CLA Behaviourism

Question 1

Skinner (1957)

Behaviourist theory

Behaviourism (Nurture)

Answer 1

• Believed that biology had very little to do with the acquisition of language.
• Experimented on rats and argued that his findings on operant conditioning could be applied to language development.
• Stated that all behaviour is conditioned through negative and positive reinforcement.
• Chomsky criticisies this theory, commenting on the validity of experiments on rats and pigeons in comparison to a human’s capacity to learn.

Question 2

Bobo Doll Experiment

Albert Bandura (1989)

Behaviourism

Answer 2

• When children saw violent treatment of a doll prior to a period of play with the doll, they were far more likely to imitate this behaviour.
• Bandura explicitly emphasised the importance of language modelling.
• The language to which a child is exposed to is likely to be imitated by the child in the same way as the behaviour.