behaviour, no matter how complex, can be reduced to a simple stimulus-response association

What is environmental determinism?

- we have little freewill we are determined to act in a certain way by our environment

what does nomothetic mean?

- it uses the results of experiments to generalise to explain behaviours to everyone

what is environmental reductionism?

- it is reductionist as it reduces human behaviours to just a stimulus-response reaction

what does behaviourism believe about extrapolation?

- there's no fundamental distinction between human and animal behaviour.
- therefore, research can be carried out on animals and then generalised to humans

what is classical conditioning?

* learning through association

what was Pavlov’s classical conditioning experiment?

* Pavlov’s dod


* Pavlov repeatedly presented a bell (neutral stimulus), with food (unconditioned stimulus) leading to salvation (unconditioned response) 


* UCS-UCR
* NS
* CS-CR
* Conditioned animals will also respond to other stimuli that are similar to the CS; this is stimulus generalisation.

what was the Little Albert experiment?

* Watson and Rayner used classical conditioning to try and induce phobias into a 9 month old baby.


* He was shown a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey and various masks. Albert described as "on the whole stolid and unemotional" showed no fear of any of these stimuli.


* He was afraid of a hammer being hit off a steel pipe behind his head. 
* They presented the white rat again, and seconds later the hammer was struck against the steel bar.
* Albert reacted by crying, avoidance and fear when the rat was presented without the loud noise. He would cry (whether or not the hammer was hit against the steel bar) and he would attempt to crawl away.


* This fear began to fade as time went on, however the association could be renewed by repeating the original procedure a few times.

what was the conclusion from the Little Albert experiment?

* demonstrated that classical conditioning could be used to create a phobia.
* A phobia is an irrational fear, that is out of proportion to the danger.
* In this experiment, a previously unafraid baby was conditioned to become afraid of a rat.

which two of Pavlov’s theories did Little Albert support?

* **Extinction**: Although a conditioned association can be incredibly strong initially, it begins to fade if not reinforced - until is disappears completely.
* **Generalisation**: Conditioned associations can often widen beyond the specific stimuli presented. For instance, if a child develops a negative association with one teacher, this association might also be made with others

what is operant conditioning?

* learning through reinforcement
* Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning suggests that whether or not an animal repeats a particular behaviour depends on its consequences.


* Skinner identified three types of responses, or operant, that can follow behavior.
* **Neutral operants**: responses from the environment that neither increase nor decrease the probability of a behavior being repeated.
* **Reinforcers**: Responses from the environment that increase the probability of a behavior being repeated. Reinforcers can be either positive or negative.
* **Punishers**: Responses from the environment that decrease the likelihood of a behavior being repeated. Punishment weakens behavior.

what is a token economy?

* Token economy is a system in which targeted behaviors are reinforced with tokens (secondary reinforcers) and later exchanged for rewards (primary reinforcers). 
* Tokens can be in the form of fake money etc. While the rewards can range anywhere from snacks to privileges or activities.
* For example, teachers use token economy at primary school by giving young children stickers to reward good behavior.
* Token economy has been found to be very effective in managing psychiatric patients. However, the patients can become over reliant on the tokens, making it difficult for them to adjust to society once they leave prison, hospital, etc.

a03 - experimental method (s)

* P The approach is strong as it relies on the **experimental method.**
* E Skinner and Pavlov’s research were clearly ‘scientific’ in nature.
* E For example, Skinner could manipulate the independent variable (the rewards) and then measure the effect on the rats behaviour (pressing the lever)
* **This is important because it allowed Skinner to establish cause and effect and to produce an experiment which could be replicated. This is essential in a theory of human behaviour as to be reliable it has to produce the same results every time.**

a03 - conducted on animals (w)

* **P However a weakness of the method is that many of the experiments in the approach were conducted on animals.**
* E For example, Pavlov’s dog and Skinner’s rat.
* E we are different cognitively and physiologically, therefore we might behave differently from animals so the laws and principles derived from these experiments might apply more to animals than to humans.
* **This is important because approach might be flawed as it may be limited in understanding human behaviour as it researches so heavily on animals**

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a03 - practical applications (s)

* P However, the approach has practical applications 
* E For example, the approach explains why people develop phobias e.g. Mowrer with the 2 process theory. 
* E This states that phobias are acquired (learned) by association in classical conditioning and then continue (are maintained) by negative reinforcement in operant conditioning. 
* **This is important as research such as Mowrer’s shows evidence how phobias develop and gives real insights into why people have phobias which can affect people in their everyday lives.**

A03 - only considers nurture (w)

* P However, the behaviourist approach only considers nurture as important side of the development of phobias and any other psychological problem. 
* E This is because it states that all behaviour is learnt either by classical or operant conditioning. It does not allow for other facts such as genetics to play a role in our behaviour. 
* E For example what about phobias that are not learnt by association such as ancient fears? These are said to be evolutionary, passed on from earlier generations as survival instructs e.g. the fear of heights (e.g. Garcia 2017) 
* **This is important as this could undermine the validity of the approach in explain human behaviour as approaches such as the biological have many important insights to give us regarding human behaviour.**