Believes we can only learn from observable behaviour
Humans and animals learn in the same way so use animal studies
Psychology is a science therefore lab experiments are used
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Classical conditioning and Pavlov's dogs
Learning through association
Before conditioning: Food is UCS and produces salivation UCR
During conditioning: Food and bell is UCS and salivation is the UCR
After conditioning: Bell is CS and produces salivation CR
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Operant conditioning and Skinner
When humans and animals act in their environment there are consequences, if the consequences are positive they repeat the behaviour, if they are negative they do not repeat the behaviour
Positive reinforcement: rats were put in a box and when they pushed a lever food was released, they learnt to go straight to the lever
Negative reinforcement: rats were put in a box which gave them an electric shock when they moved around the cage, pressing the lever switched off the electric current, they quickly learnt to press the lever
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Positive Evaluation
Real life applications - understanding attachment and phobias, has helped with treatments such as systematic desensitisation and token economy
Scientific method means there is good control of extraneous variables, objective data which can be replicated
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Negative Evaulation
Sees humans and animals as the same when we are diffreent cognitively and physiologically and have mor complex social norms meaning resukts of the experiments may apply more to animals than humans
Ignores free will as it states all behaviour is a result of previous conditioning
Ignored the role of mediational processes in learning
Ignores biological factors e.g. high dopamine levels in OCD
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