AO3

• Behaviorism has experimental support: Pavlov showed that classical conditioning leads to learning by association. Watson and Rayner showed that phobias can be learnt through classical conditioning in the “little Albert” experiment.
• It introduced the scientific methods to psychology. Laboratory experiments were used with high control of extraneous variables. These experiments were replicable and the data obtained was objective (not influenced by an individual’s judgement or opinion) and measurable. This gave psychology more credibility.
• Many of the experiments carried out were done on animals; we are different cognitively and physiologically, humans have different social norms and moral values which mediate the effects of the environment therefore we might behave differently from animals so the laws and principles derived from these experiments might apply more to animals than to humans.
• It does not explain important aspects of human behavior such as memory and problem solving as these are internal mental events which cannot be observed.
• It does not take into account biological factors such as the role of neurotransmitters, for example a low level of serotonin can give rise to depression or high level of dopamine is involved in OCD.
• It sees people as passive in their learning with little conscious thoughts influencing their behavior; other approaches recognise the importance of mental events in the learning process.
• It has ethical issues as it can be used by governments and/or gambling companies to encourage people to behave in ways that they wouldn’t rationally choose to.
• It neglects the influence of free will as it argues that our behavior is the result of previous conditioning. Skinner argued that free will is an illusion.
• Free will/Determinism - Strong determinism of the behavioral approach as all behavior is learnt from our environment through classical and operant conditioning. We are the sum total of our previous conditioning.
• Nature/Nurture - Behaviorism is very much on the nurture side of the debate as it argues that our behavior is learnt from the environment. The social learning theory is also on the nurture side because it argues that we learn our behavior from role models in our environment. The behaviorist approach proposes that, apart from a few innate reflexes and the capacity for learning, all complex behavior is learned from the environment.
• Reductionism/Holism - The behaviorist approach and social learning are reductionist; they isolate parts of complex behaviors to study. The behaviorists take the view that all behavior, no matter how complex, can be broken down into the fundamental processes of conditioning.
• Idiographic/Nomothetic - It is a nomothetic approach as it views all behavior governed by the same laws of conditioning. However, it does account for individual differences and explain them in terms of difference of history of conditioning.
• Scientific? - The behaviorist approach uses lab experiments which are highly controlled therefore they are replicable. Furthermore, it measures observable behaviors, therefore no interpretations is required therefore the data is objective. However the behaviorists use animal experiments as it assumes that humans learn in the same way than animals.