The Behaviourist Approach

The Behaviourist Approach

1. Strengths and Weaknesses

   • Weaknesses
     • Emphasis on nurture
       • Focussed on how the environment shapes behaviour
         • Completely ignores nature
           • Our behaviour isn't just influenced by learning, innate abilities such as emotion influence
     • Determinist Approach
       • People are controlled by external factors
         • rewards/punishments provided by our environment
           • Doesn't consider thought processes, which suggest we have no free will
             • Weakness as it suggests we can't be held responsible for our behaviour
   • Strengths
     • Scientific Approach
       • Pavlov's work is scientific
         • Objective and replicable
           • Operationalised variables mean we can analyse and compare behaviour
             • Scientific approach is advantageous as we can distinguish facts from beliefs
     • Successful Applications
       • Classical conditioning is used in Aversion Therapy and SD
         • Operant conditioning is used in education to shape behaviour in the classroom
           • Teaching machine; letting students work at their own pace

2. Systematic Desensitisation

   • 1: Patient is taught how to relax
     • 2: Therapist and P create a heirarchy of fears
       • 3: P works way through HoF
         • 4: When P is relaxed, they can progress to next step
           • 5: Patient overcomes the fear
   • Wolpe 1950's
     • Masserman (1943) -cats had electric shocks when they were put in a box, so then developed a fear of boxes
       • Wolpe (1958) - put food closer and closer to the box, until the cat went in the box to get the food (conditioning)
     • Suggested fears are not so fearful, but we only think they are because we are too anxious to re-experience it
   • Desensitisation Heirarchy
   • Different forms of SD
     • In vivo desensitisation
       • P's would have to face the fear until they're relaxed
         • More successful
     • In vitro desensitisation
       • Therapist asks P's to imagine the fear
     • Menzies and Clarke (1993) - in vivo is more successful
     • Comer (2002) - P's watch someone else overcome a fear
     • Humphrey (1973) - an alternative is self-administered SD is effective
     • Flooding
       • Direct experience with the fear until reciprocal enhibition takes place
   • Counterconditioning: Aim is to acquire a new stimulus-response link
     • Reciprocal Inhibition: we cannot experience fear and relaxation at the same time
   • Effectiveness of SD
     • McGrath (1990) found that 75% of P's respond to SD
     • Is counterconditioning necessary?
       • Success of SD may be down to exposure than relaxation, and the fact that the P's expect an improvement
       • Klein et al (1983) compared SD with psychotherapy and found no difference which could show that they only overcome the phobias as they expect to
     • Capafons et al (1998) treated 41 aerophobics. 21 were in a control and were compared to the 20 that underwent SD. Those who recieved SD reported lower levels of fear which shows SD is successful
       • However, 2 in the SD group showed no improvement, so SD is not 100% effective

3. Methodology

   • Use of animals in research
     • Behaviourists believe there's only quantitative differences between humans and animals. e.g. brain size.
     • Strengths
       • Animal learning has successful applications, they were used to develop ideas for SD.
         • Less emotional involvement with animals, less demand characteristics and experimenter bias
     • Weaknesses
       • Generalisability factors as how can we say animals learn the same way as humans. Human behaviour far more complexed than animal behaviour
         • Ethical issues; is it ethical to experiment on animals or put them in harmful conditions
   • Lab Experiments
     • Strengths
       • Best way to find C&E as extraneous varibles are controlled.
         • Objective, standardised procedures increases replicability and validity
           • Quanitative date; easily analysed and comparitable
     • Weaknesses
       • Lacks ecological validity as it's in an artifical environment.
         • P's might try and guess the purpose of the study (Demand Characteristics)
           • SDB
             • Experimenter could display behaviour that influences P's to act differently (Experimenter Bias)
     • Only observable behaviour is worth of study
     • If Psy was a Science then scientific methods should be used to study behaviour
       • Objective, replicable, quanitifiable
     • Behaviourists believe our behaviour is shaped by the environment so manipulating the environment means we can establish causes of behaviours
       • Establish cause and effect
       • Does the IV affect the DV

4. Social Learning Theory

   • Behaviourists believe aggression by imitating behaviour
     • Observable behaviour; need to be directly experienced to it
   • Bandura doesn't ignore biological factors, as he says we all have to potential to be aggressive
   • The Bobo Doll Study
     • 1961
       • 3-5 y/o B&G
     • The Motivation for Aggression
       • Bandura's experiment doesn't tell us why children imitate aggressive behaviours
       • Film ending influenced the child's behaviour
         • Those who saw the model being PUNISHED were significantly LESS likely to imitate behaviour
         • Those who saw the model being REWARDED were significantly MORE likely to imitate behaviour
           • VICARIOUS LEARNING
         • Those who were in the CONTROL were somewhere in between
       • Bandura and Walters (1963) - children divided into 3 groups and each saw a different ending to the film of an aggressive modeel
         • 1. Rewarded 2. Punished 3. Nothing
     • Taken into a room with toys and an adult. Half of the children were exposed to the model beating the doll, half weren't
       • Children were then taken into a room with a Bobo doll. Those who were experienced to aggression imitated it, and those who weren't didn't.
   • Observation
     • Observe role models and imitate their behaviour
       • Observational Learning
         • Vicarious Reinforcement; children observe people getting rewarded or punished for behaviour
           • Learn behaviours (OL) and then choose whether to imitate them (VR)
   • Mental Representation
     • Bandura (1986) in order for social learning to take place, children must imagine these behaviours in their environment
       • Represent possible rewards/punishments (expectancies of future outcomes)
         • When opportunities arise, behaviour is provided when the expectation of the reward > the punishment
   • Maintenence through direct experience
     • If a child is rewarded for aggressive behaviour, they are more likely to repeat it
       • Aggression will then have a higher value

5. Assumptions

   • Behaviour can be explained in terms of Classical Conditioning
     • Behaviours are learnt through association
     • A behaviour is a stimulus-response unit
       • Pavlov's dogs (1904)
     • US --> UR
       • NS --> Nothing
         • US + NS --> UR
           • CS --> CR
             • After
           • During
       • Before
   • Behaviour can be explained in terms of Operant Conditioning
     • Behaviours are learnt through reinforcement
     • Behaviours either result in positive/negative consequences
     • Skinner's Rats (1938) -Reinforcers
     • Reinforcers can also be positive/negative
     • Shaping - reinforcing successively closer approximations to a desired performance