Approaches Flashcards
What is the behaviourist approach?
Suggests that all behaviour is acquired and maintained through classical and operant conditioning
What is classical conditioning?
Learning through associations made between the unconditioned stimulus (US) and the neutral stimulus (NS)
What was Pavlov’s dog experiment?
- Before conditioning the unconditioned stimulus (food) produced an unconditioned response (salivation)
- During conditioning, the US was paired with a neutral stimulus (bell) to produce the same UR of salivation
- An association was made between the US (food) and the NS (bell)
- After conditioning, the NS became the conditioned stimulus producing the conditioned response of salivation
What is extinction?
When the conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with the unconditioned stimulus so the conditioned response becomes extinct
What is spontaneous recovery?
When the individual carries out the conditioned response some time after extinction has occurred
What is generalisation?
When slight changes in the conditioned stimulus (eg different pitches of the bell used in Pavlov’s experiment) still produces the same conditioned response
What is operant conditioning?
Learning through consequences
What are the 2 types of reinforcement?
Positive and negative reinforcement
What is positive reinforcement?
When we carry out a behaviour to receive a reward
What is negative reinforcement?
When we carry out a behaviour to avoid negative consequences
What was Skinner’s box experiment?
- Positive reinforcement was shown when the rats pressed down on a lever to receive food as a reward, and learn to repeat this action to increase their rewards
- Negative reinforcement was shown when the rats learnt to press down on the lever to avoid the unpleasant consequence of an electric shock
What is a strength of the behaviourist approach?
Real life applications: an increased understanding of classical and operant conditioning has led to the development of treatments and therapies for serious mental disorders eg. token economies for dealing with offending behaviour
What are limitations of the behaviourist approach?
Environmental determinism: sees all behaviour as a result of past reinforcement contingencies, leaving no room for free will or conscious choices. This may be fitting for animals but human behaviour should also account for emotions, motivations and reasoning skills (like SLT does)
Cost benefit analysis: Skinner’s box breached the BPS guideline of protection from harm causing physical harm to the rats, therefore most b behavioural research can be viewed as unethical. However, a cost-benefit analysis may show that the benefit of increased understanding of the different types of learning outweigh the ethical costs
What is a genotype?
the genetic makeup of a person
What is a phenotype?
- physical expression of phenotype
- come from interaction between their genotype and the environment
