The behaviourist approach Flashcards
Describe the assumption of ‘Humans are born like a blank slate’ In the behaviourist approach.
Behaviourists believe that when we are born our mind is a ‘tabula rasa’ = Blank slate. We are not born with built in mental content.; internal events such as thinking and emotion do not drive our behaviour.
The belief that behaviour is learnt from interactions with the enviroment. eg. if you love sport its because you grew up doing sport.
Enviromental determinis, approach.
Describe the assumption of ‘Behaviour is learned through conditioning’ In the behaviourist approach.
- Classic conditioning- new behaviours are learned through assocition. Ivan Pavlov first decribed it in 1902 from his observations of salivasition in dogs. ‘ before conditioning food is a uncondition stimulus, salivation is a uncunditioned response, during conditioning a neutral stimulus, eg a bell, is preseted along side the ucs. Repeated several times. After conditioning the bell is now the conditioned stimulus which produces a conditioned response- salivating.
- Opernt conditioning- new behaviours are learned through reinforcement, something that will increase the chance that the behaviour will happen again, focuses on reward and punishment. eg, the skinner box.
Describe the assumption of ‘humans and animals learn in similar ways’ In the behaviourist approach.
- Laws of learning are the same for both humans and non-human animals. Being able to study animals in a labortory can help make generalisations abour human behaviour.
- Both are products of their enviroment, humans cn learn more complex behaviours, e.g skinners research with animals. Is pplied in many contexts to help shape human behaviour in eductions and prisons.
- Pavlov- dogs, how they can be conditioned to salivate, can be applied to humans and applied in behaviourist therapys to help overcome problems such as phobias.
Using your knowledge of the behaviourist approach explain how a relationship is formed.
- Operant conditioning, reinforcments and punishments drive our behaviour. A new relationship may be positively reinforcing in many ways. eg, the attention someone us, their compliement/compny is rewarding. being with someone else my help us to avoid feelings such as loniliness and rejection.
- Classical conditioning- liking people who we shre a pleasent experience with, or who are associated with pleasent events. Eg. meeting someone when happy means your more liekely to like them when feeling unhappy.
- A previously neutral stimulus can become positively valued because of their association with a pleasent event.
Describe the main components of Systematic Desensitisation
-Individual may learn that their feared stimulus is not so fearful at all. If they could re experience it. However, anxiety blocks the way to re-experince it, ‘Joseph Wolpe’-1950s.: phobias gradually introduced to a feared stimulus.
* Counterconditioning- learning relaxation techniques. Aim is to aquire a new stimulus, moving from responding to a stimulus with fer. To responding to a stimulus with relaxation.
* Desiensitisation hierchy- a series of gradual steps that are determined at the beginning of therapy when the client and therapist work out a hierchy of forced stimuli from least feared to most.
* Different forms of SD- early days, clients would confront their feared situations directly. By lerning to relax in the presence of objects/images.
More recently= imagine, actual contact is more effective, number of differnt exposure techniques are involved.
Evaluate the use of Systematic Desensitisation in terms of effectiveness.
- Research support-SD has been proven to be succesful when the problem is a learned one eg, phobias.
- Not appropriate for all phobias, eg arachnophobia.
- May not be suitable for ‘ancient fears’, animals and humans are genetically programmed to rapidly learn an association between potentialy life-threatning stimuli and fear. Ancient fears are things that would have been dangerous in a evoloutionary past.
- ‘biological preparedness’= why people are less likely to develop a fer of modern things such as cars and toasters. More of a threat than spiders.
- Symptom substitution- may not work with certain phobias because the symptoms are only the tip of the iceburg. Removing symptoms, cause still remains. Symptoms resurface in another form = symptom substitution.
- ‘Psychodynamic approach’- phobias develop due to projection.
Evaluate the use of Systematic Desensitisation in terms of ethical issues.
- Anxiety controlled- SD=more ethical issues than other forms of behavioural therapies, eg, flooding techniques. SD is conducted slowly at a pce largerly dictated by the client. Therapist is able to gauge whether the client is fully relaxed at each-stage of therpy. nOnly move up the hierarchy when the client is comfterble= anxiety not a issue.
- Able to provide valid consent- mainly used with phobias and not problems such as depression + schizophrenia.Clients ‘in touch’ with relity. Correct frame of mind to understand what the therpy intails = vlid consent.
- Some would argue there are elements of stress involved in exposure to a situation they may have spent years/decades feelng anxious about, so, avoiding mild levels of anxiety is impossible.
Describe the aims of Watson and Rayner (1920)’
How do babies learn complex emotions and behaviours? ‘John B. Watson = Rosalie Rayner’, classical conditioning to condition a healthy baby to fear a neutral stimulus.
1. Can fear of a previously neutral stimulus be conditioned by presenting it simultaneously with an established negative stimulus?
2. Could this conditioned response be transferred to other animals/objects?
3. Does this conditioned response change over time?
4.If after a reasonable period, the emotional response has not died out, how may they be removed?
Describe the Method of Watson and Rayner (1920)’
- involved 1 participant. 9 month old boy. ‘Little Albert’.
- Not a case study.
-Not a experiment, only 1 condition. - investigation to determine the effects of certain stimuli.
- Controlled observation.
Describe the Procedures and findings of Watson and Rayner (1920)’
- Emotional tests, to tests his response to certain objects, was confronted with a white rabbit and then a loud sound by hammer = no fear response before conditioning. AC = crying fit.
- Session 1- 11 months 3 days brought to lab again, White rat presented went to reach for it, bar was struck behind head= jumped and fell forward. Burrying head on taable.no cry.
- session 2- a week later, shown rat with no sound= no reach just stared. His cautious behaviour was tested by giving him blocks to play with. he did happily. Albert was exposed to 5 ‘joint stimulation’. The rat was shown with a loud noise= more distressed, rat shown, crying.
- Session 3- Research question ‘whether he learned link between the rat nd noise applied to other objects.’ showed various objects. = played happily with blocks, rat responded with fear, rabbit began crying, dog + fur coat not as violent reaction, cotton wool + hair, little/no response.
- session 4- emotional response was freshned up using joint stimulation. New enviroment, well lit room 4 people present, placed on table in centre = less extreme response to animals. Further frshning up lead to stronger conditioned fear response.
- Session 5- 12 months 21 days. Albert tested one last time. No emotional tests conducted. Involved a santa clause mask, fur coat, the rat the rabbit, dog and blocks = responded to test objects in complete differnt ay to control (blocks).
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Describe the Conclusions of Watson and Rayner (1920)’
Albert had been given a conditioned fear response, his study demonstrated ‘emotional transfer’, he did not develop a fear of the rat, but his emotional reaction was transferred to other stimuli.
-Watson + Rayner ‘it is not probable that many phobias aquired in this way.
Critically evaluate Watson and Rayner (1920)
- Controlled study, enables us to conclude that the observed effects were due to conditioning and not other sourses.
- The sample- wanted to study more than 1 pp. But dismissed from university meant they couldnt, without any comparisons it is difficult to know whether the observed responss are unique to this individual or not.
- Creating fear- Watson + Rayner seemed unsure about whether they had created excessive fear in A lbert. ‘We felt that we could do him relatively little harm in the studies. But, in order not to disturb the child too seriously no further tests were given. They were aware what they were doing was distressing.
- More Psychological harm, made the experience worse, noted one of Alberts responses was sucking his thumb. Calmed Albert down, but reduced the effect on the lous noise. So had to remove his thumb to make sure he was really scared.
- Lasting effects, they did intend to remove alberts learned conditions. He was suddenly removed from the hospital so this could not be done. Responses would likely to continue in a home enviroment. Researchers should have anticipated the issue nd put procedures in place to stop it happening. Should have ensured unconditioning took place.
What are the advantages of the Behaviourist Approach?
- Scientific approach- ‘pavlovs’ work on conditioned reflexes could be used to create a really objective, and therefore scientific psychology. Behaaviourists believe that through the use of a scientififc method we cn analyse,quntify and compare behaviour. Important as it allows us to distinguish mere beliefs from real facts. Gives evidence for treating mental disorder= desirable.
- Succesful applications- behaviourist principles have been succesfully applied in the real world. In the treatment of mental disorder and in education. eg, classical conditioning principles are applied in aversion therapy to help people with addictions. Also, systematic desensitisation to help with phobias. Therefore a strength as it is useful in real life scenarios.
What are the disadvantages of the Behaviourist Approach?
- Deterministic approach, behaviourists believe that behaviour is influenced almost exclusively by the assoiciation we make between certain enviromental stimuli. ( classical conditioning).Or the rewards/punishments provided by our enviroment. So does not consider the thought processthat occcur before we behave in a certain way. Suggests we are not making a choice when we behave. ‘Enviroment determines how we act, which undermines free will.
- Emphasis on Nuture- focuses exclusively on the surrounding enviroment as a means of shaping behaviour. ‘Nature-nuture’, the role of nture is ignored, eg, behavioursists would not consider our genetic make-up and how it infuences our behaviour. Our behaviour is governed by mny internal factprs ‘motivation and innate abilities.’
