Learning Approach: Behaviourism Flashcards
The behaviourist approach
The behaviourist approach to learning studies changes in behaviour that are caused by a person’s direct experience of their environment.
What was the approach’s main assumptions?
- A person’s behaviour is a result of their direct experience of the environment.
- Make a deliberate effort to be more scientific, and therefore, unlike Wundt, refused to discuss mental processes that may be involved in learning as they are not observable and can’t be studied objectively - they believe that to be like other sciences, psychology should only study observable, quantifiable behaviour.
- Research is mainly laboratory experiments involving animal behaviour and introspection was rejected as a tool by behaviourists like John Watson as it was believed to have too many concepts that were vague and difficult to measure.
- Behaviourist explanations are called stimulus-response (S-R) explanations because they only refer to observable stimuli and responses, and ignore everything else.
- This approach assumes that all behaviour is learnt and can be explained using classical and operant conditioning.
- In behaviourist research, animals could replace humans as experimental subjects.
- Behaviourists believe that humans are only animals and should not be treated as any more complex. Because humans are only animals, research on animal behaviour will be directly relevant to humans.
Pavlov - Classical Conditioning
- Classical conditioning is learning through association.
- It was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov.
- Pavlov revealed that 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, Pavlov’s dogs learned to associate the sound of the bell (a neutral stimulus) with the food (an unconditioned stimulus) and would produce the salivation response every time they heard the sound.
- Thus, Pavlov was able to show how a neutral stimulus, in this case the bell, can come to elicit a conditioned response, salivation, through association.
Skinner - Operant Conditioning
- To study operant conditioning in as scientific a way as possible, Skinner created an experimental tool called the ‘Skinner box’ that allowed complete control over the organism’s environment, the behaviours available to it and the reinforcement or punishment it would receive.
- Skinner investigated how the type of reinforcement or punishment given and the rate at which reinforcement or punishment was given affected the rate of learning.
- In a typical experiment, a rat or pigeon would be put into the Skinner box in which temperature, light and noise were kept constant.
- On the wall of the box, there would be a lever and a hopper that could deliver a food pellet to the animal once the lever was pressed.
- Initially, the rat or pigeon would’ve been wandering around the box aimlessly until it accidentally pressed the lever and received a food pellet.
- Skinner would leave the animal in the box and measure how frequently it pressed the lever overtime.
- The frequency should indicate the strength of the conditioning of the behaviour.
- This would be then repeated with other animals.
Skinner - Operant Conditioning - Reinforcement & Punishment
Positive reinforcement - occurs when a behaviour (response) is followed by a favourable stimulus (commonly seen as pleasant) that increases the frequency of that behaviour. It is receiving a reward when a certain behaviour is performed; for example praise from a teacher for answering a question correctly.
Negative reinforcement - occurs when a behaviour (response) is followed by the removal of an aversive stimulus (commonly seen as unpleasant) thereby increasing that behaviour’s frequency. In the Skinner’s box experiment, negative reinforcement can be a loud noise continuously sounding inside the box until it engages in the target behaviour, such as pressing a lever, upon which the loud noise is removed.
Punishment - is an unpleasant consequence that causes a behaviour to occur with less frequency.
Strength
point: a strength of the behaviourist approach is that it is scientific.
evidence: this is portrayed through the use of objectively observable and measurable stimulus-response mechanisms which establish cause-and-effect relationships through highly controlled lab experiments that manipulate variables systematically. Examples include Pavlov and Skinner’s study whereby they investigated how behaviour is learned through the interaction of an organism with a stimuli presented to them. Such standardised procedures allowed for the replication of their work.
justification: this demonstrates that the behaviourist approach is credible as it provides empirical support for their theories through using stimuli-response methods to showcase how behaviour is learnt.
implication: this is therefore a strength of the behaviourist approach and a major contributor in the recognition of psychology as a distinct scientific discipline.
Strength
point: the behaviourist approach has been highly commended for its application to real-life scenarios.
evidence: the principles of conditioning have been applied to a broad range of real-world behaviours and problems. For instance, operant conditioning is the basis of token economy systems that have been successfully used in institutions, such as prisons, classrooms and psychiatric wards. These work by rewarding appropriate behaviour with tokens that can then be exchanged for privileges. Treatments such as these have the advantage of requiring less effort from a patient as they don’t have to think about their problem as they do in ‘talking therapies’, they are also effective in the sense that they are suitable for patients who lack insight.
justification: this demonstrates that the propositions of the behaviourist approach can be applied to a wide range of real-life contexts which are useful in building society on both a large and a small scale.
implication: this is therefore a strength of the behaviourist approach as it provides ecological validity.
Weakness
point: the behaviourist approach has been criticised for being environmentally determinist.
evidence: this approach sees all behaviour as determined by past experiences that have been conditioned. Skinner suggested that everything we do is the sum total of our reinforcement history. This neglects any possible influence that free will may have on behaviour. Skinner suggested that any sense of free will is simply an illusion. When something happens we impose a sense of having made the decision but according to Skinner, our past conditioning history determines the outcome.
justification: this suggests that there is no such role that free will or other factors can play in determining our outcome to a particular scenario as it is believed to have already been predetermined by our past experiences with the environment.
implication: this is a weakness of the behaviourist approach as it implies that individuals are the way they are due to their past experiences and are therefore incapable of change.
Weakness
point: the behaviourist approach has been criticised for obtaining a mechanistic view of behaviour.
evidence: from a behaviourist perspective, animals and humans are seen as passive and machine-like responders to the environment, with little to no conscious insight into their behaviour. Other approaches in psychology, such as the social learning theory and the cognitive approach, emphasise the importance of mental processes that occur during learning. These processes, which mediate between stimulus and response, suggest that people play a far more active role in their own learning.
justification: this means that this approach may apply less to human behaviour than to animal behaviour as it disregards other influences on behaviour such as feelings, emotions, motivations, simply looking at how individuals learn behaviour through conditioning.
implication: this is therefore a weakness of the behaviourist approach as it limits the concept of behaviour, something that is intricate and complex, instead portraying humans to be passive.
