The Behaviourist Approach Flashcards
Explain the assumption that Humans are born like a Blank Slate
- Tabula Rasa = Blank slate
- All behaviour is learned from interactions in the environment
- Our behaviour is us responding to stimuli
- Believes Nurture over Nature
- Environmental determinism
Explain the assumption that behaviour is learned through conditioning
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
- Behaviours learned though pairing
- Unconditioned stimulus = Unconditioned response
- Neutral stimulus + Unconditioned stimulus (pairing)
- Conditioned stimulus = Conditioned response
OPERANT CONDITIONING
- New behaviours learned through reinforcement
- positive reinforcement - would cause the behaviour to be repeated
- Negative reinforcement - strengthens behaviour as individual escapes bad situation
- punishment - weakens behaviour and decreases likelihood that it’s repeated
Explain the assumption that humans and animals learn in similar ways
- Laws of learning is the same for humans and non humans
- Animals learning can be tested on and generalised to human learning
- Pavlov’s dog
What are the main components of systematic desensitisation?
- Counterconditioning - respond to a stimulus with relaxation instead of fear, Client taught pairing that counters the original pairing
- Desensitisation hierarchy - series of gradual steps made by client and therapist at the beginning of the therapy
- Dofferent forms of SD - Invivo: experiences fears in real life, invitro: imagining feared situations
What are three strengths of systematic desensitisation?
- Research support - capafóns et al (1998): clients with fear of flying showed less psychological signs of fear following a 12-25 week treatment Period.
- anxiety controlled - more ethical then flooding techniques as it’s paced based on the clients capabilities
- Valid consent - people who undergo SD usually do it for a phobia so are able to give consent.
What are the weaknesses of systematic desensitisation?
- Time - takes time and commitment from the patient
- Not appropriate for all phobias - doesn’t work on ancient fears
- symptom substitution - it doesn’t help the cause of the symptoms so can cause revolving door syndrome.
What was the methodology of Watson and rayner (1920)?
- Involves one participant
- This was a controlled observation
- Conducted Im controlled environments
What were the procedures of Watson and rayner (1920)?
Emotional tests - Confronted Albert with different animals, masks and objects also tested against metal bar
Session one - 11 months 3 days old: brought back to lab, white rat presented and Albert reached for it then bar was struck
Session Two - 11 months 10 days old: Albert shown rat, 5 of joint simulation
Session three - 11 months 15 days old: generalisations were tested, Albert presented with rat, wooden blocks, rabbit, dog, fur coat and John Watson’s hair
Session four - 11 months 20days: joint simulation, taken to new environment
Session five - 12 months and 21 days: Albert tested one last time
What were the findings of Watson and Rayner (1920)?
- Emotional tests - Albert showed no fear response to objects before conditioning, when bar was struck Albert had bagged negatively towards it
- Session one - During joint simulation he fell forward and almost cried
- Session two - Albert no longer reached for the rat, when finally reaching out he quickly withdrew his hand, happily played with blocks, Albert became more distressed by joint simulation
Session three - played happily with blocks, feared the rat, had same response to the rat - Session four - In new environment Alberts responses less intense, after freshening up the response was stronger, always played happily with building blocks
- Session five - Albert respondes to test objects in different way to control objects, clearly avoided furry objects
What were the conclusions of watson and Rayner (1920)?
- Demanstrated the ease that a fear response can be created in
- Only 7 joint simulations resulted in complete reactions
- Conditioned responses are generalised
- It is probable that many phobias are created this way
- Early conditioned responses may be only found in people who are ‘constitutionally inferior’
Evaluate the methodology and procedures of Watson and Rayner
- The Sample: The experiment was only completed on one child so it cannot be generalised to all children
Cosh (2012) - If Albert died from Hydrocephalus at 6 then he would have had it when he was 1 therefore the experiment can not be generalised to all children. - Controlled Study: The experiment was produced in controlled conditions which limits the extraneous variables therefore increasing the reliability.
-Ecological validity - The experiment was conducted in a lab and so it can be said this contributed to the level of fear in Albert.
What are the ethical issues and social implications of Watson and Rayner?
- Distress: The experiment was causing Albert more distress then he would experience in everyday life.
- Lasting effects: Watson and Rayner were unable to uncondition the fear responses as Albert was removed from the study so overall it had lasting effects.
What are the strengths of the behaviourist approach?
- Scientific: Studies behaviour that is observable and directly measurable
- Focus on the present: The research doesn’t focus on the past of an individual, instead focuses on current symptoms and trying to remove them.
- Successful applications: It has been successfully applied to during therapy and systematic desensitisation
What are the weaknesses of the behaviourist approach?
- Nurture over nature: Focuses directly on the environment of an individual and ignores the nature debate
- Determinist: Behaviourism believes that behaviour is influenced by associations we make in our brain so we have no free will to chose how we behave
- Animals: Ethical issues when using animals in tests as they cannot give consent or withdraw from a study.
