Behaviourist Approach

Question 1

Key features of behaviourism

Answer 1

• Born as a blank slate and all behaviour is learnt
• On nature side of debate
• All behaviour Reduced to a simple stimulus response association
• Results from experiments can be generalised to explain everyone’s behaviour

Question 2

Classical conditioning

Answer 2

Primary caregiver (neutral stimulus) becomes associated with food (unconditioned stimulus) which becomes a conditioned stimulus producing pleasure (conditioned response)

Question 3

Operant conditioning of infants

Answer 3

Crying is positively reinforced by attention

Question 4

Operant conditioning of caregivers

Answer 4

Attention is negatively reinforced by cessation of crying

Question 5

Positive reinforcement

Answer 5

Increases likelihood of a response occurring because it involves a reward for the behaviour

Question 6

Token economy

Answer 6

A reward system which in moves tangible rewards for positive behaviour

Question 7

Negative reinforcement

Answer 7

Increases likelihood of a response occurring because it involves the removal of unpleasant consequences

Question 8

Extinction

Answer 8

If behaviour is no longer reinforced it will become extinct and no longer repeated

Question 9

Operant conditioning

Answer 9

A type of learning I’m which a new voluntary behaviour is associated with a consequence

Question 10

What are voluntary behaviours?

Answer 10

Actions that can be controlled by the organism

Question 11

Who conducted an experiment on operant conditioning?

Answer 11

Skinner

Question 12

What did skinner use in his experiment?

Answer 12

Rat
Food dispenser
Lever
Lights
Speaker
Electric grip

Question 13

How does operant conditioning explain phobias?

Answer 13

Moving away from behaviour provides negative reinforcement by reducing the anxiety, this maintains the phobia

Question 14

Who conducted an experiment on classical zconditioning?

Answer 14

Pavlov

Question 15

What animal did Pavlov use in his experiment?

Answer 15

Dog

Question 16

What did skinner say learning is by?

Answer 16

Reinforcement

Question 17

What did Pavlov say learning is by?

Answer 17

Association

Question 18

What was the unconditioned response in Pavlov experiment?

Answer 18

The dog salivating

Question 19

What was the unconditioned stimulus in Pavlovs experiment?

Answer 19

Food

Question 20

What was the neutral stimulus in pavlovs experiment?

Answer 20

Bell

Question 21

What was the CR & CS in Pavlovs experiment?

Answer 21

CR - dog salivating

CS - bell

Question 22

Who conducted an experiment for classical conditioning with humans?

Answer 22

Watson and Raynor

Question 23

What was Watson and Raynors experiment called?

Answer 23

Little Albert

Question 24

Who put forward the 2 process model?

Answer 24

Mowrer

Question 25

What is flooding?

Answer 25

More extreme form of behavioural therapy

Question 26

Who do they do in flooding?

Answer 26

Exposed to the most frightening situation immediately and are unable to avoid it and through continuous exposure anxiety levels decrease

Question 27

What are the 2 forms flooding can take?

Answer 27

In Vivo - actual

In vitro- imaginary

Question 28

What is a patient taught in flooding?

Answer 28

Relaxation techniques

Question 29

Systematic desensitisation

Answer 29

Uses principals of classical conditioning to replace phobia with relaxation response

Question 30

Three critical components to systematic desensitisation ?

Answer 30

Fear hierarchy
Relaxation training
Reciprocal inhibition

Question 31

Reciprocal inhibition

Answer 31

Two emotional states don’t exist at same time

Question 32

environmental determinism

Answer 32

the behaviourist approach sees all behaviour as determined by past experiences that have been conditioned. Skinner suggested that everything we do is a sun total of our reinforcement history. he suggested that any sense of free will is simply an illusion. this makes it an important weakness as it informed any possible influence that free will may have on our behaviour.

Question 33

real life application

Answer 33

for example, operant conditioning is the basis of token economy systems that have been used successfully in institutions, such as prisons and psychiatric wards. these work by rewarding appropriate behaviour with tokens that can be exchanged for privileges. treatments such as these have an advantage of requiring less effort from a patient because they don’t have to talk about the problem.

Question 34

carried out on animals evaluation

Answer 34

we are cognitively and physiologically different from animals, humans have different social morals and moral values which mediate the effect of the environment so we may behave differently. so the laws and principles derived from the experiments cannot be reliably generalised to the human population. this is an important weakness as it reduces the external validity of the approach.