Behaviourist Approach

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  • Behaviourist approach
    • Assumptions
      • Only interested in studying behaviour that can be observed and measured
      • Reject introspection
        • Vague and difficult to measure
      • Basic processes that govern learning are the same in all species
    • Classical conditioning
      • Ivan Pavlov
      • Realised that dogs could be conditioned to salivate to the sound of a bell
        • If the sound was repeatedly presented at the same time as they were given the food
      • Pavlov was able to show how a neutral stimulus could elicit a new learned response
        • Neutral stimulus vs. conditioned response
      • Learning through association
    • Operant conditioning
      • Burrhus Skinner 1953
      • Suggests that learning is an active process whereby humans and animals operate on their environment
      • Positive reinforcement
        • A reward for a certain behaviour
      • Negative reinforcement
        • Avoiding something unpleasant
      • Punishment
        • An unpleasant consequence of behaviour
    • Evaluation
      • STRENGTHS
        • Real life application
          • The principles of conditioning have been applied to a broad range of real world behaviours
        • Scientific credibility
          • Behaviourism brought psychology forward as a 'real' science because it used highly controlled lab experiments
      • WEAKNESSES
        • Ethics
          • Animals were exposed to stressful and aversive conditions
        • Deterministic
          • Implies we cannot be held responsible for any wrong doing
          • Undermines free will
          • Does not consider the though processes that occur before we behave in a certain way
          • Implies we have no personal/moral beliefs

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