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Behaviourist approach 16 mark essay (AQA - Psychology)
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Outline and evaluate the behaviourist approach in psychology [16]The behaviourist approach is an explanaton of behaviour in terms of learning. The approach
assumes that all behaviour is learnt from the environment, as a result of stmulussresponse. It
concerns itself with behaviour that is observable and that can be measured scienticalll.
Classical conditoning is learning through the associaton when two stmuli are presented together
repeatedll to gain a response. The most notable research into classical conditoning is avlov’s dogs.
In his studl, he conditoned dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell. He did this bl presentng the dogs
with food (unconditoned stmulusus which made them salivate (unconditoned responseus. avlov
then repeatedll presented the food with the sound of a bell (neutral stmulusus the dogs associated
the food with the bell and would salivate. When the food was removed, the bell (now the
conditoned stmulusus elicited a learned response of salivaton (conditoned responseus.
A strength of the approach is that there is supportng evidence for the applicaton of classical
conditoning to humans. Watson and Ralner (9*20us too 99 month old Albert and conditoned him
to have a phobia of white rats, bl presentng him with a loud bang with the rat in front of him, which
created an associaton of fear with the rat. This fear also generalised to white fuul animals. This
shows that despite heavl use of animal studies, the indings are generalisable to humans as well as
supportng the approaches claim that human and animal learning is the same. This therefore,
increases the external validitl of the results as thel are not limited to animals onll. However, the
ethics of both the animal and human studies are questonable. S inner’s rat box experiment caused
distress and phlsical harm to the rat with the use of electric current. Furthermore, in Watson and
Ralner’s studl, thel too a loung bol who could not consent to the experiment himself and gave
him a phobia of which the fear response was strong and caused him a lot of distress as well as
pslchological harm.
Operant conditoning is learning through consequences the idea of reinforcement and
punishment. ositve reinforcement (reward such as a stc errsweetsus and negatve reinforcement
(relief such as pic ing up a crling bablus both increases the li elihood of a behaviour being
repeated. ositve punishment (punishment e.g. detentonus and negatve punishment (penaltl
e.g. removing an electronic deviceus decrease the li elihood of the behaviour being repeated. S inner
(9*48us conducted two conditons with a rat in a box to demonstrate the euects of reinforcement on
behaviour. In one conditon, pulling a lever resulted in food being given, the rat saw that everl tme
he hit the lever he would be fed, a form of positve reinforcement, which meant that learned to
repeated this behaviour because of the reward he got. In the second conditon, an electric current
was administered, afer noc ing into the level a couple of tmes, the rat saw that the lever shut ou
the electric current and each tme it started, the rat learnt to head straight to the lever to stop it a
form of negatve reinforcement.
A strength of the behaviourist approach is that it has been seen to have realslife applicaton. This is
because the approach has led to the development of behavioural treatments. Operant conditoning
forms the basis of to en economl which has been successful in prisons and pslchiatric wards. For
example, Allolon an Azrin applied to en economl to schizophrenic patents and found a signiicant
improvement in their behaviour as well as them going from an average of 5 to 40 chores a dal this
shows the euectveness of the treatment on insttutonalised patents. Classical conditoning is used
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