behaviourist

• why is this a controversial debate?


  conditioning can help to encourage desirable behaviour and discourage bad ones to bring benefits however many think it removes free will and creating generations of "selfish automatons"
• the three themes of the use of conditioning:

  • use in schools
  • use in homes
  • use on vunerable children
• conditioning is appropriate in homes:

  • super nanny - operant conditioning
  • Gill - pocket money
• conditioning is not appropriate in homes:

  • Morris critises the naughty step as children do not have the ability to reflect on their own behaviour
  • for effective conditioning techniques need to be applied consistently but parents are busy and tired it may not be as effective
• operant conditioning is appropraite in schools:

  • McAllister found an increase of teacher praise and teacher disapproval led to a decrease in inappropriate talking
• operant conditioning is not appropriate in school:

  • Lepper asked children to draw nice pictures and the ones promised a reward spent half as much time on it which suggests it actually lowers motivation
  • Lewis conducted observations in Japanese schoolsand found that operant conditioning was rarely used and the children were internally motivated ( ranked 4th in science and reading)
• classical conditioning is appropriate in school:

  • Le Francois argues classical conditioning can be used to maximise student performance by maximising pleasant stimuli and minimsing negative ones
• classical & operant techniques can lead to helplessness:

  • Dweck found that children who had been praised for doing well on a maths test did worse on the second one compared to students who had been given negative comments which shows "task persistence"
• conditioning techniques are appropriate to use with vunerable kids:

  • Lovaas developed applied behaviour (ABA) to help improve social interactions of children with ASD. ABA is one-to-one therapy where rewards are given then slowly get reduced as they get closer to the ideal behaviour
• conditioning techniques arent appropraite to use with vunerable kids:

  • PTSD symptons in autistic individuals that received ABA therapy - nearly half out of 460. The programs forced eye contact and work at tables for hours which may actually be inappropraite with any child, let alone vunerable ones
• ethical implications:

  • removes free will and individuality
  • destroys intern drive to learn and succeed
  • unhealthy to use money as rewards
• social and economic implications:

  • conditioning may lead to better acedemic performance and lower unemployment that would benefit the economy and society
  • vunerable children may benefit fro, learning behaviours to participate in society and gain employment
  • conditioning could be creating a "snowflake generation" where people are only motivated by external rewards
• overall conclusions:

  • techniques are useful in shaping childrens behaviour
  • especially valuable for children with ASD
  • we should be careful about an over-reliance on them
  • other cultures do not rely on these so there are alternative ways