Chloe Buckley
Unit 8- Assignment 2
P2- explain different psychological approaches to health practice
P3- explain different psychological approaches to social care practice
Behaviourist approach
John B. Watson devised methodological behaviourism, which rejected introspective
methods and sought to understand behaviour by only measuring observable behaviours and
events. B. F. Skinner suggested that private events—including thoughts and feelings, should
be subjected to the same controlling variables as observable behaviour which became the
basis for his philosophy called radical behaviourism. While Watson and Ivan Pavlov
investigated the stimulus-response procedures of classical conditioning, Skinner assessed
the controlling nature of consequences and also the antecedents (or discriminative stimuli)
that signal the behaviours; the technique became known as operant conditioning.
While operant and classical conditioning both involve behaviours controlled by
environmental stimuli, they differ in nature. In operant conditioning, stimuli present when
behaviour is rewarded or punished come to control that behaviour. For example, a child
may learn to open a box to get the candy inside, or learn to avoid touching a hot stove; the
box and the stove are discriminative stimuli. However, in classical conditioning, stimuli that
signal significant events produce reflexive behaviour. For example, the sight of a colourful
wrapper comes to signal "candy", causing a child to salivate, or the sound of a door slam
comes to signal an angry parent, causing a child to tremble.
Social learning theory
In social learning theory Albert Bandura (1977) states behaviour is learned from the
environment through the process of observational learning. Children observe the people
around them behaving in various ways. Individuals that are observed are called models. In
society, children are surrounded by many influential models, such as parents within the
family, characters on children’s TV, friends within their peer group and teachers at school.
Children pay attention to some of these people (models) and encode their behaviour. At a
later time they may imitate the behaviour they have observed.
I think using celebrities to help with national campaigns to tackle health/social care issues is
very effective because celebrities have such a huge platform and different target audiences
that it shows people that everyone can have issues and its okay to get help. Stephen fry was
diagnosed with bipolar disorder and he’s campaigning to help other people as he never truly
understood what his diagnosis actually was. A lot of people look up to celebrities and they
can often be trend setters so to start raising awareness about a health/ social care issue
would encourage people massively to do the same.
Unit 8- Assignment 2
P2- explain different psychological approaches to health practice
P3- explain different psychological approaches to social care practice
Behaviourist approach
John B. Watson devised methodological behaviourism, which rejected introspective
methods and sought to understand behaviour by only measuring observable behaviours and
events. B. F. Skinner suggested that private events—including thoughts and feelings, should
be subjected to the same controlling variables as observable behaviour which became the
basis for his philosophy called radical behaviourism. While Watson and Ivan Pavlov
investigated the stimulus-response procedures of classical conditioning, Skinner assessed
the controlling nature of consequences and also the antecedents (or discriminative stimuli)
that signal the behaviours; the technique became known as operant conditioning.
While operant and classical conditioning both involve behaviours controlled by
environmental stimuli, they differ in nature. In operant conditioning, stimuli present when
behaviour is rewarded or punished come to control that behaviour. For example, a child
may learn to open a box to get the candy inside, or learn to avoid touching a hot stove; the
box and the stove are discriminative stimuli. However, in classical conditioning, stimuli that
signal significant events produce reflexive behaviour. For example, the sight of a colourful
wrapper comes to signal "candy", causing a child to salivate, or the sound of a door slam
comes to signal an angry parent, causing a child to tremble.
Social learning theory
In social learning theory Albert Bandura (1977) states behaviour is learned from the
environment through the process of observational learning. Children observe the people
around them behaving in various ways. Individuals that are observed are called models. In
society, children are surrounded by many influential models, such as parents within the
family, characters on children’s TV, friends within their peer group and teachers at school.
Children pay attention to some of these people (models) and encode their behaviour. At a
later time they may imitate the behaviour they have observed.
I think using celebrities to help with national campaigns to tackle health/social care issues is
very effective because celebrities have such a huge platform and different target audiences
that it shows people that everyone can have issues and its okay to get help. Stephen fry was
diagnosed with bipolar disorder and he’s campaigning to help other people as he never truly
understood what his diagnosis actually was. A lot of people look up to celebrities and they
can often be trend setters so to start raising awareness about a health/ social care issue
would encourage people massively to do the same.
