behaviourist approach

• Operant conditioning

  A form of learning in which behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences. Possible consequences of behaviour include positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment.
• Behaviourist approach

  - all behaviour is learnt

  - we are born with a blank slate

  - genes are not related to behaviour

  - we can study human behaviour by looking at animals
• The behavioural approach used two types of conditioning

  Operate and classical
• Classical conditioning

  This is a behaviourist theory which says that humans and animals learn new behaviours by the process of association.

  
  

  There are 3 stages of classical conditioning:

  1) before conditioning- end of the lesson before lunch makes peoples stomachs rumble - A neutral stimulus produces no response e.g a bell ringing

  2) during conditioning- the neutral stimulus is paired with the unconditioned stimulus resulting in an unconditioned response, this needs to happen serval times for it to occur e.g whenever we hear the bell ring we know it is the end of the lesson and lunch is next so we become hungry

  3) after conditioning- the neutral stimulus has become the conditioned stimulus, resulting in the conditioned response e.g whenever we hear the bell even if it isn't lunch time we still get hungry and our stomachs rumble
• Pavlov dogs

  Pavlov demonstrated classical conditioning in dogs using the sound of a bell as the neutral stimulus and a bowl of meat powder as the unconditioned stimulus

  1)before the experiment the dogs would salivate ( unconditioned response ) in respond to the meat powder but not the bell

  2) when a bell was rung the first time with no food there was no response - neutral stimulus

  3) during conditioning the bell was rung wherever the meat powder was presented

  4) after many trials the dogs would salivate at the sound of the bell alone, the bell had become a conditioned response.
• Evaluation of Pavlovs study

  Strength: he highly controlled the conditions to make sure that nothing else would make the dogs salivate, even the experiment stayed outside the room to make sure that the dogs would associate him with the food and was purely the bell

  Weakness: he used a salinometer which have him a more statistical way of seeing how much the dogs were salivating. However he was highly criticised on within all grounds, the salinometer was surgically implanted which meant they could never actually swallow the food so many died
• Operant conditioning

  This states that we learn new behaviours as a result of the consequences of our actions

  1) positive reinforcement- when behaviour is followed by a pleasant consequence the frequency of the behaviour is increased.

  2) negative reinforcement- when a behaviour leads to something unpleasant stopping, the frequency of the behaviour increases e.g going to the dentist which you hate in order to make sure your teeth don't rot.

  3) punishment- when a behaviour is filleted by a unpleasant consequence the frequency of the behaviour decreases

  
  

  Behavioural shaping- when you teach something slowly to reinforce a behaviour

  
  

  She duals of reinforcement- a continues reinforcement schedule is most effected reinforcing it every 3rd time the behaviour occurs means it is most likely to become a response
• Skinner

  -skinners box,- where an animal ( rat or pigeon ) can be placed.

  -There is a lever which delivers food pelts

  -The rat learnt while it was exploring that if it pressed the lever it would release food, which makes the rat repeat the response as it gets positive reinforcement.

  - if the animal got tired the box would make loud noises or electrocute the bird which would stop if the rat pressed the lever this also increased the amount the lever was pressed this showed negative reinforcement.

  - the other experiment was if the rat pressed the lever he got punished by an electric shock which decreased the amount of times he touched the lever
• Evaluation of skinner

  Strength: his conditions were highly controlled and he made sure there was no other stimuli that would affect the amount of times the lever was pressed

  
  

  Weakness: we may not be able to generalise these findings to humans, although we might learn the same way our brains are more complex
• well-controlled research

  P: strength - well-controlled research

  E: skinner broke down behavior into basic stimulus-response units and made the possibility of extraneous variables was removed

  E: skinner was able to clearly explain how reinforcement affected an animal's behavior

  L: therefore behaviorist experiments have credibility
• counterpoint

  P: limitation - oversimplification

  E: behaviorists have ignored the influence of human thought

  E: other approaches such as the cognitive approach have taken into account the influence of mental processes

  L: therefore learning is more complex than observable behaviour alone
• real-world application

  P: strength - real-world application

  E: operant conditioning is the basis of token economies and has been successfully used in prisons, etc

  E: classical conditioning has been applied to treating phobias

  L: therefore the behaviorist approach has real-world application
• environmental determinism

  P: limitation - sees behaviour conditioned by past experiences

  E: skinner suggests that our past conditioning experience causes our behaviour

  E: skinner ignores the influence of free will

  L: therefore approach ignores the influence of conscious decision-making