Behavioural Approach

Behavioural Approach

1. Social Learning Theory

   • learning through observation and imitation
     • Vicarious Reinforcements
       • seeing someone else getting rewarded for a behaviour then being more inclined to copy them
     • Model
       • Person carrying out the specific behaviour
     • Indentify
       • relating to the model
     • Imitation
       • Copying the behaviour seen
   • Banduras Bobo Doll
     • showed that children who were shown violence would then behave in the same way where as children who was shown people behaving normally they often just played

2. Operant Conditioning

   • learning through trial and error (actively learning)
   • Skinners rats
   • reinforcement
     • positive - when something good is given due to a specific behaviour being done
     • negative - when something bad is taken away because of a specific behaviour

3. Classical Conditioning

   • learning through association
   • Pavlovs Dog
     • Demonstrated that the dogs would drool when they heard a bell as they associated the bell with food
   • Stimulus
     • Unconditioned Stimulus - when as stimulus causes an automatic response
     • Conditioned Stimulus - when a stimulus that has been learned to give an automatic response
     • Neutral Stimulus - when a stimulus is introduced but does not cause a response yet
   • Response
     • Unconditioned Response - a reaction to stimulus that is automatic
     • Conditioned Stimulus - a reaction to a stimulus that has been learnt

4. Strengths

   • Scientifically valid
   • Therapies based on their finding
   • applied in real well situations for example token economy systems

5. Weaknesses

   • Reductionist
   • Determinstic
   • mostly based on animals
   • no idea of cause and effect