behaviourist approach

• P: classical conditioning has been applied in the development of treatments for the reduction of anxiety associated with various phobias

  E: systematic desensitisation is a therapy based on classical conditioning. it works by eliminating the learned anxious response that is associated with a feared object or situation. its then replaced with another so the patient is no longer anxious in presence of feared object

  L: classical conditioning based approach has been found to be effective for a range of phobias such as fear of spiders
• pavlovs experiment based on dogs

  • pavlov experiment for classical conditioning cant be generalised to humans
  • human behaviour is more complex
  • however, learning theory in attachments shows that it might be generalisable to an extent
• p: a particular strength of skinner's research was his reliance on the experimental method, used controlled conditions to discover a possible causal relationship between variables

  E: skinner's reliance on the skinner box was a good example of this approach in practice. by manipulating the consequences of behaviour, he was able to accurately measure the effects on the rat's behaviour

  L: this allowed to establish a cause and effect relationship between the consequences of a behaviour and the frequency of its occurrence