Behaviourist Approach Flashcards
Born a?
Behavior is learnt from?
Other things are learnt from?
We are born a tabula rasa we are not born with in-built mental content.
Behavior, from our language development to our gender development to aggression, prejudice and abnormal behavior
Everything else is learned from interactions with the environment after birth.
Nurture explanation for?
Psychology should be studied?
Research should be?
Human behavior
Behaviorist argue that psychology should only study observable behavior in controlled lab settings because this is the only way that human behavior can be studied in a scientific way.
Objective
Behaviourists argue that the law of learning is the same for?
So we are able to study?
Behaviourists also argue that the laws of learning are the same for both humans and non-human animals
We are able to study animal learning in a laboratory environment and make generalisations about human behaviour.
Classical conditioning is?
Learning through association
Who is Pavlov?
Pavlov was a Russian physiologist best known in psychology for his dog experiments.
This research played a critical role in the discovery of one of the most important concepts in psychology. While it was originally discovered quite by accident, these famous experiments led to the discovery of classical conditioning.
Operant conditioning is?
Learning through reinforcement and punishment
Who is Skinner?
Suggested that freewill was?
B. F. Skinner was a famous behaviourist who suggested that the concept of free will was simply an illusion and that all human action is the direct result of conditioning.
He built on Pavlov’s work and developed the theory of operant conditioning.
Operant conditioning-
We repeat behaviour with?
We won’t repeat behaviour with?
We repeat behaviours with pleasant consequences and we wont repeat behaviour with negative consequences
What is positive reinforcement?
Positive reinforcement- increase in a certain behaviour as it produces a reward and we like pleasant things.
What is negative reinforcement?
Negative reinforcement is an increase in a certain behaviour as it removes something unpleasant we don’t like unpleasant things
What is punishment?
Decrease in a certain behaviour because it produces something unpleasant.
What is positive punishment?
You receive something unpleasant
What is negative punishment?
Something you like is taken away.
What are the strengths of the behaviourist approach?
It’s scientific
Successful applications
What are the weaknesses of the behaviourist approach?
Focuses on nurture
Environmentally deterministic
