AO1 - Learning Approaches

• The behaviourist approach focuses on observable events, and behaviourists believe that much of human behaviour can be explained in terms of a basic form of learning known as conditioning.
• Classical and operant conditioning make up the behaviourist approach.
• Behaviourism is primarily concerned with observable behaviour, as opposed to internal events like thinking and emotion.
• Behaviourists believe people do not have free will in that a person’s environment determines their behaviour.
• Behaviourism suggests when we are born our mind is 'tabula rasa' (a blank slate).
• The learning approach believes that the external environment shapes our behaviour (nurture debate).