behav a03

• -The behaviourist approach can be described in terms of environmental reductionism,

  -because it reduces complex behaviour down to one fundamental factor (stimulus response links)

  -This can be a limitation as other factors may be ignored preventing more realistic or valid explanations of behaviour and as a result patients may be prevented from receiving more successful therapies.

  -Therefore a more holistic theory is required as the behavioural approach only provides a partial explanation for behaviour, however this reduxtionsit appropach has allowed effective biological therapies
• • development of a successful therapy
  • Systematic desensitisation (effective treatment for a range of phobias)
  • Uses principles of classical conditioning to replace learned response (anxiety) with another response (relaxation) 
  • 75% effective 
  • The success of this therapy proves the validity of the theory
  • What about 25% who it doesn't work for
• Focus on animal behavior may not generalize to humans

  • Its origins stem from a study done on animals-can't generalize to humans
  • Skinner’s reliance on rats and pigeons and Pavlov on dogs means that we are unable to draw conclusions about human behaviour
  • humans have a far more complex biological make-up and more complex causes of behaviour and motivation behind it
  • Lacks external (population) validity
  • Can't generalise the findings from animal research to humans, which weakens the supporting evidence for the operant conditioning -high internal