Approaches in Psychology - Behaviourism Flashcards
Identify 4 Evaluation Points for the Behaviourist approach including 1 strength and 1 limitation?
1) Well controlled research - COUNTER POINT - Reduction of behaviour to stimulus- response.
2) Real life application - Token economy and Systematic desensitisation. Game addiction
3) Reductionism - conscious and cognitive decision making processes ignored.
4) Hard environmental determinism - No free will plus humans are passive
Expand on “ 1) Well controlled research - COUNTER POINT - Issues with research - Ethical issues, Generalisabilty etc
A strength of the behaviourist approach is that it has empirical evidence supporting its theories. Skinner and Pavlov both observed behaviours that support the behaviourist theories of operant and classical conditioning under highly controlled lab settings. The psychologists broke down behaviour into stimulus response units and removed all other extraneous variables, they then established cause and effect relationships between these stimuli gaining the behaviourist approach credibility and strengthening it. However it must be considered that the findings of these researchers could have been scientific, objective and valid but they may not provide an accurate representation of human behaviour during learning as both were animal studies. This means that an assumption has to be made that rats, dogs and humans behave similarly during learning which they may not and therefore it can be said that the behaviourist approach extrapolates animal behaviours onto human beings which weakens it. There are also ethical issues with these animal studies being carried out, for example in both experiments the animals were required to be hungry at all times and so were kept below their natural weight intentionally. Other problems such as electrocuting the rats and the invasiveness of measuring the amount of saliva produced by the dogs makes the studies more unethical and not as valid for supporting the approach as it questions whether similar results could have been achieved more ethically.
Expand on “2) Real life application - Token economy and Systematic desensitisation.”
A strength of the behaviourist approach is that its principals are the foundation of many useful systems within society today. Aspects of operant conditioning are used to run successful behaviour management programmes such as Token economies in prisons, schools and psychiatric wards. Using the theories of the behaviourism approach we are able to reinforce desired behaviour within these institutions and decrease unwanted behaviours. Classical conditioning has also proven to be useful within our world as it has been used to create a successful treatment for phobias where a patient becomes desensitised to their phobic object at the end of their treatment by learning to associate it with relaxation techniques. Having widespread real life application adds value to the behaviourist approach.
Expand on “3) Reductionism - conscious and cognitive decision making processes ignored.”
A limitation of the behaviourist approach is that it can be considered a reductionist and incomplete explanation explanation. By simplifying thought processes to only observable behaviour you are omitting all cognitive and conscious processes that occur in the brain especially during learning. The approach also places a focus on seeing behaviour as stimulus response relationships which can be seen as another oversimplification of how humans actually learn. Breaking down principles into their ‘building blocks’ whilst usually creating a simplified explanation of complex concepts is known as reductionism - a fuller understanding of a concept is harder to reach with a reductionist explanation and therefore this weakens the behaviourist approach.
Expand on “4) Hard environmental determinism - No free will plus humans are passive”
A limitation of the behaviourist approach is that it believes the environment to be determinant of all behaviour, specifically the conditioning experiences that we’ve had in the past. One of the main assumptions of behaviourism is that we are born ‘a blank slate’ as stated by John B Watson and everything that happens after that is what determines the way that we think and behave. The major issue with this is that it ignores the biological factors that could predispose us to certain behaviours. It also ignores any affect that free will can have within our lives which is largely problematic as some people like to believe that the actions that occur in their lives are a result of their behaviour rather than their behaviour and life being determined by environmental factors, for example those with a high internal locus of control. The behaviourist approach demonstrates an example of hard environmental determinism and with all of the problems with determinism (such as he fact that it suggest that people cannot be morally held accountable for heir sections as they were already determined by an external force) this weakens the behaviourist approach.
What are the key assumptions of the behaviourist approach?
1) The baby’s mind is a blank slate.
2) The basic processes that govern learning are the same in all species.
3) Only observed behaviour should be measured, studied and tested as this is the only way to be scientific
Explain classical conditioning?
UCS –> UCR
NS –> NO RESPONSE
UCS + NS –> UCR
CS –> CR
Explain operant conditioning?
Negative reinforcement - if i do it they take away something bad away so I do it again to get rid of something bad again.
Positive reinforcement - if i do it i get something good so I do it again to get something good again.
Negative punishment - if i do it they take something good away so i don’t do it again so i can keep the good thing.
Positive punishment - if i do it they give me something bad so i dont do it again so i dont get the bad thing.
