Behaviourist Approach Flashcards
What is introspection?
The breaking up of conscious awareness into basic elements; thoughts, images and sensations.
What is a strength of introspection?
Some of the methods were systematic and well controlled
- carried out in a lab, controlled extraneous variables
What is a weakness of introspection?
Wundts research wouldn’t be considered scientific today - relied on ppts self reporting
What are the three key features of the scientific method?
Objectivity - basing findings on fact and not opinion
Replicability
Empirical methods - phenomenon that can be observed and measured
What is a strength of the emergence of Psychology?
Modern psychology can claim to be scientific - It has the same aims as the natural sciences, psychology established itself as scientific
What is a weakness of the emergence of psychology?
Not all psychological approaches used scientific methods - Focus much more on individual experience.
Explain the two types of conditioning?
Classical - Learning through association
Operant - Learning through reinforcement
What was Pavlov’s experiment?
Unconditioned stimulus -> Unconditioned response
food -> salivation
Neutral stimulus -> No response bell -> no salivation
UCS + NS -> UCR
Conditioned stimulus -> Conditioned response
bell -> salivation
What was Pavlov’s additional findings?
Discovered that once an animal has been conditioned, they will also respond to other stimuli that are similar to the CS. (Little Albert)
What are the 3 types of reinforcement?
Positive - if behaviour results in a pleasant consequence then it is likely to be repeated.
Negative - if behaviour results in the removal of an unpleasant consequence than the behaviour is likely to be repeated.
Punishment - if a behaviour results in an unpleasant consequence than the behaviour is not likely to be repeated.
Explain Skinners box?
When the rat accidentally activated the lever a food pellet dropped, the rats quickly learnt that pressing the lever would be rewarded with a food pellet so repeated the behaviour (PR) This was repeated but rats received an electric shock until they pressed the lever (NR)
What is a strength of the behaviourist approach?
The principles of behaviourism can be applied to the real world. (CC used in alcohol addiction) (OC used in parenting/schools)
What is 2 weaknesses of the behaviourist approach?
Ethical issues - rats weren’t protected from harm.
Oversimplified the learning process - SLT&Cognitive suggest mental processes are involved in learning.
What are the assumptions of the behaviourist approach?
All behaviour is learned
Learning behaviour can be understood by the principle of conditioning and modelling
What is learned can be unlearned
