Key Approaches, The Behaviourist Approach

Stimulus and Response
1. Stimulus
  1. A change in the environment
2. Response
  1. How you act depending on the change
Assumptions
1. Behaviour is learned from the environment
2. Behaviour is determined by reinforcement or punishment of past learning experiences
3. Observable behaviour should be studied
4. Psychology should investigate the laws of learning
Classical Conditioning
1. Learning a response due to the association of a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned reflex response
2. Watson and Raynor
  1. Little Albert
    1. Wanted to see if fear can be conditioned, Albert was 11 months old when study took place.
    2. Presented Albert with rat, whenever he reached for rat a loud noise was made, eventually when only shown rat he showed fear. Fear can be conditioned
    3. Ethical issues
      1. Fear didn't stop
      2. Transferred to other objects too, especially white substances
    4. Was a case study so results cannot be generalised
Operant Conditioning
1. Focus is on the consequence of a given response, actions have a consequence, consequence determines if action will be repeated in the future
2. Positive reinforcement
  1. Increases likelyhood of a desired behaviour. Provides feeling of satisfaction
3. Negative Reinforcement
  1. Involves removement of bad experience to increase likelyhood of desired response
Strengths and Limitations
1. Strengths
  1. Has provided a number of practical applications and techniques to shape behaviour
  2. Use of rigorous experimental methods of research enhances the credibility of psychology as a scientific discipline
2. Limitations
  1. Criticised on denial of free will
  2. Principles of operant and classical conditioning do not account for spontaneous behaviour in humans
  3. Ignores mental processes that are involved in learning unlike the cognitive approach

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Key Approaches, The Behaviourist Approach

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