Behaviourist Approach

Behaviourist Approach

1. Basic Assumptions

   • everyone is born as a blank slate
   • all behaviour is learnt from the environment
   • learn through association (classical conditioning)
   • learn through reinforcement and punishment (operant conditioning)

2. Researchers

   • Watson
   • Skinner
   • Pavlov

3. Methods

   • comapratiove methods using animals
     • scientific and empirical

4. Application

   • Forensics
     • behaviour modification (Ayllon & Azrin) - token economy
       • desirable behaviour rewarded with a token (secondary reinforcer) which can be exchanged for material goods (primary reinforcers)
   • Friendship
     • serbin et al - reinforce cross-sex play
       • after reinforcement stops, children revert back to same-sex play
   • Attachment
     • cupboard love theory - associate caregiver with the pleasure of food

5. Impact

   • Educational psychology and learning
   • Parenting
   • therapeutic techniques
   • driving force for psychology as a science
   • ideas in the cognitive approach are built from behaviourism
   • lead to neo-behaviourism (SLT)

6. Debates

   • Deterministic
     • Environmental Determinism
       • behaviour is caused by our environment; classical conditioning - we learn by responding to stimuli in our surroundings
       • Positive and negative reinforcement = behaviour
         • seligman learned helplessness goes against this
   • Reductionist
     • complex behaviour is reduced to simplistic stimulus and response links
     • focuses only on overt behaviour - thinking is just quiet speaking (radical behaviourism)
     • ignores how the dogs in learned helplessness theory passively accept the shocks instead of doing the desired action
   • Nurture
     • born as blank slates
     • all behaviour is learnt from macro and micro environments
     • sociocultural explanation of schizophrenia - developed through environment
   • Nomothetic
     • establishes principles of behaviour which are generalised to everyone