the behavioural approach to psychopathology
- Created by: olm1997
- Created on: 12-04-15 15:50
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- The Behavioural approach
- Behaviourists believe that normal and abnormal behaviours are acquired as a result of experiences that we have in life
- Abnormal behaviours are learned
- Psychological disorder produced when a maladaptive behaviour leads to desired increased attention for the individual
- Maladaptive behaviour - any behaviour that inhibits a persons ability to cope with situations
- Psychological disorder produced when a maladaptive behaviour leads to desired increased attention for the individual
- Learning environment may enforce maladaptive behaviours
- Therefore, such behaviours may be learned because they are adaptive for the individual in those environments
- e.g. for those with agoraphobia, not leaving home lowers anxiety
- Social learning theory
- Assumption that people learn through indirect as well as direct rewards by observing the behaviour of models
- Observ-ational learning
- And then imitating such behaviour if others have been rewarded for this behaviour
- Vicarious reinforcement
- Assumption that people learn through indirect as well as direct rewards by observing the behaviour of models
- Evaluation
- Behaviourist explanations are limited b/c they ignore important influences that might contribute
- e.g. thought processes such as emotional influences, neurotransmitter imbalance and genetics
- Support for this approach comes from the success of therapies based on the behavioural approach
- e.g. systematic desensitisation and modelling
- Behaviourist explanations are limited b/c they ignore important influences that might contribute
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