behaviour approach Flashcards
(8 cards)
2 types of behaviour approach
- classical conditioning
- operant conditioning
who carries out operant conditioning experiment
Skinner
who carries out classical conditioning experiment
pavlov
what does pavlov investigate
investigates salivary in dogs, he noticed that the animal did not only salivate when the food was presented but also reacted to the stimuli that coincident with presentation of food.
Term Definition
UCS food
UCR salivation
NS bell
CS bell after learning
CR salivation to bell
skinners research
skinner placed a special cage in order to investigate operant conditioning.
as rats move around the cage, when it accidently pressed the leaver, a food pallet falls into the cage
All the hungary rats begins pressing the leaver in order to obtain food. If the food pallets stops, the rat presser the leaver few more times and then abandons it.
Evaluation for classical conditioning
✅ 1. Scientific Credibility
Strength
Classical conditioning is based on observable and measurable behaviour, which makes it highly scientific. Pavlov’s research used controlled lab experiments, allowing precise manipulation of variables (e.g., timing between stimuli), leading to cause-and-effect conclusions.
🔍 Why it matters: This gave psychology greater credibility as a science, aligning it with natural sciences like biology and chemistry. It also laid the groundwork for behaviour therapy, showing real-world value.
✅ 2. Real-world Applications
Strength
Classical conditioning has been successfully applied in treating phobias through systematic desensitisation. By associating the feared stimulus with relaxation rather than anxiety, the conditioned fear response can be unlearned.
🔍 Why it matters: This shows the approach has practical, therapeutic value, and contributes meaningfully to improving lives — a major strength in applied psychology.
❌ 3. Reductionist View of Human Behaviour
Limitation
Classical conditioning reduces behaviour to simple stimulus-response associations, ignoring cognitive, emotional, and social factors. It treats humans and animals as passive learners, which underestimates the role of conscious thought.
🧠 Example: Humans often reflect on experiences and can choose not to associate things automatically (e.g., someone who dislikes dogs may still choose to get one if they know the fear is irrational).
🔍 Why it matters: This mechanistic view may be too simplistic to explain complex human behaviours such as moral decision-making or language acquisition.
❌ 4. Ethical Issues in Research
Limitation
Some of the classic studies in classical conditioning (including Pavlov’s) have raised ethical concerns. Pavlov’s dogs were exposed to surgical procedures and food deprivation to ensure reliable results.
🔍 Why it matters: While this may have advanced scientific understanding, it raises questions about animal welfare and whether findings should be generalised to humans if conditions were inhumane.
❌ 5. Limited Generalisability to Humans
Limitation
Much of the foundational research (e.g., Pavlov) was carried out on animals. Although behaviourists argue humans learn in the same way, others (especially cognitive psychologists) point out that human behaviour is influenced by thought processes that animals may not share.
🔍 Why it matters: This questions the external validity of classical conditioning when applied to complex human learning and emotions.
✅ 6. Supported by Empirical Research
Strength
Other researchers, like Watson & Rayner (1920), have replicated classical conditioning in humans. In their famous Little Albert experiment, a baby learned to fear a white rat after it was repeatedly paired with a loud noise.
🔍 Why it matters: This supports the claim that humans can be classically conditioned, giving the theory both validity and generalisability across species.
limitations of Classical Conditioning
✅ 1. Scientific Strength: High Experimental Control
Operant conditioning is supported by highly controlled lab research, such as Skinner’s box experiments. Variables like reinforcement schedules, timing, and stimuli were precisely manipulated. This allowed Skinner to draw clear cause-and-effect conclusions about how consequences shape behaviour.
🔍 Why it matters: This gives operant conditioning strong internal validity and made behaviourism one of the most scientific approaches in psychology, contributing to its early credibility as a discipline.
✅ 2. Practical Applications in Real Life
Operant conditioning principles are widely used in settings like:
Education (rewards for good behaviour),
Prisons and psychiatric hospitals (token economy systems),
Animal training.
These techniques have helped modify maladaptive behaviour, especially in people with learning difficulties or mental illness. 🔍 Why it matters: This shows operant conditioning has high ecological and practical validity — a major strength of any psychological theory.
❌ 3. Over-Reliance on Animal Research
Skinner’s research was primarily conducted on rats and pigeons, assuming that the learning principles are the same across species. However, humans have conscious thought, language, and emotions that may influence how they respond to reinforcement or punishment. This limits how far operant conditioning can be generalised to explain human learning. 🔍 Why it matters: This lowers external validity and may oversimplify complex human behaviour — a key criticism of the behaviourist approach.
❌ 4. Ethical Concerns with Skinner’s Research
Skinner’s animals were often kept in small cages, sometimes deprived of food or subjected to electric shocks. Critics argue that this constitutes psychological and physical harm. 🔍 Why it matters: Ethical issues don’t necessarily invalidate the findings but do raise concerns about the morality of using animals in research, and whether findings from distressed subjects are fully applicable to real-world learning.
❌ 5. Environmental Determinism
Operant conditioning assumes that all behaviour is shaped entirely by reinforcement histories, leaving no room for free will or cognitive choice. Example: This view cannot fully explain why people sometimes act against rewards (e.g., altruistic or self-sacrificial behaviour) or choose to avoid reinforcers (e.g., quitting smoking despite withdrawal).
🔍 Why it matters: This deterministic stance has been criticised for being overly mechanistic, ignoring cognitive and biological influences on behaviour.
✅ 6. Supporting Research Beyond Skinner
Real-world examples back up operant conditioning: Behavioural therapies based on reinforcement (e.g., token economies) have been effective in increasing desirable behaviours in people with autism or schizophrenia. Reinforcement schedules (e.g. variable ratio schedules) have explained addiction, such as in gambling — unpredictability makes reinforcement more powerful.
🔍 Why it matters: This demonstrates external validity and real-world explanatory power, beyond the lab.
Behaviourist
behaviour is learned from the environment. It assumes:
All behaviour is learned, not inherited.
Psychology should study observable, measurable behaviour, not thoughts or feelings.
