Behaviourist approach

• What are the main assumptions of the behaviourist approach?

  • Focuses on studying observable phenomena that can be measured, rejecting introspection due to difficulty measuring and vague concepts
  • Believe all behaviour is learned, seeing a baby's mind as a 'blank slate' that is written on by experience
  • Suggest basic processes that govern learning are the same in all species meaning animals replace humans as experimental subjects
• What was Pavlov's research on classical conditioning?

  • Pavlov (1927): demonstrated how dogs learn through association, conditioned to salivate to the sound of a bell
  • Dogs learn to associate the sound of the bell with the food and would produce the salivation response every time they heard the sound
• How does classical conditioning work?

  • Unconditioned stimulus (food) leads to an unconditioned response (salivation)
  • Unconditioned stimulus (food) when paired with a neutral stimulus (bell) will still lead to an unconditioned response (salivation)
  • Neutral stimulus (bell) becomes a conditioned stimulus as it is associated with food which elicits a new conditioned response (salivation) even in the absence of food
• What was Skinner's research into operant conditioning?

  • Skinner (1953) suggested learning is an active process where behaviour is shaped by its consequences
  • Conducted an experiment with a rat in a box where every time it activated a lever it was rewarded with a food pellet, leading to the animal increasing the frequency of that behaviour
  • When it pressed another lever it was given an electric shock, leading to decreased frequency of that behaviour
• How does operant conditioning work?

  • Works as a learning process where behaviours can be positively or negatively reinforced to increase its' frequency or punished to decrease it
  • Positive reinforcement: receiving a reward when performing a certain behaviour making it more likely that you will repeat it
  • Negative reinforcement: avoiding something unpleasant to achieve a positive outcome, which will maintain the behaviour
  • Positive punishment: receiving something unpleasant
  • Negative punishment: having something pleasant taken away, decreasing the likelihood of repeating the behaviour
• What is one strength of the behaviourist approach?

  • Well-controlled research: behaviourists focus measuring observable behaviour within highly controlled lab settings
  • By breaking behaviour down into basic stimulus-response units and removing other extraneous variables then a cause-effect relationship can be established
  • Skinner could clearly demonstrate how reinforcement influenced an animal's behaviour, suggesting behaviourist experiments have good scientific credibility
• What is another strength of the behaviourist approach?

  • Real-world application: operant conditioning is the basis of token economy systems that have been used successfully in institutions like prisons and psychiatric rewards - these work by rewarding appropriate behaviour with tokens that can be exchanged for privileges
  • Classical conditioning has also been used in treatment for phobias, increasing the value of the approach as it has clinical application
• What is one limitation of the behaviourist approach?

  • Environmental determinism: sees all behaviour as conditioned by past experiences and that everything we do is the sum total of our reinforcement history
  • Ignores any possible influence that free will may have on our behaviour, which Skinner described as an illusion
  • Extreme position that doesn't account for the influence of conscious decision-making processes on behaviour
• What is another limitation of the behaviourist approach?

  • Ethical issues: although Skinner's box allowed behaviourists to maintain high levels of control over their subjects, the animals were housed in harsh, cramped conditions and deliberately kept below their natural weight so they were always hungry
  • Allows us to question the ethics of conducting such investigations at the risk of harming the subjects' physical wellbeing