Classical Conditioning - Behaviourism
- Created by: amitchell1411
- Created on: 01-05-19 09:46
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What is Classical Conditioning?
An association between a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus to produce a response.
Behaviourist approach - the view that behaviours are learnt and animals and people learn in the same way. It's easier to investigate using animals, as their enviornment can be controlled.
PAVLOV'S DOGS:
- Dogs were presented with an unconditioned stimulus - food
- The food caused the dogs to salivate - unconditioned response
- The dogs were presented with a bell ringing - neutral stimulus
- The bell on its own lead to no conditioned response
- The dogs were then presented with the bell ringing and the food being presented a few seconds later - this was done repeatedly.
Another study is Watson (1920s) - Little Albert:
- Watson conditioned Albert to be afraid of his pet rat - he paired it with a loud noise. After conditioning Albert showed extreme fear towards his pet rat.
- He then presented him with other fluffy objects to see if the fear had been transferred and generalised to other fluffy objects.
Problems with Watson's experiment:
- Ethics - lack of informed consent as Albert is a baby and cannot consent to it.
- - long-term psychological harm - becoming scared of normal everyday objects.
- Sample - only one child is being experimented. A small sample size means that we cannot generalise results.
- Ecological validity - study conducted in small lab setting - cannot be applied to other environments. Not a natural setting for the child which could impact the resuls.
Practical Applications
- Can help us to explain the development of phobias.
OPERANT CONDITIONING - BEHAVIOURISM
- learning through consequences:
- positive reinforcement - increases the likelihood of behaviour…
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