behaviourist approach

• overall assumptions:

  1. focus on being observable and measurable to make it an objective and scientific approach
  2. all behaviour is learned through experience/environment, we are born as blank slates ‘tabula rasa’
  3. we can generalise animal behaviour to human behaviour
• classical conditioning- learning through assocciation
• Pavlovs research in dogs:

  Before conditioning

  Bell (NS) -> no response

  Food (UCS) -> Salivation (UCR)

  During conditioning

  Bell+Food (UCS) -> Salivation (UCR)

  After conditioning

  Bell (CS) -> Salivation (CR)
• operant conditioning- learning through reinforcement
• negative reinforcement- taking something bad away, so behaviour is more likely to be repeated

  positive reinforcement- getting a reward, so behaviour is more likely to be repeated

  punishment(NOT REINFORCEMENT)- receiving a negative consequence so behaviour is less likely to be repeated
• Skinners research on rats:

  positive reinforcement - if the rat pushed the lever, it was given a food pellet

  negative reinforcement- if the rat pushed the lever, it stopped the electric current from the grid
• Why does something show operant conditioning?

  the action is a desired response and results in a positive consequence to repeat behaviour
• who researched into classical conditioning using humans?

  Watson and Rayner (the Little Albert study)
• evaluations of behaviourist approach:

  🙂 practical application (e.g schools)

  🙂 scientific

  🙂 led to effective therapies (phobias)

  ☹️ problems generalising animals to humans

  ☹️/🙂 environmental determinism