Behaviourist Approach Flashcards
What are the assumptions of the behaviourist approach?
People’s behaviour is due to what they have learned
People learn in the same way as animals, as a result of simple association between a stimulus and response
What is classical conditioning?
Classical conditioning is the association between two stimulus
What was Pavlov’s research?
Pavlov investigated the salivatory reflex in dogs. He conditioned the dogs to salivate in response to a bell.
What were the stimulus and responses in pavlov’s research?
UCS - food touching tongue
UCR - salivation
CS - Bell
CR - Salivation
What did Watson and Rayner research?
They researched classical conditioning in Little Albert and conditioned him to become frightened of white rats which later developed into a fear of white fluffy things, I.e like Watson’s beard
What is positive reinforcement?
Encourages behaviour to be repeated, by using rewards e.g training your dog with treats
What is negative reinforcement?
Behaviour with negative outcomes tends not to be repeated e.g if a child burns them self on the oven they are unlikely to repeat this
What is punishment?
Punishment decreases the likelihood that behaviour is repeated
What did skinner do?
He used operant conditioning to teach the rats to press the lever as they were rewarded by food in differed ratio schedules, e.g a good pellet was dispensed every 5th lever press
What is a strength of classical conditioning?
It has led to the development of treatment for anxiety and phobias (systematic desensitisation). This form of therapy works by eliminating the learned anxious response (anxiety) and replacing it with another (relaxation) so that the patient is no longer anxious in the presence of the feared object or in the feared situation
What is a strength of operant conditioning?
The research into operant conditioning is reliable due to its use of the experimental method. For example, skinner used carefully controlled conditions to measure behaviour and by manipulating the consequences of the behaviour (independent variable) he was able to accurately measure the effects on the rats behaviour (dependent variable). This enabled him to establish a cause and effect relationship between his variables.
What is a limitation of classical conditioning?
Different species face different challenges to survive so have different capabilities to learn through the process of classical conditioning. As a result the relationship between CS and UCS tend to be more difficult to establish for some species than others.
What is a limitation of operant conditioning?
The research carried out into operant conditioning is predominantly conducted on animals which mean it tells us little about human behaviour. Humans have the free will to decide how to behave rather than being determined by positive or negative reinforcement.
