Behaviourist approach Flashcards
What is the behaviourist approach?
Behaviour is learned through experiences and interactions with the environment.
What is the stimulus response mechanism?
Behaviourists believe it is only possible to scientifically investigate what can directly be observed and measured. Stimulus and response.
Why do they reject internal mental processes?
The mind cannot be directly observed
mind is a ‘black box’
What do behaviourists say about environmental determinism?
They believe behaviour can be predicted and controlled by manipulating the environment.
What was Pavlovs research?
Classical conditioning
What did Pavlovs dogs originally do?
They produced saliva before seeing or smelling food.
What did this suggest?
The dogs had formed a temporal association between the sound of the researchers walking down the hall and food.
What does classical conditioning suggest?
An unconditioned response can be triggered by a neutral stimulus through repeated pairing. The neutral stimulus alone produces the conditioned response.
Describe Pavlov’s research.
Used a neutral stimulus, metronome, that initially didn’t produce a significant response.
Uncondition stimuli, food, naturally triggered a relexive response, salivation, in the dogs.
He paired neutral stimulus with unconditioned stimulus over several trials.
Neutral stimulus was presented just before the unconditioned stimulus. pavlov then recorded the dogs salivary responses.
What were pavlova findings?
Dogs began to salivate not only in response to the food but also to the metronome even when the food was not presented.
This indicated the dogs had learned to associate the neutral stimulus with the food.
What is operant conditioning?
Learning by reinforcement.
When a creature performs by voluntary response it leans from the consequences of those actions.
What was Skinners research?
Operant conditioning
What is positive reinforcement?
Adding a pleasant stimulus to encourage desired behaviour.
What is negative reinforcement?
Removing an unpleasant stimulus to encourage the behaviour.
Describe skinners research.
Animals were placed in the skinner box without prior training.
He then observed how animals learned to operate levers to receive a reward or avoid punishment.
What were skinners findings?
Behaviour is influenced by the consequences that follow. Behaviours followed by rewarding consequences are more likely to be repeated while those followed by undesirable consequences are less likely to recur.
How did skinner use reinforcement?
He made the box give uncomfortable electric shocks through cage wires, when an animal pushed the level the shock stopped.
What is punishment?
Discourages behaviour.
Positive - adding an unpleasant stimulus following an undesired behaviour.
Negative - removing a pleasant stimulus.
What is extinction?
If the reinforcing consequences stop then the person or animal will stop performing the behaviour.
What is the difference between classical and operant conditioning?
Involuntary response vs voluntary response.
Acquisition of response vs maintenance of response.
What are positives of the behaviourist approach?
Scientific.
Practical applications.
What are criticisms of the behaviourist approach?
Not generalisable to humans.
Unethical.
Reductionist.
