the behaviourist approach

Question 1

what does TBA assume?

Answer 1

• all behaviours are learnt from enviroment
• focus on observable behaviour
• animals and humans learn the same way (so they carry out animal experiments)
• psychology should be scientific and objective, therefore behaviourists mainly use laboratory experiments to achieve this

Question 2

define behaviourist

Answer 2

people who believe human behaviour can be explained in terms of conditioning, without need to consider thoughts or feelings

Question 3

classical conditioning

Answer 3

when neutral stimulus is consistently paired with an unconditional stimulus so that it eventually takes on the properties of this stimulus and is able to produce a conditioned response

Question 4

operant conditioning

Answer 4

learning through reinforcement or punishment. if a behaviour is followed by a desirable consequence then that behaviour is more likely to occur again in the future

Question 5

punishment

Answer 5

involves application of an unpleasant consequence following a behaviour, with the result that the behaviour is less likely to occur again in the future

Question 6

reinforcement

Answer 6

term used to refer to anything that strengthens a response and increases the likelihood that it will reoccur

Question 7

positive reinforcement

Answer 7

the adding of something, receiving an award
- e.g., “well done for completing your homework!”

Question 8

negative reinforcement

Answer 8

performing an action to stop something unpleasant
- e.g, “do your homework or else you have detention!” or in skinner’s rat experiment, the rat had to press the lever to stop the electrical flow

Question 9

classical conditioning: learning through association

Answer 9

• first demonstrated by ivan pavlov
• showed that dogs could salivate at the sound of a bell that was repeatedly rung at the same time they were given food