Unit 11 – Psychological Perspectives
Psychological perspectives can give an insight into human development and
behaviours, and they each can help to explain the way humans act and the issues they face.
There are several perspectives to consider and each one gives a slightly different point of
view on how certain behaviours and mental illnesses may be approached. Together, they
form the foundations of psychology as we know it today and impact the treatment paths
chosen by professionals.
Behaviourist Perspective
P1 The behaviourist perspective believes that behaviour is shaped by our experiences
and that specific behaviours can be understood by looking at what a person has learned and
experienced throughout their life. We are born as ‘blank slates’ and our development is
determined by experiences. One theory within the behaviourist perspective called classical
conditioning was developed by a Russian psychologist, Pavlov. Classical conditioning says
that humans can have unconditioned responses to unconditioned stimuli, and conditioned
responses to conditioned stimuli. Pavlov used the example of his dog to explain this; food
made the dog salivate, an unconditioned response to an unconditioned stimulus. This was
the dog’s natural response, and it took no conditioning for this to occur. However, if Pavlov
rang a bell before giving the dog food, eventually the dog would begin to salivate at the
mere sound of the bell, as it had been conditioned to associate the bell with the food. This
salivation is a conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus of the bell. This can be
applied to humans to help understand our responses and behaviours. It shows that certain
behaviours or responses are a result of things we have been taught or in some other way
conditioned to do. Another key psychologist from the behaviourist perspective was Skinner,
who developed the theory of operant conditioning. This is when an individual performs a
particular behaviour as a result of positive or negative reinforcement in search of triggering
a good outcome or preventing or stopping a bad one. This means that we can learn to
perform specific behaviours because of past experiences that have taught us that those
behaviours will trigger certain outcomes that we wish to promote or prevent.
P2 In understanding specific behaviours, the behaviourist perspective is useful because
it explains that the things we experience affect the way we behave. The behaviourist
perspective says that because behaviour is learned, it can also be unlearned, which helps
health and social care professionals to change maladaptive and challenging behaviour in
service users through the use of therapy. Behaviour modification can be achieved by
reinforcing desired behaviour and punishing or discouraging unwanted behaviour.
Maladaptive and challenging behaviours include misuse of drugs or alcohol and self-harm.
Ahmed (P2)
To understand Ahmed’s disordered eating behaviours, classical conditioning can be
used. It could be argued that Ahmed’s eating patterns are conditioned responses to
conditioned stimulus. Throughout his life prior to being bullied, Ahmed’s eating may have
been more of an unconditioned response to unconditioned stimulus: the unconditioned
,stimulus being the feeling of hunger and the unconditioned response being deciding to eat a
meal. However, after being bullied, a conditioned stimulus, Ahmed’s conditioned response
was to severely reduce his food intake in order to lose weight. Since Ahmed’s eating
patterns have not always been restrictive in this way, it can be inferred that certain external
factors have influenced him to alter his behaviour.
According to Skinner’s experiment and theory of operant conditioning, Ahmed’s
behaviour may have been reinforced either positively or negatively by other influences in his
life. For example, when Ahmed was obese, negative reinforcement through bullying or
negative comments from family about his appearance would have taught him that his
obesity was a negative trait that should be changed, thus encouraging him to change his
eating behaviours to lose weight. His weight loss might have been positively reinforced
through praise from family or friends who complimented him as they may think that his
visible weight loss is a sign of improved health. Negative reinforcement might have come
from Ahmed’s bullies if he finds that since losing weight to become a more conventionally
‘healthy’-looking size, the bullying reduces or stops. Ahmed might notice this and wish to
continue his disordered eating to ensure he stays the same weight and size and avoids
future negative comments from others, even though he has left school. From the point of
view of operant conditioning developed by Skinner, Ahmed may be eating unhealthily to
prevent the negative outcome of being bullied, just like Skinner’s rats pressed a lever to
avoid being electrocuted. Eventually, even after the bullying stopped and Ahmed left school,
he continues this behaviour out of habit and conditioning.
Debbie (P2)
When understanding Debbie, the behaviourist perspective would consider the
sources in her life from which she may have learnt her obsessive behaviour. One of these
could have been the media which promotes cleanliness and discourages living in an unclean
environment; particularly following the Coronavirus outbreak, when awareness of germs
and maintaining high standards of personal and home hygiene has been of great
importance. When seeing these campaigns, Debbie may have felt fear of becoming ill or
infecting her family and felt encouraged to keep clean. By cleaning compulsively, Debbie
feels she is able to avoid the negative outcome of her or her family becoming ill, thus
compelling her to continue, an example of operant conditioning as described by Skinner.
Another source of reinforcement may have come from Debbie’s upbringing; if she grew up
in a household where cleanliness was praised and untidiness was punished, this would have
reinforced the notion for Debbie that being clean is of importance and something to
maintain in her adult life. If she was punished for being messy, she would experience this as
negative reinforcement and feel discouraged to behave in that way again in order to
prevent the punishment. This response would be enforced further if the punishment was
severe, such as physical abuse. Just like in Skinner’s experiment, Debbie may then find
herself repeating the same cleaning behaviours well into her adult life as a way of avoiding
punishment – even if the threat is no longer present because she is an adult living away
from her parents.
The role and contribution of the behaviourist perspective (M1+D1)
, The behaviourist perspective has influenced all areas of psychology for decades and
can be applied to many real-world everyday situations, as well as having useful applications
to education (Aliakbari et al, 2015). It is useful in explaining the development of phobias and
morals, and the way gender roles form: we are not born inherently scared of irrational
things like small spiders (PsychologyHub, 2021), nor are we born understanding the nuances
of how we should behave according to our gender or sex (Balvin, 2017). These traits are
therefore a result of our environment. Behaviourism provides a strong counterargument for
the nature side of the nurture-nature debate and thoroughly considers the influence of
external factors on our development. It is scientific and supported by research, however not
all of its research meets modern ethical guidelines (Cherry, 2019), and much of the data
collected was from animals, meaning its application to humans is disputable. The
experiments that formed the foundation of this approach were highly controlled, meaning
the theory somewhat lacks validity. Furthermore, it lacks qualitative data meaning subject’s
thoughts and feelings remain unknown. It ignores the mental processes involved in learning
and rules out the influence of inherited or biological factors and could be argued as ignoring
free will, making it a deterministic approach.
In understanding Ahmed and Debbie’s behaviours, the behaviourist perspective is
useful because it gives insight into the way they might have learnt and been conditioned to
respond in certain ways as a result of their environment. Its applications into treatment are
valid and practical, for example the use of exposure response prevention in conditions like
OCD is effective at directly targeting the service user’s response to stimulus and has the
potential to completely change the way they behave for the better (Valentine, 2020). On the
other hand, behaviourism’s deterministic nature and dismissal of other potential influence’s
on individual’s development and behaviours is a major limitation of the approach. OCD and
eating disorders have both been found to be highly influenced by genetics and biology,
meaning this perspective alone simply is not enough to fully understand the complex
behaviours Ahmed and Debbie exhibit. Also, despite the fact this approach dominated the
psychology world for decades, the development and revision of newer approaches have
provided valuable insight that the behaviourist perspective cannot achieve on its own. For
example, social learning theory mirrors some of the basic ideas of behaviourism such as the
notion that we are influenced by our environment, but social learning theory acknowledges
free will and is less deterministic. Therefore, behaviourism alone is not sufficient for
understanding Ahmed and Debbie.
Social Learning Perspective
P1 Social learning perspective concerns more so the behaviour of humans, not animals,
and considers the mental processes that occur between stimulus and response, called
mediational processes. This perspective says that people are active manipulators of their
own environment and places more emphasis on free will than the behaviourist perspective.
The theory believes that human behaviour is a result of observational learning from those
around us, a combination of live role models, those present in our environment; and
symbolic, such as celebrities in the media. When an individual sees a trait or outcome for
, another which they desire for themselves, they observe their behaviour, retain it, and
reproduce it. Role models can be live; present in the environment such as a sibling, or
symbolic; in the media such as a celebrity. Modelling occurs through process of attention,
retention, reproduction, and motivation. This was investigated by Albert Bandura who
conducted the Bobo Doll Experiment which found that children imitated the behaviour they
witnessed in parental figures, particularly if the behaviour was seen to be positively
reinforced through praise or reward. This showed that mediating cognitive factors must
occur between observation and behaviour. Reinforcement can be direct or indirect;
individuals may learn from their own experiences or by observing others, and the
reinforcement might be praise or reprimand from another, or a desirable or undesirable
outcome. The theory also discusses the self-fulfilling prophecy, which is where an individual
is assigned a label by themselves, others or society as a whole, which they then fulfil due to
believing it about themselves. For example, an individual who has been branded lazy by
their parents and teachers will believe it about themselves and therefore behave in that way
since they believe it to be true.
P2 This perspective helps to understand behaviour through the consideration of the
influences that external sources have on individuals. Any individual’s behaviour may be
influenced by other people in their lives and the perceived outcome of the role models’
actions. If an individual observes someone close to them or a role model from the media
exhibiting a particular action and receiving a positive outcome or reward, this encourages
the individual to repeat the behaviour to anticipate a positive outcome for themselves. The
opposite is also true that if an individual perceives another experiencing a negative outcome
after a particular action, they will feel negatively reinforced to avoid replicating that action
themselves. This can influence the development of mental illnesses, particularly those that
are based around behavioural symptoms such as eating disorders or obsessive compulsive
disorder; any behaviour an individual perceives in another that produces the appearance of
a desirable outcome can make the individual want to reproduce it.
Ahmed (P2)
Preceding the development of Ahmed’s eating disorder, he may have been
influenced by another individual, either someone close to him or an individual in the media
or public light that Ahmed considers a role model. In the media, Ahmed is likely to have
grown up seeing pictures of conventionally attractive body types and heard them praised for
being desirable, which could make him feel that he should look like that and would be more
liked by others if he looked that way. He may have seen pictures of famous people or
models whose bodies looked a certain way and read or heard about their eating habits.
Many celebrities publicise their extreme dieting techniques while simultaneously receiving
praise for their physiques from the media and the general public (Andrews, 2022). For an
individual like Ahmed who has already experienced issues with his weight and received
negative reinforcement from his peers at school who taunted him for being obese, seeing
these images and stories online could make him feel that he should repeat those individuals’
behaviour to achieve the same positive outcome they have: an ‘attractive’ body and praise
from others. This is positive reinforcement, as Ahmed would believe that disordered eating
