Behaviourist approach : Approaches

When did the behaviourist movement begin and who by?

John Watson (1913)

What was Watsons main study

Little albert

What is the behaviourist approach?

A theory of learning which states all behaviours are learned through interaction with environment through conditioning.

What are the 4 basic assumptions of the behaviourist approach?

• All behaviour is learned from the environment through experience

• Behaviourism is primarily concerned with observable behaviour, as opposed to internal events; thinking and emotion.

• It is valid to study on animals and generalize it to humans

• humans are born ‘tabula rasa’ - blank slate

What are the 2 types of behaviourism?

1. Methodological Behaviourism

2. Radical Behaviourism

Who is Pavlov?

A behaviourist who studies classical conditioning

What is classical conditioning?

When we learn through association, eg phobia of dogs due to being bitten by a dog

What was pavlovs procedure

Paired food(UCS) with a sound of a bell (NS) to condition the dogs to salvate(UCR). Did this multiple times

What did pavlov find

that the dogs would salvate at the sound of a bell , due to the association with food,

Who is Skinner?

He discovered operant conditioning

What is operant conditioning?

Learning through consequence, can be positive or negative

What is positive reinforcement

Recieving a reward for behaviour, eg sweet if you do well in a test

What is negative reinforcement

When something unpleasant is removed when a behaviour occurs , meaning we avoid something unpleasant, eg fear of water = avoiding water so not anxious

What was skinners research , AIM

He used rats to see the effect of positive and negative reinforcement

What was the positve condition in skinners research

skinners box, where there was a lever that would release food when the rat would accidentally push it

What was the negative condition in skinners research

Skinners box, where there was a constant electrical shock on the floor, that would turn off when the rat accidentally pushed the lever.

What did skinner find happened in the positive condition

that the rats in the positive condition would consistantly press the lever, and would stop when food would stop being released

What did skinner find happened in the negative condition

Rats would quickly run to lever to turn off the shock as they learnt that the unpleasant feeling would be avoided when pressing lever

What are the 3 types of responses in operant conditioning?

1. Neutral operants

2. Reinforcers

3. Punishers

What are neutral operants?

responses from the environment that neither increase nor decrease the probability of a behavior being repeated.

What are reinforcers?

Responses from the environment that increase the probability of a behavior being repeated. Reinforcers can be either positive or negative.

What are punishers?

Responses from the environment that decrease the likelihood of a behavior being repeated. Punishment weakens behavior.

What is positive punishment?

adding a reward to stop a behaviour from happening.

What is negative punishment?

removing a reward to stop a behavior from happening.

What is a strength of the behaviourist approach

Research is scientific and is in lab settings, meaning it has high internal validity and reliability. We can also establish cause and effect

What is a weakness of the behaviourist approach

Hard to generalise, samples are small and the control groups are animals making it difficult to generalize to humans and our behaviours.

What is a study done linked to humans

Little albert, white rats, conditioned to be scared of them as they were repeatedly paired with a loud bang.

What is an issue with the behaviourist approach

Hard enviromental determinism approach, suggests humans have no free will of their behaviour and that all behaviour is determined from our upbringing.

What does the behavioural approach ignore

The role of biology and genes

where has the behavioural approach been usefully applied

Treatments like systematic desensitization for phobias and token economies to minimize criminality and avolition in schizophrenia