Behaviourism And Classical Conditioning In Animals (pavlov) Flashcards
In what year was introspection being questioned and by who?
In 1913 introspection was being questioned mostly by John Watson.
Why was introspection being questioned?
It produced data that was subjective so it varied from person to person so it became difficult to establish general principles.
What did John Watson say about truly scientific psychology should include?
A truly scientific psychology should restrict itself only to studying phenomena that could be observed and measured
What is the behaviourist approach?
The behaviourist approach is a theory of learning that focuses on observable behaviour and environmental stimuli. It emphasises all behaviour is learnt from the environment through conditioning. We are born a ‘blank slate’ (tabula rasa)
What is environmental determinism?
Behaviourists believe behaviour is determined by past experiences. Free will is an illusion as our actions are shaped by external stimuli
Define classical conditioning
Classical conditioning is learning by association by two stimuli. This was first formulated by Ivan Pavlov
Summarise pavlov’s research (classical conditioning, 1890’s)
Ivan Pavlov investigated the salutatory reflex in dogs to food. The dog experienced salivation when seeing food (unconditioned stimulus) or the dish or hearing pavlov’s footsteps triggering a built in reflex. Pavlov added a bell (neutral stimulus) and ringed it prior to feeding the dog. This was repeated until the dog began to associate the bell with the food and would produce the salivation response each time it heard the bell (conditioned stimulus).
What is stimulus generalisation?
When a response to a specific stimulus is also triggered by similar stimuli
What is stimulus discrimination?
When a organism learns to differentiate between similar stimuli and only responds to the specific conditioned stimulus
What is time contiguity?
The association between a stimulus and a response is stronger when the two occur closely together in time. Learning not as effective if there’s a long time gap between stimulus
Give 5 strengths of the behaviourist approach
- Highly controlled environment allowing for control of variables and is based on empirical evidence making it scientific and reliable
- Replicable - testing reliability and credibility
- Provided foundational knowledge about learning and behaviourism
- objective measures used to quantify behaviour
- Real world applications - used in therapies
Give 6 weaknesses of the behaviourist approach
- Can’t be generalised to humans as the experiments were carried out on dogs. Humans less influenced and animals have instincts. Humans involve more complex cognitive processes
- Ethics of using animals for research as the dog was subject to stressful conditions
- Low ecological validity - a lab means the findings don’t reflect how conditioning works in a natural environment
- Focuses on behaviour and ignores cognition
- Doesn’t explain how a new behaviour can be acquired
- Doesn’t explain all types of learning and it’s difficult to know which one is at work
