behaviourist

• behaviourist approach is one of the most influential approaches in modern psychology
• there are 4 key assumptions: a central tenet
• key assumption 1: all human behaviour is learned from the environment
• key assumption 2: psychologist should only study observable, measurable, quantifiable behaviour
• key assumption 3: humans are no different from animals (comparable)
• key assumption 4: research on animal behaviour is directly relevant to humans
• behaviourists are not concerned with investigating mental processes (in contrast to the cognitive approach)
• Watson rejected introspection for being to vague and unmeasurable
• behaviourists try to maintain control and objectivity in their research so, in turn, utilised laboratory studies to achieve this
• behaviourists suggest all behaviour is learned so their approach falls on the 'nurture' side of the nature-nurture debate (experience rather than biology)
• the approach refers to the mind as a 'tabula rasa' meaning their mind is blank at birth and throughout their life the slate is filled and behaviour is shaped through learning and experience
• following Darwin, they suggested basic processes that govern learning are the same in all species so in behaviourist research animals replace humans as experimental subjects
• Pavlov is one the first behaviourists to explore the relationship between learning and behaviour
• Pavlov was a Russian scientists who won the 1904 nobel prize for research into the digestive system of dogs.
• pavlov noticed dogs would salivate at the sound of footsteps or the presence of a white lab coat bringing the food, this allowed him to develop his theory of classical conditioning
• classical conditioning is a type of learning in which an existing involuntary reflex is associated with a new stimulus
• key idea of the behaviourist approach stemming from Pavlov's research: learning occurs through association
• Pavlov famously tested his theory using dogs
• showed how dogs could be conditioned to salivate to the sound of a bell if that sound was repeatedly presented at the same time they were given food. 
• -over time, dogs were conditioned to associate the sound of the bell (neutral stimulus) with food (unconditional stimulus)

  -this resulted in dogs producing a salivation response (conditioned response) at the sound of the bell (conditioned stimulus) even when no food was present.

  -therefore, he demonstrated repeated exposure to an event can come to elicit a new learned response (uncontrollable behaviour) through association
• generalisation: conditioned stimulus (bell) could be generalised to other sounds, so the volume or tone could change and still produce salivation, eg: doorbell cause dog to salivate 
• discrimination: sound becomes too different from the original bell so no salivation occurs; dogs can discriminate between different stimuli, eg: dogs can discriminate between sound of a bell and sound of a phone. 
• extinction: gradual weakening of conditioned response (salivation on bell). If the conditioned stimulus (bell) continues to be presented but real unconditioned stimulus (food) never appears, association eventually weakens and becomes extinct 
• spontaneous recovery= sudden display of behaviour that was thought to be extinct, tends to be less strong than the original response given extinction that's already occurred (dog surprises you)
• skinner was not a psych but has read work of watson (behaviourism) and pavlov (conditioned reflexes) and developed these ideas saying: stimulus-response association was not enough when it comes to understanding behaviour.
• Skinner suggested behaviour is the result of learning through consequences- learning is an active process whereby humans and animals operate on their environment
• Skinner conducted research into operant conditioning theory using rats and pigeons, finding 3 types of reinforcement that affects behaviour 
• reinforcement: a consequence that increases likelihood of behaviour being repeated, help to strengthen behaviour 
• positive reinforcement: behaviour followed by a desirable consequence (reward) so is more likely to be repeated, eg: praise/ house points in class 
• negative reinforcement: behaviour is followed by the removal of an adverse consequence and i more likely to be repeated - human/animal avoids something unpleasant and the outcome is a positive experience, eg: competes homework to avoid scolding AND applying suncream to avoid something unpleasant (sunburn negative consequence) 
• punishment: consequence that decreases the likelihood of behaviour being repeated
• a behaviour being followed by an unpleasant consequence and is less likely to be repeated, eg: scolded for talking 
• skinner created skinner boxes to examine operant conditioning in rats/pigeons 
• animals would move around the cage and when accidentally activated the lever they would be rewarded with a food pellet, so through positive reinforcement the animal would learn pressing the lever rewards them with food. This supports learning through consequences as the animal learns a new voluntary behaviour which is repeated to receive the rewards 
• Skinner examined negative reinforcement through an electric shock, showing how rats/ pigeons could be conditioned to perform the same behaviour to avoid an unpleasant stimulus (shock).
• extinction: behaviour that was being reinforced stops being reinforced this makes it less likely the behaviour will be repeated and may cease to continue, eg: teacher stops rewarding completed homework so efforts are reduced 
• schedules of reinforcement impact on how resistant a behaviour is to being extinguished 
• continuous reinforcement: behaviour is reinforced every time it occurs so over time reinforcement has less of an impact 
• partial reinforcement: behaviour is reinforced some of the time, compared to continuous it is more resistant to extinction
• fixed ratio schedule (more likely to repeat): given after fixed number of response/ behaviours have occurred, eg: rat must press lever 3 times before food pellet is released