U2-L2: Behavioural Psychology Flashcards
What is behavioural psychology?
It analyzes and treats people on the basis that their behaviour is learned by interacting with the world. It believes that psychologists can predict and control or modify human behaviour by identifying factors that motivate it in the first place
What are the three main assumptions of observable human behaviour?
People learn their behaviour from the world around them (not from innate/inherited factors).
Since psychology is a science, measurable data from controlled experiments and observations should support its theories.
All behaviour is the result of a stimulus that triggers a particular response
Strengths and Weaknesses of this Theory.
Strength:
It can be scientifically proven
Weaknesses:
Many of the experiments were conducted on rats and dogs (other psychologists like Humanists, reject the assumption that people in the world acted in the same way as animals in laboratory conditions)
Does not take into account free will or biological factors, thus reducing human experience to a set of conditioned behaviours.
How did Ivan Pavlov discover Classical Conditioning?
He used dogs and a bell to act as a stimulus for food. Whenever he would ring the bell, he would give the dogs food. After a while, he would only ring the bell and the dogs would still drool.
What are the principles of CLASSICAL CONDITIONING?
An organism will learn to associate one stimulus with another and it learns that the first stimulus is a cue for the second stimulus.
How did BF Skinner discover operant conditioning?
Started his experimentation on the behaviour of animals. Wanted to observe the relationship between observable stimuli and response (OR why these animals behaved the way that they do). Skinner controlled his experiments by using “Skinner boxes”: a contraption that would automatically dispense food pellets and electric shocks. Skinner believed that the learning he observed in his Skinner boxes could apply to human behaviour
What is operant conditioning?
behaviour adjustments as a result of greater or lesser negative or positive reinforcement and punishment. Human behaviour is controlled by rewards and punishment.
Something is added to increase the likelihood of a behaviour. (positive reinforcement)
Something is added to decrease the likelihood of a behaviour (positive punishment)
Something is removed to increase the likelihood of a behaviour. (negative reinforcement)
Something is removed to decrease the likelihood of a behaviour. (negative punishment)
