The behaviourist approach 1

The behaviourist approach 1

1. The assumptions

   • humans are born like a blank slate
     • tabula rasa
       • nurture over nature
     • all our behaviour is learned from interactions with the environment
       • we respond passively to environmental stimuli
     • environmental determinism; associations
   • behaviour learned through conditioning
     • classical- association
       • Pavlov 1902
         • before conditioning food is US and salivation is UR
         • during conditioning bell is NS
         • after conditioning bell is CS and salivation is CR
     • operant- reinforcement and punishment
       • B.F Skinner , 1938 skinner box
         • animal learns to behave in a certain way due to being rewarded with food
           • positive reinforcement
       • punishment weakens the chance of something being repeated
       • reinforcement increased the chance of a behaviour occuring again
         • negative reinforcement e.g. giving in homework to avoid a detention
       • positive (something given) and negative (something taken away)
   • humans and animals learn in similar ways
     • study animal learning in a laboratory environment and make generalisations about human behaviour
       • e.g. Pavlov's dogs
     • applied to therapies
       • token economy systems from studying rats (Skinner)
   • relationship formation
     • operant
       • new relationships positively reinforcing through attention and compliments
       • avoiding feelings of loneliness and rejection is negatively reinforcing
     • classical
       • if we meet someone when we are feeling happy we are more likely to want to see them again
         • someone we hadnt met before (neutral stimulus) can become positively valued because of their association with a pleasant event
     • pet-owner relationships
       • training dogs involves rewarding good behaviour and therefore increasing contentment in both owner and dog
       • pet owners less likely to suffer from depression and have a lower blood pressure

2. Systematic desensitisation

   • components
     • Wolpe 1950s
     • counterconditioning
       • process begins with muscle relaxation techniques; reciprocal inhibition
       • taught a new association
     • desensitisation heirarchy
       • a series of gradual steps that are determined at the beginning of the therapy; least to most fearful
     • different forms of SD
       • in vivo- in life, directly
         • menzies and clarke- in vivo more successful
       • in vitro- in glass , imagine the feared stimuli
   • effectiveness
     • capafons,1998- clients showed less physiological signs of fear in a flight simulator using in vivo and in vitro
     • SD not effective for more generalised fears e.g agoraphobia
       • seligman 1970- humans are genetically programmed to learn an association between life-threatening stimuli and fear
         • biological preparedness
     • bregman,1934- failed to condition a fear response in infants aged 8 to 16 months, loud bell with wooden blocks
     • symptom substitution- removing the symptoms but the cause still remains
   • ethical issues
     • ethical unlike flooding techniques. each step conducted slowly to make sure that the patient is fully relaxed
     • mainly used with phobias and not problems such as depression
       • healthy enough frame of mind to understand what the therapy will entail. valid consent
         • free will

3. Watson and Rayner: conditioned emotional reactions

   • methodology,procedures and findings
     • controlled observation with Albert B
     • recorded with a motion picture camera
     • emotional tests
       • showed no fear response to objects , when the bar was struck 3x he started and then cried
       • confronted with rabbit, rat dog, cotton wool etc.
     • 1. establishing conditioned emotional response
       • white rat presented and then bar was struck
       • jumped and fell forward but did not cry
     • 2. testing the conditioned emotional response
       • shown the rat with no sound and then exposed 5x to joint stimulation
       • only stared at the rat, cautious . after the joint stimulations he started to cry
     • 3. generalisation
       • presented with wooden blocks and other objects
       • played happily with the blocks but immedietly responded with fear to rat and rabbit
     • 4. changing the environment
       • taken to a large well-lit lecture room with four people present
       • responces less extreme than before , still played happily with wooden blocks
     • 5. the effect of time
       • clearly avoided the furry objects and wimpered
       • tested for the last time with rat, rabbit, dog and blocks
   • conclusions
     • demonstrated the ease which a fear response can be created (just two joint stimulations)
     • probable that many phobias are required this way
     • thought that freudian therapists would mis-diagnose the reason for alberts fear
   • evaluation
     • controlled study ;extraneous variables and condition (blocks)
     • sample not easily generalisable
     • two-process theory ; Mowrer
       • first stage classical then maintained with operant
     • biological preparedness
     • lots of psychological harm
       • furthered when they removed his thumb from his mouth
         • knew the fear would persist throughout his life
       • unable to uncondition as the mother left with albert
         • justified this by saying that the associations would have arised once he left the nursery
         • also; the research has been used to treat many phobias. one boys suffering for the sake of many