Individual Differences - Behavioural Approach to Abnormality

Question 1

What does the behavioural approach believe?

Answer 1

That abnormal behaviour is learnt in the same way as any other behaviour.

Question 2

In what three ways can behaviour be learnt?

Answer 2

Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning and Social Learning.

Question 3

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 3

Learning through associations. Something in the environment (a stimulus) results in a psychological reaction (a response). The stimulus and the response are associated with each other, so whenever the stimulus is present the same response occurs.

Question 4

What happened to ‘Little Albert’?

Answer 4

• 11 month old was allowed to play with a white rat, which he was not scared of.
• Whenever he reached to touch the rat a metal bar was hit behind him, making a loud noise which scared him.
• Eventually Albert associated the rat with the scary noise and began to show fear of the rat. A phobia had been classically conditioned.

Question 5

What is Operant conditioning?

Answer 5

Learning through reinforcements and consequences. Behaviour which is followed by a pleasant consequence (reinforcement) is likely to be repeated. Behaviour which is followed by a negative consequence (punishment) is unlikely to be repeated.

Question 6

Describe how depression can be explained through operant conditioning?

Answer 6

When depressed, person receives nice attention, when they aren’t depressed they don’t receive as much attention. Attention is reinforcement, so depression likely to be repeated.

Question 7

What is Social Learning?

Answer 7

Behaviour learnt through observation and imitation.

Question 8

Describe Mineka’s study.

Answer 8

• Monkeys raised by parents who had phobia of snakes did not automatically have this fear.
• Monkeys who observed their parents showing fearful reactions of snakes did quire a fear of snakes, showing they had observed and imitated their parent’s fearful response.

Question 9

How is the behavioural approach good?

Answer 9

It focuses on behaviour, means that people themselves are not being labelled as ‘abnormal’, only their behaviour is.

Question 10

What has the behavioural approach been criticised for?

Answer 10

• Emphasis on learnt behaviour – possible to develop phobia of something you’ve never been traumatised by.
• Reductionist – doesn’t take mental processes like emotions and memories into account.
• Not needing to uncover the causes of the problems – if we don’t establish and deal with the underlying cause the disorder could reoccur.