Behaviourism Evaluation Flashcards
(-) Hard determinism
The behaviourist approach says that free will is an illusion and says out behaviour is shaped by our past conditioning and thus ignores the influences of free will on our behaviour. It is deterministic as it claims that behaviour is caused by factors outside of our control e.g. it states we develop behaviours through stimuli-response associations and through learning that takes place as we interact with our environment (this s environmental determinism)
(-)Reductionist
Behaviourist approach is reductionist as it reduces the way you behave down to direct learning from your environment. Therefore it is an incomplete explanation as it ignores other factors. It oversimplifies why we behave as we do therefore it can’t explain more complex learning behaviour and can’t explain how we learn things we haven’t experienced.
(+)Real-life application
Behaviourist approach has real-life application as we practically use the approach in everyday situations. For example, we use classical conditioning to treat phobias and operant conditioning in schools and prisons to encourage good behaviour. As it has real-life application it increases the usefulness of the aproach.
(-/+) Method
Behaviourists mainly use lab experiments on animals. This is a strength as lab experiments are highly controlled and allow us to establish a standardised procedure and a cause and effect relationship. The experiments can be repeated to check reliability and increases internal validity. However, behaviourists only research on animals which means findings have low generalisability ass findings from animals cannot be used to explain behaviour in humans.
