Issues & debates - Learning

Ethics & socially sensitive research - research usually involves animals, Skinner electrified floor of a box which exposed animals to adverse stimuli, a rat had to press a lever to stop this so a form of motivation like food would be required - food restriction violates ethical guidelines, Watson & Rayner distressed Little Albert on purpose - caused harm & was worsened by his mother removing him before being desensitised, Bandura deliberately exposed children to aggressive models, treatments are socially sensitive as the control of the client's behaviour is managed by the therapist 

Practical issues in the design & implementation of research - generalisability of animal findings to humans are criticised - same biological basis but can be argued that animals lack self - awareness so respond differently from humans, the ability of humans to be aware of conditioning means they understand the nature of the study - demand characteristics 

Reductionism -…