Behaviourist Approach

Question 1

What are the key assumptions of the behaviourist approach?

Answer 1

• Humans are born a blank slate
• All behaviours are learnt from the environment- upbringing, culture, society
• Animal behaviours can be generalised to humans.

Question 2

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 2

• Learning behaviour through association
• We learn to associate a stimulus with a response

Question 3

Pavlov’s dogs

Answer 3

** Before conditoning**
* UCS –> UCR
* Food leads to salivation
* NS –> No response
* Sound of bell does not priduce response

** During Conditioning**
* UCS + NS –> UCR
* When food is presented, a bell is rang. This leads to unconditioned response of salivation

**After Conditioning **
* CS –> CR
* Over time, dogs associated sound of bell with food. Sound of bell leads to dogs salivating, even without the presence of the food.

Question 4

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 4

• Learning through consequences
• Possible consequences include positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and punishment

Question 5

What is positive reinforcement? Give an example from Skinners rats.

Answer 5

• Recieving a reward when a certain behaviour is performed.
• This makes it more likely that the behaviour is repeated.
• Example: a child is given a sticker when they clean their room.

Question 6

What is negative reinforcement? Give an example

Answer 6

• Negative reinforcement is when behaviour is produced to avoid something unpleasant.
• This makes it more likely that a behaviour will be repeated
• Example: a child does their homework to avoid being told off.

Question 7

What is punishment? Give an example.

Answer 7

• The unpleasant consequence of a behaviour.
• Decreases the likelihood of behaviour being repeated
• Example: being given a detention for fighting at school.

Question 8

Skinner’s study

Answer 8

Skinner’s boxes- specially designed cages for rats/ pigeons
* Positive reinforcement- everytime the rat pressed the lever, they recieved a food pellet; making them more likely to press the lever to recieve a food pellet.
* Negative reinforcement- when the floor was electrified, pressing the lever turned it off so the lever was pressed to avoid the shock; making them more likely to press the lever.
* Punishment: when they pressed the lever they recieved an electric shock, when this was the case they quickly learnt not to press the lever.

Question 9

AO3- strength or weakness?
DREAMS- deterministic?

Answer 9

• Weakness
• Explains behaviour as being controlled by past experiences that have been conditioned
• Skinner- any sense of free will is an illusion- our past conditioning history controls our behaviour.
• WEAKNESS BECAUSE it suggests that people are not responsible for their own behaviour and so if people act in immoral ways, the approach would suggest that it isn’t their fault.

Question 10

AO3- strength or weakness?
DREAMS- reductionist?

Answer 10

• WEAKNESS
• The approach reduces all complex behaviour down to one cause- conditioning
• For example, classical and operant conditioning
• WEAKNESS BECAUSE it is too simplistic to think all behaviour is learnt through conditioning, it ignores other factors such as neurochemistry.

Question 11

AO3- strength or weakness?
DREAMS- supporting evidence?

Answer 11

• STRENGTH
• Little Albert study- he initially had no response to white rats (NS). Loud noises, however, caused fear (UCR) without being conditioned making loud noises an UCS.
• When Albert was presented with a white rat paired with a loud noise several times, he started to associate the white rat (CS) with the loud noise which caused him fear (CR).
• STRENGTH BECAUSE it adds validity and credibility to the behaviourist approach, supporting classical conditioning.

Question 12

AO3- strength or weakness?
DREAMS- applications of the research?

Answer 12

• Strength
• Classical conditioning- led to the development of treatments for phobias; systematic desensitisation is based on classical conditioning and aims to replace a conditioned response of fear with relaxation.
• Operant conditioning- use of token economies in prisons and psychiatric ward where good behaviour is rewarded with tokens which can be exchanged for priveleges.
• STRENGTH BECAUSE the findings can be used in real-life to improve people’s lives, as these treatments and strategies have been effective in correcting behaviour and treating phobias.

Question 13

AO3- strength or weakness?
DREAMS- what methods does the approach use? Is the approach scientific?

Answer 13

• Strength
• Supporting research comes from highly controlled, scientific, animal studies e.g., Pavlov’s dogs
• Allows extraneous variables to be controlled for, meaning a cause and effect relationship can be established
• STRENGTH BECAUSE it adds greater credibility and status to psychology as a science.