Behaviourist approach AO1

• Assumptions

  The behaviourist approach assumes that all behaviours are learned from our environment, meaning we learn through nurture. It focuses on observable behaviour and uses animal experiments and extrapolate the results to humans. They believe that psychology should be scientific and objective, which is why laboratory experiments to achieve it
• Classical conditioning

  Pavlov said we learned involuntary behaviours through association dogs learnt to associate the sound of the bell, which was a neutral stimulus, with food, which was the unconditioned stimulus, and salivation became a condition response
• Operant conditioning

  Skinner said we learned through consequences positive reinforcement is when there is a reward for desired behaviour which results in an increased likelihood of the behaviour repeating. Negative reinforcement is when you do a desired behaviour to stop something unpleasant from happening which increases the likelihood of that behaviour repeating. punishment results in the decrease in likelihood of a behaviour repeating. He studied this through skinners box