Behaviourist approach

• The central concept of this approach is the influence of experience on our behaviour, and how we learn behaviours.
• Basically we are born as 'blank slates' and what we become is shaped by experience
• Basically we learn through a association, (classical conditioning) or reinforcement (operant conditioning)
• believe in stimulus-response mechanisms- behaviourists argue it is only possible to scientifically investigate what can be directly observed and measured. This includes what you do to a creature (stimulus) and the resulting behaviour (response)
• rejection of internal mental processes as behaviourists believe the mind is a black box
• pavlov dog study- digestive research produced saliva before seeing/smelling food, suggesting they had formed a temporal association between the sound of researchers walking down the hall and food
• Classical conditioning- aka associative learning, argues an unconditioned response (eg salivating to food) can be triggered by a neutral stimulus (eg sound of footsteps) through repeated pairing. Eventually, the neutral stimulus alone produces the conditioned response (eg salivating to the sound of the metronome)
• operant conditioning- BF Skinner- Rats study
• operant conditioning is also known as conditioning via reinforcement, when a creature performs voluntary responses, it learns from the consequences of those actions, consequences that are rewarding reinforce a behaviour, so they are performed more frequently, and actions that result in consequences that are punishing are performed less.
• Skinner's research, famous for 'the skinner box', procedure- a controlled environment designed to study operant conditioning. Procedure- animals placed in Skinner box without prior training, Skinner then observed how animals learned to operate levers to receive a reward (food) or avoid punishment.
• skinners research findings- skinner demonstrated that behaviour is influenced by the consequences that follow. Behaviours followed by rewarding consequences are most likely to be repeated (reinforced), while those followed by undesirable consequences are less likely to occur.
• positive reinforcement is adding a reward/pleasant stimulus to encourage a desired behaviour, whereas negative reinforcement is removing an unpleasant stimulus to encourage the behaviour. Punishment discourages behaviour, it can be positive, adding an unpleasant stimulus following an undesired behaviour, or negative, which involves removing a pleasant stimulus
• operant conditioning continued- extinction- if the reinforcing consequences stop, then the person or animal will stop performing the behaviour
• differences between classical and operant conditioning- classical conditioning- involuntary response- Pavlov research- dog naturally drools to food, and the association that develops between the neutral and unconditioned stimuli is automatic; the dog does not decide to drool to the metronome
• differences between classical and operant conditioning- operant conditoning- behaviours are voluntary- skinner's rats can choose whether to stop the negative stim or not by pressing or not pressing the lever or they can choose to do the opposite way round with the reward vice versa, the learner actively operates on the environment, to avoid a negative stimulus or gain a reward.
• argued humans and animals learn the same way
• everybody is born as a blank slate
• all behaviour is learnt through environmental interactions, behaviourists were not interested in internal mental processes- but instead only things that can be observed and measured- rejected wundt's work
• highlighted the importance of control and objectivity using lab studies
• suggests that humans and animals all learn in the same way, use of animals to replace humans in research
• two important forms of learning- classical conditioning and operant conditioning- eg association and then maintenance through reinforcement
• classical conditioning- learning via association, unconditioned stimulus creates an unconditioned response however when paired with a neutral stimulus it becomes the conditioned stimulus which then causes the conditioned response
• classical conditioning demonstrated by ivan pavlov- key concept- unconditioned stimulus equals unconditioned response
• classical conditioning occurs when we learn to associate a previously neutral stimulus, with a stimulus that produces a response
• pavlov research- dog salivation, paired the sound of a bell (neutral stim), with the unconditioned stim (food) and response (salivation), dogs experience of classical conditioning, the bell had turned into the conditioned stim
• another piece of research using classical conditioning- little albert- watson and raynor- phobia learnt, white rat paired with sound of loud noise, loud noise became conditioned stimulus, white rat was unconditioned stimulus, when paired produced conditioned response of fear- over a long period of time
• BF skinner's rats- behaviour learnt as a response of consequences- operant conditioning, positive reinforcement- (adding pleasant consequence), negative reinforcement ( removal of unpleasant consequence)
• Operant conditioning- BF Skinner- bevaviour that is reinforced- will be repeated and learned whereas punished behaviour will die out
• Skinner's research- skinner box, rat would be moving around cage and when accidentally pressing a lever it would dispense a food pellet- through that positive reinforcement- animal would learn each time pressing lever would result in reward of food- the animal learned to press lever due to this reward, also demonstrated negative reinforcement with subjecting the rats to an electric shock which they could avoid by pressing the lever
• strength of behaviourist approach= scientifically credible- the behaviourist approach is based on well-controlled research, behaviourists focused on observable behaviour within highly controlled lab settings
• strength of behaviourism- by breaking down behaviour into stimulus response links, all other possible extraneous variables were removed, allowing cause-and-effect relationships to be established eg skinner was able to clearly demonstrate how reinforcement influenced an animals behaviour
• limitation of behaviourism- oversimplifies the learning process, by reducing the behaviour to simple stimulus-response components, behaviourists may have ignored an important influence on learning- human thought
• limitation of behaviourism= other approaches such as SLT and the cognitive approach have drawn attention to mental processes involved in learning and their importances, this suggests learning is more complex than observable behaviour alone can account for and that private mental processes are also an essential part of the picture
• behaviourism has helped made important contributions to our understanding of mental illness- eg many phobias are thought to be the result of earlier unpleasant learning experiences, consequently, this understanding has helped psychologists develop therapies such as systematic desensitisation- the attempt to re-condition a patients feared response
• Behaviourist approach can help us to understand some addictions as well such as gambling can be seen through the lenses of operant conditioning as the rewards of gambling could be seen to reinforce the destructive behaviour
• limtiation of behaviourism- usage of animal studies, using animals gives experimenters more control over the process, without demand characteristics or individual differences influencing findings however it can also be seen as unethical as there is less concern over protection from harm for non-human subjects, also may be seen as non-generalisable behaviour to human subjects, therefore skinner's operant conditioning theory may provide an understanding of rat behaviour, but little about human behaviour.