Behaviourist approach AO3

• A strength is that there is real-life application. Operant conditioning is used within token economy programmes, rewarding good behaviour. Classical conditioning can be applied to treating phobias through counter conditioning and systematic desensitisation. This improves the quality of human life and require less effort from the patient compared to other treatments they are also useful for patients who lack insight. Suggest therapies developed from behaviourism are better than other approaches.
• A strength is that research to support it uses nomothetic methods. Studies are conducted in highly controlled lab settings. emphasises the importance of scientific processes with standardised procedures resulting in replicability. This means there is higher validity and suggests that the behaviourist approach explains how human behaviour occurs
• A weakness is that it suffers from environmental determinism. It does not take into account that we have free will. There could be other explanations of behaviour which are better. For example we may behave a certain way because we want the internal reward to do it not because of external consequences. Suggest that behaviourism cannot explain why human behaviour occurs by itself.
• A weakness is that it uses animal studies. Pavlov's dogs and Skinner's rats. Unethical as they were shocked and exposed to stressful conditions. Cannot assume humans would act the same as animals as humans are more complex. Suggest that behaviourism cannot explain human behaviour as it may not be generalisable to humans