the behaviourist approach

Question 1

what is the behaviourist approach?

Answer 1

a way of explaining behaviour in terms of what is observable and in terms of learning

Question 2

what are the main assumptions of the behaviourist approach?

Answer 2

•we are born a blank slate- all our behaviours are a result of learning from our environment
•we learn through classical and operant conditioning
•psychology should be scientific and focus on observable behaviours only
•psychologists should carry out controlled lab experiments
•since all species learn the same way, animals can be used in research

Question 3

what is classical conditioning?

Answer 3

learning through association

Question 4

who investigated classical conditioning?

Answer 4

•pavlov- dogs
•watson and rayner- little albert

Question 5

pavlovs dogs method

Answer 5

food (UCS) - salivation (UCR)
food (UCS) + bell (NS) - salivation (UCR)
bell (CS) - salivation (CR)

Question 6

what is operant conditioning?

Answer 6

learning through consequences

Question 7

what are the 3 types of operant conditioning?

Answer 7

•positive reinforcement
•negative reinforcement
•punishment

Question 8

who investigated operant conditioning?

Answer 8

skinner

Question 9

what is positive reinforcement?

Answer 9

behaviour is rewarded- repeated- reinforced

Question 10

what is negative reinforcement?

Answer 10

when an animal or human avoids something unpleasant, this avoidance behaviour is repeated as they avoid negative emotions. behaviour is followed by the removal of an unpleasant stimulus.

Question 11

how does positive reinforcement affect the behaviour?

Answer 11

it increases the likelihood of it being repeated

Question 12

how does negative reinforcement affect the behaviour?

Answer 12

it increases the likelihood of it being repeated

Question 13

how does punishment affect the behaviour?

Answer 13

it decreases the likelihood of it being repeated

Question 14

how did skinner demonstrate positive reinforcement?

Answer 14

when the rat pressed a lever, it received a food pellet. this led to the rat pressing the lever on future trials (the behaviour being repeated)

Question 15

how did skinner demonstrate negative reinforcement?

Answer 15

when the rat pressed a lever, it stopped the electric shocks. this led to the rat pressing on the lever in future trials (the behaviour was repeated)

Question 16

evaluation points for the behaviourist approach

Answer 16

+ scientific credibility
+ real-life application
- mechanistic view of behaviour
- environmental determinism
- ethical and practical issues in animal experiments

Question 17

strength: scientific credibility

Answer 17

•focused on the measurement of observable behaviour within highly controlled lab settings
•emphasised scientific processes such as objectivity and replication
•gave the findings greater credibility and status

Question 18

strength: real- life application

Answer 18

•operant conditioning has been applied to bettering treatments and systems in institutions like prisons and psychiatric wards
•these ‘token economy systems’ work by rewarding appropriate behaviour with tokens which then can be exchanged for privileges
•classical conditioning has been applied to the treatment of phobias
•these therapies and systems are useful and have positive impacts on greater society

Question 19

limitation: mechanistic view of behaviour

Answer 19

•from a behaviourist perspective, animals and humans are seen as passive and machine-like responders to the environment, with little or no conscious insight into their behaviour
•other approaches in psychology, such as the social learning theory of cognitive approach, have emphasised the importance of mental events during learning
•these processes suggest that people may play a much more active role in their own learning
•this means the learning theory may apply less to human than animal behaviour

Question 20

limitation: environmental determinism

Answer 20

•this approach sees all behaviour as determined by past experiences that have been conditioned
•Skinner suggested that everything we do is a sum total of our reinforcement history
•this ignores 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 determined the outcome

Question 21

limitation: ethical and practical issues in animal experiments

Answer 21

•ethical issues occur as the rats in Skinner’s experiment may have experienced emotional harm
•the animals involved were exposed to stressful and adverse conditions, which may have effected how they reacted to the experimental situation