Behaviourist approach to abnormality
- Created by: Amy
- Created on: 30-12-12 20:51
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- behaviourist approach to abnormality
- causes
- operant conditioning
- learning through rewards
- eg by avoiding public places an agoraphobic's fear is reduced (rewarding) and so avoidance is likely to be repeated
- learning through rewards
- classical conditioning
- learning through associations
- eg a spider is associated with fear causing a phobia
- learning through associations
- social learning
- learning through observation
- eg girls wanting to look a certain way due to images in the media
- learning through observation
- operant conditioning
- evaluation
- strenghts
- implications for treatment
- try to unlearn the behaviour
- supporting evidence: Fiji study
- found an increase in eating disorders in 1995 when tv was introduced. after speaking to young girls 36 months after tv was introduced 69% of teenage girls said they had been dieting and 15% reported that they had induced vomiting to control their weight
- implications for treatment
- weaknesses
- reductionist
- ignores biological factors and cognitive factors
- ignores underlying causes and only focuses on the symptoms
- reductionist
- strenghts
- systematic desensitisation
- evalutation
- weaknesses
- criticized for only treating the symptoms and not the causes
- strengths
- effective in treating phobias
- 75% success rate with simple phobias and 90% with blood/injection phobias
- permanent cure
- the patient is in control
- effective in treating phobias
- weaknesses
- method
- individual considers an anxiety hierarchy (a series of scenes and events rated from highest to lowest in terms of amount of anxiety they elcit)
- relaxation training is given
- they then slowly move up the hierarchy as they become relaxed with each one
- imagining is a favored technique by therapists but using the real stimulus is better
- evalutation
- causes
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