Behaviourist

Question 1

What are key assumptions of the behaviourist approach?

Answer 1

• only interested in studying behaviour that can be observed/measured
• behaviours rejected vague and immeasurable concepts like introspection
• believed babies were blank slates who learnt from experience
• thought all species learnt in the same way —> used animal testing to draw conclusions on humans

Question 2

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 2

Learning through association of stimuli, first demonstrated by Pavlov

Question 3

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 3

Suggested learning is an active process shaped and maintained by consequences, developed by BF Skinner

Question 4

Describe the three types of reinforcement

Answer 4

positive reinforcement = receiving a reward when certain behaviour is performed (increases behaviour)
negative reinforcement = occurs when an animal/person performs a behaviour to avoid something unpleasant (increases behaviour)
punishment = unpleasant consequence of a behaviour (decreases behaviour)

Question 5

What research was used for classical conditioning?

Answer 5

• Pavlov’s dogs
  1. (before conditioning) dogs were presented with food - unconditioned stimulus - eliciting an unconditioned response of salivating
  2. (before conditioning) dogs were presented with a bell - neutral stimulus, eliciting no response
  3. The food was paired with a bell sound repeatedly
  4. Eventually the bell alone - now a conditioned stimulus came to elicit the conditioned response of salivation

Question 6

What research was done to support operant conditioning?

Answer 6

• Skinner box
• positive reinforcement = rats would receive a pellet of food each time the lever was pressed
• negative reinforcement = rats would receive an electric current and accidentally knock a lever which would stop the shock; eventually learned to go here
  -punishment = rats would receive an electric current each time the lever was pressed

Question 7

What are the strengths of the behaviourist approach?

Answer 7

• Scientific method
- brought aspects of natural sciences into psychology by focusing on the measurement of observable behaviour
- influential in development of psychology as a science, used concepts of objectivity and replication
•Real world application
- basis of token economy systems in prisons/ psychiatric wards (rewarding appropriate behaviour with tokens which are exchanged for a privilege)
- classical conditioning is applied in phobia treatment

Question 8

What are the limitations of the behaviourist approach?

Answer 8

• Deterministic
- sees behaviour as determined by past experiences + a result of our reinforcement history
- ignoring free will, suggesting it was an illusion
Animal studies
- animals were exposed to stressful/aversive conditioning which may have affected how they reacted in the experiment
- animal behaviour and human behaviour may be different, research cannot be generalised to humans