behaviourist approach

• Behaviourist theory


  Children come into the world as blank slates, all learning is influenced by the environment around them, in the same way that it would be for animals
• Behaviourist theory


  • Thoughts and feelings are not considered to influence behaviour and neither do inherited factors
  • Psychological disorders can be treated through changing patterns of behaviour
  • Behaviour is based on our response to the stimulus individuals are subjected to and is not as a result of inherited factors
• Key Vocabulary


  • Classical Conditioning
  • Operant Conditioning
  • Positive Reinforcement
  • Negative Reinforcement
  • Stimulus
• Classical Conditioning


  The use of a familiar stimulus to influence behaviour towards a new stimulus by repeatedly pairing them together
• Operant Conditioning


  The use of reinforcement, both positive and negative, to influence how new behaviours are learnt and how old behaviours are modified
• Positive Reinforcement


  A reward or praise
• Negative Reinforcement


  The removal of an unfavourable outcome
• Stimulus


  A thing or event that causes an individual to react
• Pavlov conducted studies into the digestive systems of dogs and noticed that the dogs would salivate when they were presented with food and if they saw the white lab coat of the assistants who brought the food
• This observation led Pavlov to discover that the dogs had associated the presentation of food with the lab coat, conditioning them to behave in the same way
• Classical Conditioning (1890s)


  Pairing the bell (the new stimulus) and the food (the familiar stimulus) together, Pavlov had conditioned the dogs to salivate when they heard the bell, even when there was no food
• Skinner believed that all human behaviour was the direct result of conditioning and that free will did not exist
• Operant Conditioning (1948)


  1. Pushing a lever (accidentally at first) in the box and receiving a reward, the rat would learn to perform that behaviour

  2. When the rats were given a reward after pressing the bar, they were more likely to press the bar again

  3. Rats that were not given rewards were less likely to press the bar
• Unlike Pavlov, Skinner found that behaviour was influenced by what happened after the behaviour and not before it
• Skinner also found that behaviour could be influenced by positive or negative rewards, and punishment played a role in influencing behaviour
• Banduras social learning theory is based on the idea that individuals learn from observing others, imitating and modelling.
• in his experiment. bandura showed a group of childeren a film of an adult hitting and shouting at a bobo doll. when the childeren were later taken to a playroom containing a bobo doll, those who had seen the film were more likely to treat the doll badly, imitating the words and language used by the adult in the film.
• this study was different to those conducted by previous behaviourists. the children were offered no reward to treat the bobo doll badly and the only stimulus the children had been given was the social influence from the film.
• the theory believed that individuals learn through two processes. modeling and reinforcement
• individuals are likely to model themselves on people they can relate to, like people in the same role or same gender, and that when they observe their behaviour they attempt to copy it.
• reinforcement is important because if an individuals behaviour is reinforced of rewarded in some way it is likely that the behaviour will be repeated.