According to the behavioural approach, abnormal behaviour can be caused by classical conditioning, operant conditioning and the social learning theory.
According to classicalconditioning, phobias can be acquired through associative learning.
Pavlov (1903) discovered the idea of classical conditioning in his work with dogs.
Watson & Raynor (1920) conducted a laboratory experiment to examine whether a fear response could be learned through classicalconditioning, in humans.
Watson & Raynor (1920) created a conditioned fear of white rats in a boy called Little Albert.
According to operantconditioning phobias can be negatively reinforced. This is where a behaviour is strengthened, because an unpleasant consequence is removed.
