Unit 1.4 - Behaviourism Flashcards
What is behaviourism? Are feelings and thoughts involved?
It is the science of observable behaviour. No thoughts and feelings are involved, only measurable conditions and responses via controlled experiments.
Who is Ivan Pavlov? What did he study?
He is a Russian medical researcher who studied canine salivary glands and why they were different and how they could be predicted.
What happened in the dog experiment and what did it lead to?
Dogs would salivate when there was no meat present; they drooled at what led to the meat. This led Pavlov presenting meat with the ringing of bells, which dogs would cause dogs to drool when heard (pairing stimuli).
What did the dog experiment result in?
It resulted in identifying many chain reactions in the body, and produced classical conditioning.
What is classical conditioning?
It is when two stimuli are paired. A response elicited by the second stimuli is eventually elicited by first stimulus alone.
What was John B. interested in? What experiment did he do?
He was interested in phobias and conditioning them. He did the Little Albert experiment.
What was the Little Albert experiment?
An infant was given a rodent to play with. A loud bang with a hammer would startle the child whilst playing with the rodent. This resulted in the child being highly anxious and afraid of the rodent.
What did John B. Watson do with advertisement in the business industry?
He changed the way of advertisements. he used imagery over words to stimulate happiness. Paired product with an emotional response to make people think of product differently.
Who is B. F. Skinner and what did he push and believe in?
He was a radical behaviourist who did not believe in free will, and pushed operant conditioning. He believed what we choose is not a choice, it is predetermined by previous experiences - it is a series of consequences.
What was B.F. Skinner’s main focus on behaviourism and how did he test it?
He believed that everything we do has a response of punishment or reward. He tested this via animal training.
How did B.F. Skinner train his animals using operant condition?
He put rats and pigeons in Skinner boxes where they were trained to know which buttons do what via rewards or punishments.
What is operant conditioning?
Learning that employs awards and punishments for behaviour.
What is behavioural therapy?
Quick 4-8 sessions where it treats phobias, addictions, and applied behavioural analysis. (ABA)
How are phobias treated by behavioural therapy?
Exposure to phobia slowly to reduce conditioned feared response.
How are addictions treated by behavioural therapy?
Via aversion therapy, pairing addicted substance with something that makes you nauseous to reduce its use.
