Behaviourism

• what is behaviourism?


  Psychological theory focusing on observable behaviours.
• what are the 3 main assumptions of behaviourism?

  1. Nearly all behaviour is learnt.
  2. Animals and humans learn in the same way.
  3. the 'mind' is irrelevant.
• What are the two types of conditioning:

  1. Classical conditioning- pavlovs dogs
  2. operant conditioning- skinners rats
• what is a strength of using conditioning?

  Is high in reliability as it's carried out in a controlled environment.
• whats involved in classical conditioning?

  1. UCS (food)->UCR(salivation)
  2. UCS(food)+NS(bell)->UCR(salivation)
  3. CS(bell)->CR(salivation)
• what is positive reinforcement?

  Rewarding a behaviour to increase the likelihood of it being repeated.
• what is negative reinforcement?

  Removing an unpleasant stimulus to increase the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated.
• Outline Watson and Rayner's method:

  An 11 month old boy called little Albert showed no fear when shown a fluffy white object such as rats or rabbits. However the researcher tried to create a conditioned response to these objects. A white rat was placed in front of little Albert and when he went to reach out for it a metal crowbar was struck behind his head. After this when little Albert was shown a white rat he would cry and this has extended to other white objects such as Santa's beard.
• Evaluate Watson and Rayner's experiment:

  1. The experiment was very unethical.
  2. Not all negative experiences lead to development of fears or phobias.
  3. it was a lab experiment and so it lacks ecological validity.
  4. The results support Pavlov's idea of classical conditioning.
• what is vicarious experience?

  Experiencing something through someone else's actions or feelings.
• what are the 4 mediational processes?

  1. attention- give your full attention and attend to their behavior.
  2. retention- Remember what you observed.
  3. reproduction- Judging weather you have the ability to reproduce the behaviour.
  4. motivation- evaluate the direct results of imitating the behaviour- if the behaviour results in a good reward you're more likely to imitate it.

  (ARRM)
• what are the two different processes that behaviour is learnt through?

  1. Reinforcement - positive and negative.
  2. vicarious reinforcement
• who developed the social learning theory?

  Bandura
• what is the social learning theory?

  The social learning theory agrees with the idea that people can learn through conditioning but also found that people learn a lot through role models.
• what was Bandura's experiment?

  1. 36 girls and 36 boys with a mean age of 52 months.
  2. Used a matched pairs design on ratings of aggression shown at their nursery.
  3. There were 3 conditions- adults aggressive behaviour, non-aggressive behaviour, control group.
  4. children exposed to aggressive models imitated a lot of there behaviour. Aggressive behaviour was slightly higher in the control group compared to the non-aggressive group.

  Evaluation:

  1. results are reliable as there was strict control over the variables and so it is easily replicated.
  2. low ecological validity
  3. Ethical issues.
• what does Bandura's study show?

  Reinforcement is not needed for learning, we can just learn through observing.
• Give limitations of the SLT:

  1. only emphasises the nurture side of the nature-nurture debate and doesn't take into account the genetic influences.
  2. can be difficult to conclude that observational learning has taken place as the behaviour could be repeated a long time after they've been observed.
  3. Bandura's study of imitation could actually be a study of obedience as the children were shown how to play with the bobo dolls.
• AO3: Ethics and issues of animal studies- behaviourist approach

  Pavlovs dogs and skinners rats were subjected to stressful and unethical conditions. Which may have impacted on their responseS. Other approaches in psychology argue that their is difficulty generalising the results to humans because of the cognitive element to humans learning, suggesting that humans play a much more active role in learning than animals.
• AO3: application to therapy for phobias- behaviourist approach.

  systematic desensitisation successfully uses the principles of classical conditioning to cure phobias. The patient gradually pairs the phobic stimulus with a conditioned stimulus of relaxation techniques. In doing so, they learn to associate the phobia with relaxation, overcoming their fears.
• AO3: environmental reductionism and determinism- behaviourist approach

  behaviourism is reductionist, meaning it reduces complex human behaviour down to simple stimulus response constituent parts. It ignores cognitive elements to learning. It is also environmentally determinist, not allowing for any free will, although skinner argues that free will is just an illusion, and that all behaviours have reinforcement history.
• AO3: Biological factors ignored- SLT

  SLT doesn’t take into account biological factors for behaviours, such as aggression. Boys consistently displayed more aggression than girls in the bobo study, suggesting there are hormonal factors that SLT doesn’t explain.
• AO3: lack of validity for the bobo doll experiment- SLT.

  Children in the bobo doll study may have been displaying demand characteristics, because the purpose of a bobo doll is to knock it over. It was also noticed that at least one child had heard details of the study from earlier participants