The Behaviourist Approach Flashcards
What is behaviourism?
It’s the belief that behaviours can be measured, trained and changed.
Who founded behaviourism?
John B. Watson
Mention a few assumptions behaviourism is based on.
When born our brain is Tabula Rasa.
All behaviour is learnt from the environment, and it’s only concerned with observe behaviour.
Behaviour is a result of stimulus-response.
People have no free will, and there’s little difference in learning in humans and animals.
Psychology should be a science.
There are 2 major types of conditioning. What are they?
Classical conditioning and Operant conditioning.
Who founded classical conditioning?
Ivan Pavlov
What is Ivan Pavlov best know for?
His research on dogs response to being fed.
He found that dogs don’t learn to salivate whenever they see good. It’s an unconditioned response.
How did Pavlov further his study? And what did he discover?
Whenever he gave the dog food, he also rang a bell.
After some time he just tried the bell, & it caused the dog to salivate.
He discovered that any object/event in which the dog learnt to associate with food caused an increase in salivation.
A response that has been learned by the dog, in this case, is called what?
A conditioned response.
Salivating when hearing the bell
In this experiments case, what would the bell be considered as?
A conditioned stimulus.
What does Stage 1: Before Conditioning, consist of?
The unconditioned stimulus produces an unconditioned response.
A stimulus in the environment has produce a behaviour/response which is unlearned.
Therefor is a natural & automatic response which has not been taught
(Stomach virus US -> nausea UR)
What undergoes in Stage 2: During Conditioning?
A stimulus which produces no response is associated with the unconditioned stimulus, at which it now becomes known as the conditioned stimulus.
(A stomach virus UCS might be associated with eating certain food such as fish CS)
What happens during Stage 3: After Conditioning?
Now the conditioned stimulus has been associated with the unconditioned stimulus to create a new conditioned response.
(Fish CS which was eaten before a person was sick with a virus UCS is now producing a response of nausea CR)
One of the various feature of classical conditioning is generalisation. Expand.
A smaller amount of salivation was obtained when a different tone was used. Salivation depends on the similarity between the test stimulus and the new stimulus.
A child who fears an abusive father may generalise that fear to other men but not women.
Another feature of classical conditioning is discrimination. Explain.
It’s the ability to differentiate between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that have not been paired with an unconditioned stimulus.
If a child who is abused by her father is also having positive interactions with other men, she is not likely to generalise her of the father to those individuals.
Yet another factor in classical conditioning is extinction. Explain further.
It’s when the occurrences of a conditioned response decreases or disappear. Happens when a conditioned stimulus is no longer pairs with an unconditioned stimulus.
If the food US is no longer paired with the bell CS, then the salivation CS would eventually stop.
