behaviourism Flashcards
what is the behaviourist approach?
believes in nurture and was developed after wundts work
what are the key assumptions about behaviourism?
-all behaviour is learnt through classical and operant conditioning
-humans are born as a blank state(tabula rasa)
-all human behaviour is a result of stimulus and response associations built up through experiences.
-only observable behaviour is relevant to psychology. the mind and mental processes are not important as the cannot be measured.
what is classical conditioning?
learning through associations between a natural stimulus and a natural response.
first discovered by ivan pavlov
what was pavlovs experiment?
he conditioned dogs so that they salivated on command using a bell.
what was the unconditioned stimulus in the experiment?
food
what was the unconditioned response in the experiment?
salivation
what was the neutral stimulus in the experiment?
bell
what was the conditioned response in the experiment?
bell
what was the conditioned response in the experiment?
salivation
what is operant conditioning?
learning through consequences of our own voluntary behaviours
what are the three ways of learning?
-positive reinforcement (strengthens
-negative reinforcement behaviour)
-punishment (weakens behaviour)
what is positive reinforcement?
pleasant consequences follow a behaviour and make the behaviour more likely to happen again
what is negative reinforcement?
a behaviour is more likely to be repeated if doing that behaviour removes negative consequences.
what is punishment?
unpleasant consequences follow a behaviour and make it less likely to occur again.
what was the skinner box experiment?
an experiment based on operant conditioning by skinner.
a rat was put in a skinner box if it pulled the leaver it was given a food pellet (positive reinforcement) but if it didn’t it was given an electric shock (negative reinforcement)
