2 - The Behaviourist Approach - Classical Conditoning Flashcards
Outline the behavioural approach
Explaining behaviour in terms of what is observed in terms of learning.
Based on the idea that all behaviours are acquired through conditioning.
Our responses to environmental stimuli shape our actions.
Outline classical conditioning
Learning by association.
Neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus. Neutral stimulus will eventually produce the same response that was produced by the unconditioned response alone.
Two stimuli are linked together to produce a new learned response.
Describe how classical conditioning took place with Pavlovs dogs
Before CC : Food (unconditioned stimulus) produced the reflex of salivating (unconditioned response). Bell (neutral stimulus) produced no conditioned response
During CC : Unconditioned stimulus (food) repeatedly paired with the neutral stimulus (bell). Eventually, the dog associated bell with food.
After CC : The bell was a conditioned stimulus that produced salivating in the dogs as a conditioned response.
How does time effect classical conditioning?
If neutral stimulus cant be used to predict unconditioned stimulus (because neutral stimulus occurs first or there is too much time between them) conditioning will not take place.
What is extinction?
Conditioned response is not permanent.
After a few presentations of the bell being rung without food appearing the dogs stopped salivating.
What is spontaneous recovery?
If conditioned response becomes extinct, but then an attempt is made to teach the conditioned response again, it will be learned much more quickly than it was originally.
What is stimulus generalisation?
Once an animal has been conditioned they will respond to other similar stimuli in the same way they would respond to the conditioned stimulus.
What are the limitations of ?
Successful in explaining how learning can occur in animals and young children. However not very good in explaining how adults learn new behaviours. Limited to only explaining learning in young children and animals.
Menzies studied people that had hydrophobia, and found only 2% of his sample had encountered a negative experience with water (due to classical conditioning and learning). Therefore, 98% of his sample had a phobia of water but had never had a negative experience involving water, which means that they had not learnt to become frightened of water. 50% of people who have a dog phobia have never had a bad experience involving a dog, so learning cannot be a factor in causing the development of the phobia
Strongly deterministic. According to behaviourism, human behaviour is entirely determined by the environment, there is no account taken of a person’s free will to decide how to behave (environmental determinism)
Ignores role of genes, hormones, evolution and neural mechanisms that are responsible for behaviour. Strong research evidence from a range of psychologists that behaviour is caused and determined by genes, a key example is schizophrenia, whereby genetics have been identified as the main cause of the illness ( identified by gene mapping). Very unlikely that someone could learn to be schizophrenic (via classical conditioning). Therefore other models in psychology should also be considered when looking at how behaviours develop
What are the advantages to this approach?
Enhanced the scientific status of Psychology by using strict scientific methods, being objective, and producing verifiable findings. The behaviourist approach has developed laws and principles that have enabled psychologists to predict and control behaviour. This has led to several useful therapies, such as systematic desensitisation (classical conditioning) and token economy (operant conditioning). However, it also raises ethical concerns because the approach could be used to control people against their wishes.
