Psychological Behaviourism

Question 1

behavioural psychology

Answer 1

theory arguing all behaviours, human and animal are learnt through conditioning- by interaction with environment
-in BF skinners view good and bad consequences of previous actions dispose brain to repeat/avoid such actions

Question 2

psychological determinism

Answer 2

-form of hard determinism
-BF Skinner claims all behaviour and the choices we make are result of genetic and environmental conditions and how we have been nurtured.
-all human actions are conditioned by good/bad consequences of previous decisions.
-choices made depending on our upbringing, culture and past experiences, so there can be no freedom of will.

Question 3

Psychological determinism - explanation

Answer 3

-associated with work of BF Skinner.
-all behaviour product of our genetics and our environmental conditions
-human actions are as a result of the consequences of previous actions
-if an action has good consequences the brain becomes programmed to choose this action, and if it has bad consequences humans learn not to repeat it.
-pavlos dog experiment

Question 4

Pavlovs dogs

Answer 4

-conditioning
-classical
association

Question 5

J.B Watson

Answer 5

Little Albert

Question 6

Results of Pavlov and Watson

Answer 6

-all human reactions are just conditioned responses associated with the environmental conditions of ones upbringing
-all moral agents actions are determined by their own unique environmental conditioning
-may believe its a free choice but in fact its just determined conditioned response.

Question 7

Classical Conditioning

Answer 7

-associating an involuntary response and an unconditioned stimulus
-no rewards
-passive

Question 8

Operant Conditioning

Answer 8

-associating voluntary behaviour and a consequence
-learner rewarded with incentives
-requires learning to actively participate and perform some type of action ignorer to be rewarded/punished .

Question 9

Skinners Experiment

Answer 9

rats and boxes

Question 10

operant conditioning strengths

Answer 10

-explain wide variety of behaviours form process of learning, to addiction and language acquisitiono

Question 11

operant conditioning weaknesses

Answer 11

-fails to consider role of inherited and cognitive factors in learning and thus is an incomplete explanation of the learning process in humans and animals
-use of animals, cant generalises from studies on animals to humans

Question 12

strengths

Answer 12

supported by science and empiricism
-easy to understand

Question 13

weaknesses

Answer 13

-chomsky
-skinner himself has been conditioned by past experiences so why should we trust him
-behaviours cant always be accurately predicted