The behaviourist approach Flashcards
What are the assumptions?
1.only interested in studying behaviour that can be observed
2.relies on lab studies
- believe that all. behaviour is learned
4.animals replace humans as test subjects
5.two important forms of learning:Classical and operant conditioning
What is Classical conditioning?
A form of learning whereby a conditioned stimulus (CS) becomes associated with an unrelated unconditional stimulus (UCS) in order to produce a behavioural response known as a conditioned response known as a conditioned response (CR).
What is the conditioned response (CR)?
The learned response to the previously neutral stimulus.
What is the unconditioned stimulus?
Usually a biologically significant stimulus such as food or pain that elicits an unconditioned response (UCR) from the start.
What is the conditioned stimulus?
Usually neutral and produces no particular response at first, but after conditioning it elicits the conditioned response (CR).
Who is Ivan Pavlov?
A Russian psychologist who studied the conditioned reflex, in which an animal or a human produced a reflex in response to a stimulus.
How did pavlov study classical conditioning?
Pavlov noticed that dogs began to salivate in the presence of the technician who normally fed them, rather than just the food itself. Pavlov presented a neutral stimulus e.g ring of a bell and then gave the food. After a few reps the dogs started to salivate in response to just the neutral stimulus.
What was Pavlov’s conclusion?
If a particular stimulus in the dogs surroundings was present when the dog was given food then the stimulus would become associated with food and cause salivation on it’s own.
How did John.B.Watson use Classical conditioning to study the fear response?
Watson got a white rat and showed it to a child (little Albert), initially the child showed no fear response.
Then Watson repeatedly showed the rat along with loud, scary noises and white time the child became scared by just the white rat/any small white thing.
Put Watson’s study in terms of stimuli.
Initially the white rat was the partially neutral stimulus and the uncontrolled stimulus (UCS) was the loud, clanging noises and the fear response to the noise was the unconditioned response (UCR).
By repeatedly pairing the neutral stimulus with the UCS, the white rat (now the controlled stimulus [CS]) came to evoke the fear response (now the controlled response [CR].
What does Watson’s study showcase?
How phobias can form through classical conditioning.
What is operant conditioning?
Behaviour is shaped and maintained by it’s consequences.
What were to Skinner’s views?
He was slightly less extreme than Watson.
He believed that we have a mind, but it’s simply more productive to study observable behaviour rather than internal mental events.
Thought classical conditioning was far too simplistic, then believed that the best way to understand behaviour is to look at the causes of an action and it’s consequences.
What are the three types of responses, or operant, that follow behaviour?
- Neutral operators: Responses from the environment that neither increase or decrease the probability of a behaviour being replicated.
2.Reneinforcers: Responses from the environment that increase the probability of a behaviour being replicated- can be positive or negative.
3.Punishers: Responses that decrease the probability of a behaviour being replicated- can be positive or negative.
What is positive and negative reinforcement?
Positive reinforcement is when a response is strengthened by rewards, leading to the repetition of desired behaviour- the reward is the reinforcing stimulus.
Negative renforcement is the termination of an unpleasant state following a response, it is the removal of an adverse stimulus which is ‘rewarding’ to the animal/person. strengthens behaviour as it stops/removes an unpleasant experience .
