Behaviourist approach
- Only interested in studying behaviour that can be observed and measured, reject
introspection. Believe all behaviours is learned.
Behaviour is caused by nurture as all behaviour is learnt (environment)
Made up of 2 main theories classical conditioning & operant conditioning
Classical conditioning- Pavlov
- Learning by association. Occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired together,
learning to associate one thing with another (response loop)
- We don’t think about these associations, we have just been trained to respond in
this way to stimuli.
METHOD
- Gave a dog food (unconditioned stimulus)
- Causing the dog to salivate (unconditioned response)
- Rang the bell and gave food causing the dog to salivate (repeat)
- Bell (conditioned stimulus) is then ringing causing salivation without food
(conditioned response)
Operant conditioning – Skinner
- Learn as a result on the consequences of our behaviour
- Less passive as the reward or punishment must be meaningful to the person
Positive reinforcement – receiving a reward when a certain behaviour is performed
Negative reinforcement – increases the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated to avoid an
unpleasant consequence
Punishment – an unpleasant consequence of behaviour
METHOD
- Rats or pigeons in skinner boxes
- Every time the rat/pigeon activated a lever or pecked a disk it was rewarded with
food
- All animals were starved
- Did the same with negative reinforcement, performing the same behaviour to avoid
a shock
EVALUATION
- Only interested in studying behaviour that can be observed and measured, reject
introspection. Believe all behaviours is learned.
Behaviour is caused by nurture as all behaviour is learnt (environment)
Made up of 2 main theories classical conditioning & operant conditioning
Classical conditioning- Pavlov
- Learning by association. Occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired together,
learning to associate one thing with another (response loop)
- We don’t think about these associations, we have just been trained to respond in
this way to stimuli.
METHOD
- Gave a dog food (unconditioned stimulus)
- Causing the dog to salivate (unconditioned response)
- Rang the bell and gave food causing the dog to salivate (repeat)
- Bell (conditioned stimulus) is then ringing causing salivation without food
(conditioned response)
Operant conditioning – Skinner
- Learn as a result on the consequences of our behaviour
- Less passive as the reward or punishment must be meaningful to the person
Positive reinforcement – receiving a reward when a certain behaviour is performed
Negative reinforcement – increases the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated to avoid an
unpleasant consequence
Punishment – an unpleasant consequence of behaviour
METHOD
- Rats or pigeons in skinner boxes
- Every time the rat/pigeon activated a lever or pecked a disk it was rewarded with
food
- All animals were starved
- Did the same with negative reinforcement, performing the same behaviour to avoid
a shock
EVALUATION
