Approaches Flashcards
Assumptions of the Behaviourist approach
All behaviours are learnt from our environment.
Focus on observable behaviour.
Animals and humans learn in the same ways, so most of the experiments are done with animals to relate the results to humans.
Laboratory experiments are used for these experiments to be shown as objective and scientific.
Classical conditioning (Behav)
Done by Pavlov
Dogs learnt to associate the bell with food and the sound of the bell now makes them salivate.
Food = unconditioned stimulus
Salivation = unconditioned response
Rung bell = neutral stimulus before food
After conditioning, dogs salivated when they heard the bell even when no food was given.
Bell now = conditioned stimulus
Salivation now = conditioned response
Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning: Learning with consequences
Skinner believed learning is an active process. When these behaviours are acted on they will result in consequences.
Positive reinforcement = receiving a reward.
Negative reinforcement = occurs when preforming an action stops something unpleasant happening.
Punishment = unpleasant consequence.
Skinner’s rat experiment
Positive reinforcement experiment: A hungry rat was placed in a cage. Every time it pulled a lever, food came out of a dispenser (positive reinforcement.) The rats learned quickly and pulled the lever whenever they were put in the box again. This shows that positive reinforcement increases the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated.
Negative reinforcement experiment: Rat was placed in a cage where they were shocked. Then they pulled the lever and the shocks stopped. The rats then learnt to go to the lever after being put in the box a couple times.
Behaviourism evaluation
Strengths - Has experimental support Pavlov, Little Albert.
Introduced scientific methods to psychology (lab experiments) where high control of extraneous variables were taken care of. The data is trustworthy and replicable.
Weaknesses - Many experiments were done on animals, however we are cognitively and physiologically different from animals.
It does not explain important aspects of human behaviour such as memory and problem solving as these are internal mental events which cannot be observed.
Social Learning theory assumptions
People learn through observation. Learners can acquire new behavior and knowledge by merely observing a model.
Social learning theory stages (ARRM)
Attention = The person needs to notice the behaviour and it’s consequences and form a mental representation of the behaviour.
Retention = Storing observed behaviour in LTM.
Reproduction = The person must be able to replicate the observed behaviour.
Motivation = People must expect to receive the same positive reinforcements for imitating the behaviour.
SLT Vicarious reinforcement -
Imitation is more likely to occur if the model (the person who performs the behaviour) is positively reinforced.
Bobo doll study - Bandura et al
Lab experiment
Sample: American children. 36 boys and 36 girls.
Group 1: 12 girls and 12 boys were shown a model hitting the doll with a hammer and shouting at the doll.
Group 2: 12 girls and 12 boys were shown a model shown a non-aggressive model.
Group 3: 12 girls and 12 boys (control group) were not shown a model.
Children were taken into a room but told not to play, then were taken individually in a room containing a bobo doll and non-aggressive toys and aggressive toys.
The children who had observed the aggressive model were more aggressive than the children in the other groups. The children imitated the behaviour shown by the model. Boys were more physically aggressive than girls but verbal aggression was the same between them both.
Evaluation Bobo doll experiment
Not ecologically valid as it was done in a laboratory environment, doesn’t reflect how they would act in real life.
The children were in an unfamiliar environment, so they might have felt pressured into behaving like the model.
Doesn’t explain why boys were more aggressive than girls.
Sample isn’t very wide, different cultures and classes might have acted differently in such conditions, cant be generalised to everyone due to this.
Cognitive approach assumptions
The main assumption of the cognitive approach is that information received from our senses is processed by the brain and that this processing directs how we behave.
These internal mental processes cannot be observed directly but we can infer what a person is thinking based on how they act.
Schemas (Cog)
Packet of information which helps us organise and interpret information. They are based on previous experience. They help us interpret incoming information quickly and effectively, this prevents us from being overwhelmed by incoming environmental information.
Biological approach assumptions
Thinking that our thinking and behaviour are strongly determined by biological factors: structure and functioning of the nervous system.
Genetic factors
Heredity, passing of characteristics from one generation to the next through genes.
Everyone possesses a unique combination of genetic instructions meaning that we differ from each other in terms of personality, intelligence and abilities etc.
Genotype
Genetic make up of an individual
