behavioural evaluation

• Behavioural research credibility

  One strength of the behaviourist approach is that it is based on well-controlled research.

  Behaviourists focused on the measurement of observable behaviour within highly controlled lab settings. By breaking down behaviour into basic stimulus-response units, all other possible extraneous variables were removed, allowing cause-and-effect relationships to be established. For instance, Skinner was able to clearly demonstrate how reinforcement influenced an animal's behaviour.

  This suggests that behaviourist experiments have scientific credibility.
• Counterpoint - explanation oversimplified

  However, the problem with this is that behaviourists may have oversimplified the learning process. By reducing behaviour to such simple components, behaviourists may have ignored an important influence on learning - that of human thought. Other approaches, such as social learning theory (next spread) and the cognitive approach (page 112) have drawn attention to the mental processes involved in learning

  This suggests that learning is more complex than observable behaviour alone, and that private mental processes are also essential
• application to the real world

  Another strength of the behaviourist approach is that the principles of conditioning have been applied to real-world behaviours and problems.

  For example, operant conditioning is the basis of token

  economy systems that have been used successfully in institutions, such as prisons and psychiatric wards. These work by rewarding appropriate behaviour with tokens that can be exchanged for privileges. For an example of how classical conditioning has been applied to the treatment of phobias, see page 148.

  This increases the value of the behaviourist approach because it has widespread application.
• hard Environmental determinism

  One limitation of the behaviourist approach is that it sees all behaviour as conditioned by past conditioning experiences.

  Skinner suggested that everything we do is the sum total of our reinforcement history. When something happens we may think '1 made the decision to do that' but, according to Skinner, our past conditioning history determined the outcome. This ignores any possible influence that free will may have on behaviour (Skinner himself said that free will is an illusion).

  This is an extreme position and ignores the influence of conscious decision-making processes on behaviour (as suggested by the cognitive approach)