Behaviourist approach Flashcards
What is the Behaviourist approach?
A way of explaining behaviour in terms of what is observable and in terms of learning.
How do Behaviourists maintain control?
Behaviourists use controlled lab studies within their research as it maintains more control and objectivity.
What do behaviourists suggest about behaviour and learning?
All behaviour is learned, and the mind begins as a blank slate which is written on by experience.
They suggest all processes that govern learning are the same so animals replace humans in experiments.
What are the two forms of learning concerned in Behaviourism?
Operant Conditioning
Classical Conditioning
What is classical conditioning?
Learning through association.
This occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired together: a UCS and a NS. The neutral stimulus eventually produces the same response that the first was produced by the UCS alone.
Who demonstrated classical conditioning?
Pavlov (1927)
Outline Pavlovs experiment.
Pavlov showed how dogs could be conditioned to salivate to the sound of a bell if that sound was repeatedly presented at the same time as they were given food.
Gradually the dogs learned to associate the sound of the bell with the food and would salivate every time they had heard the sound.
Pavlov showed how a NS (Bell), can come to elicit a new learned response (CR) through association.
Identify the experimental stages in Pavlovs experiment.
- Before conditioning
Food (UCS) ~> Salivation (UCR)
Bell (NS) ~> No salivation (no response)
2.During conditioning
Bell + Food ~> Salivation - After conditioning
Bell (CS) ~> Salivation (CR)
What is Operant conditioning?
A form of learning where behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences.
Possible consequences of behaviour include reinforcement (Positive or negative) and punishment.
Who demonsrated operant conditioning?
Skinner (1953)
What did Skinner suggest about behaviour ?
Learning is an active process whereby humans operate on their environment.
What are the 3 types of consequence?
Positive reinforcement
Negative reinforcement
Punishment
What is Positive reinforcement?
Recieving a reward when a certain behaviour is performed, for example praise from a teacher for answering a question correctly in class.
Increased the chance a behaviour is repeated.
What is negative reinforcement?
Avoiding something unpleasant, which leads to a positve experience.
E.g. handing in homework as not to be told off.
What is Punishment?
Unpleasant consequence of behaviour, E.g. being shouted at by a teacher for talking during lesson.
Outline Skinners rat experiment.
Skinner specially designed cages called the Skinner Box. Every time the rat activated a lever within the box it was rewarded with a food pellet. From then on the rat would continue this behaviour.
Skinner also showed that the rat could be conditioned to avoid a unpleasant stimulus by activating the lever.
The floor would give the rat each time the light was on, so activating the lever would avoid the unpleasant stimulus.
One strength of behaviourism is that it uses well-controlled research.
-The approach has focused on the careful measurement of observable behaviour within highly controlled lab settings.
-By breaking down behaviour into basic stimulus-response units, all other possible EVs are removed, allowing for cause and effect relationships to be established.
-E.g. Skinner clearly demonstrated how reinforcement influences an animals behaviour.
-This suggests that behaviourist experiments have scientific credibility.
COUNTERPOINT: The influence of human thought and internal mental processes.
To scientific credibility
The problem with this is that behaviourists may have oversimplified the learning process.
-By reducing behaviour to such simple components, behaviourists may have ignored an important influence on learning-that of human thought.
-Other approaches such as social learning theory and the cognitive approach have drawn attention to mental processes involved in learning.
-This suggets that learning behaviour is more complex than observable behaviour alone, and that mental processes are also essential.
Another strength is behaviourist laws of learning have real world application.
For example operant conditioning is the basis of token economy systems that have been used successfully in institutions, such as prison and psychiatric wards.
-These work by rewarding appropriate behaviour with tokens that can be exchanged for privileges.
-This increases the value of the behaviourist approach as it has wide spread application.
One limitation is that it sees all behaviour as conditioned by past conditioning experiences.
A FORM OF ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINISM
Skinner suggested that everything we do is the total sum of our reinforcement history.
-When we do something we may think that we chose to do that, but according to skinner our past conditioning history determined the outcome.
-This ignores any possible outcome that free-will may have on behaviour, which is an extreme position and ignores the influence of concious decision making proccess on behaviour.
