Behaviourist approach

• Assumptions of the behaviourist approach

  • Reject introspection - John B watson - due to vague and difficult to measure
  • Believe behaviour is learned
  • Babies are a blank slate
• Classical conditioning

  Learning through association
• Classical conditioning - Pavlovs research (1927)

  1. Dogs could be conditioned to salivate through ringing of a bell
  2. The bell would ring everytime they were given food
  3. They then salivated eventually with no food only the bell
• Operant conditioning - Skinners research (1953)

  1. rats were placed in a box with a lever
  2. Everytime they pulled the lever food would be put in the cage
  3. The Rat would continue doing this

  Condition 2

  1. The rat would receive an electric shock unless the lever was pulled
  2. The rat learned to pull the lever
• Evaluation - Well controlled research

  • Used controlled lab settings
  • Removed extraneous variables

  Counterpoint

  They oversimplified the learning process
• Evaluation - Strength - Real world application

  Token economy systems in prisons, an example of positive reinforcement
• Evaluation - Weakness - Environmental determinism

  Skinner suggested everything we do is a sum of our reinforcement history - Ignores free will