behaviourist approach

• behaviourism is known as the learning theory of behaviour
• asusmptions - all behaviour is learnt - animals and humans learn in the same way - the mind is irrelevant
• mind is irrelevant - quantifiable behaviour is the main thing that is observed
• animals and humans learn in the same ways - we can generalise animal studies
• classical conditioning - pavlov
• pavlovs dogs - conditioned to associate a bell ringing with food
• principles of classical conditioning - generalisation - discrimination - extinction - spontaneous recovery - higher order conditioning
• generalisation - when stimuli similar to the original cs produces the cr
• discrimination - stimuli similar to the original cs doesn't produce the cr
• extinction - when cr isn't produced as a result of the cs
• spontaneous recovery - when a previously cr is produced in response to cs
• higher order conditioning - when a new cs produces cr becuase it is associated with cs
• operant conditioning - skinner
• posiitve reinforcement - desirable is obtained in response to doing something good
• negative reinforcement - when something is removed
• skinner - rat box
• watson - little albertyy study - 9 month old baby - importance of environment in learning behaviour
• conditioning watson - white rat shown with loud noise to make him jumper
• watson fear response - after the rat and noise were paired together the baby started to cry at the rat
• operant conditioning - learnt by trial and error
• skinner box - tested oeprant conditioning
• reinforcement - consequence of behaviour results in increased liklihood of behaviour being repeated
• positive reinforcement - added something which increased liklihood of behaviour being repeated
• negative reinforcement - something is removed
• punishment - decreases liklihood of repeating a behaviour
• pros - development of laws and predictions with practical application
• pro - use of objective and scientific method
• con - ethical ussues - practical application to controling behaviour
• cons - animal studies are less generalisable
• deterministic - behaviour is environmentally determined - no free will