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Unit 11 - Psychological Perspectives TASK 1
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Unit 11 - Psychological Perspectives DISTINCTION VERY IN DEPTH
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Unit 11 Task 1‘Psychological Perspectives’
Behaviourist Perspective
The behaviourist perspective concerns how behaviour is learnt through
reinforcement and punishment. It states that behaviour is adapted through
experiences of the environment such as those who are around us every day - friends
and family members. There are two theorists that have studied this perspective in
detail, these are Skinner and Pavlov. Skinner theorised operant conditioning, Pavlov
in classical conditioning.
Classical conditioning is a learning process in which a conditioned stimulus is taught
and learnt to become associated with another thing, an unconditioned stimulus and
so it produces a result. Pavlov studied this phenomenon through working with dogs.
He conducted the experiment which is referred to as Pavlov's Dogs, he wanted to
explore how their digestive system reacts to stimuli. He did this by measuring the
dog's rate of salivation. When presented with a bowl of food, the dogs would begin to
salivate despite having not yet tasted the food - Pavlov found this interesting as he
believed salivation was the result of food entering the mouth. From this he theorised
that the dogs began to salivate as it had associated the presentation of the food bowl
with being able to eat the food and so he concluded that for the dogs, food came
with an automatic reaction and salivation from the dogs. He called this the
unconditioned response. He used this information to experiment further - he began
ringing a bell at the same time as presenting food to the dogs, this bell ringing was
the conditional stimulus and so after a while the dogs also developed a conditional
response to this. They associated the ringing of the bell with food and so even when
there was no feel present, if the bell was rung, the dogs would begin to salivate.
Pavlov concluded that behaviour is learnt from responding to stimuli.
The behaviourist theory can be used to explain how all human behaviour is learnt
from experience, within the case study, Andy has begun self harming after a road
traffic accident, this theory suggests his conduct of self harming was learnt by
another person - this could potentially have been when he was growing up, he may
have witnessed a family member of friend struggle with self harm and he could
therefore have learnt self harm as an ordinary coping mechanism and a way in which
he can deal with his emotions. This can lead to him self harming when he feels sad
and angry and so he will associate these emotions with self harming.
Operant conditioning is a method of learning that happens through the use of reward
and punishment. It is believed that operant conditioning is based on the idea that
learning is a function of change in overt behaviour. The behavioural changes are the
result of an individual's response to stimuli that occur in the environment. This theory
was developed by Skinner in the 1930’s, he conducted experiments on animals,
,mainly rats. He placed a hungry rat inside a box that had a lever inside which
released food. The rat was relatively inactive when first introduced to the box
however it soon began exploring, it finally discovered the lever that released food
when pressed. The rat then continued to press this lever when hungry and Skinner
deduced that it had learnt that pressing the lever led to a positive result being food.
This demonstrates how positive reinforcement leads to the learning of behaviour.
Skinner then experimented with the idea of negative reinforcement, he placed rats
within the same box with a lever, however this time there was an electric current
flowing through the box,subjecting the rat to an unpleasant feeling , when the lever
was pressed, the electric current would stop. When initially placed in the box the rat
would run around to try to stop the current, at some point they accidentally pressed
the lever and so the current stopped. Very quickly, the rat learnt that pressing the
lever led to the current stopping and their discomfort lessening. This once again,
demonstrates an operant response as the stop of the electric current is the ‘positive’
enforcement and the rats ‘reward’.
Operant conditioning works by changing behaviour based on two consequences,
these are reinforcement and punishment. Punishment is a response that causes
behaviour to occur less frequently and reinforcement is what will cause behaviour to
occur more frequently.
Within the case study, Keira is suffering from an addiction to pain killers after a
surgery. Addiction will occur through positive reinforcement, in keira’s case, her pain
is taken away after taking a painkiller, this is therefore providing a positive effect on
her that she finds rewarding and so is likely to continue taking pain killers.
Withdrawal from the pain killers will produce a negative effect and so the individual
addicted to the drugs will try to avoid the negative feeling and so continue to take the
drugs. The behaviourist theory suggests that Keira is experiencing positive
reinforcement as she is taking away her pain as taking the pain killers has a
beneficial effect.
Classical conditioning has a range of strengths, one of these is that it can explain the
reasons behind some behaviours. It demonstrates how the environment can
determine behaviour through stimulus response mechanisms. These findings are
extremely beneficial in developing behavioural therapies to aid individuals who may
be struggling with various issues. One of these is aversion therapy - an alcoholic
may go through aversion therapy to help their addiction and issues, the therapy will
use association in order to provide a new, unpleasant response to the alcohol. This
causes the change in behaviour. A weakness of classical conditioning as an
explanation for behaviour is that the experiments were mainly conducted on animals
- animals may have different innate drives than humans and so it is difficult to show
that a behaviour was caused by classical conditioning.
,similarly, a weakness of behaviourism is that most experiments have been
conducted on animals - skinner's experiments were conducted on rats, pavlovs were
conducted on dogs - this makes the findings less valid as it can be argued the
humans are more complex than animals and so their findings are not as they would
be and so they are not applicable.
Social Learning Theory
The social learning theory explains how behaviour is learnt from those we are
around/experiences in the environment in which we live. We can learn behaviours
from people and things we observe such as from TV programmes, people we aspire
to be like and from social media influence - we copy these things and imitate their
behaviour. This approach was theorised by Bandura and Asch, they had the shared
belief that individuals learnt behaviour through imitation.
Bandura conducted an experiment on 36 boys and 36 girls all aged 3-6, this
experiment was called the Bobo Doll experiment. It consisted of having children
interact with a bobo doll after watching an adult interact with the doll. One group
observed an adult be aggressive towards the doll, another group observed an adult
being ‘nice’ to the doll. Both groups were then left alone with the doll to see how
they reacted/treated it. Bandura found that the children imitated the behaviour they
observed and so demonstrated aggressive behaviour when they had previously
observed aggressive behaviour. The purpose of this experiment was to show that
when individuals observe a behaviour, they are more likely to imitate what they have
seen rather than act differently. In the case of Andy, who has started to self harm, he
may have observed this behaviour in the past and so is now imitating it. He also may
have observed an individual in a TV show experiencing PTSD, he may have, after
suffering a traumatic event and experiencing PTSD himself, have an idea of how
someone suffering with PTSD acts and acts like this himself. New behaviours can be
learnt from anyone however, the way in which we perceive the person is important
as behaviour is much more likely to be imitated if the individual demonstrating the
behaviour is someone we look up to and admire. This would be imitating a ‘role
model’.
Along with potentially explaining why Andy is suffering from self harming, the social
learning theory may also be able to explain why Keira is suffering with a pain killer
addiction. As the theory states that behaviour is learnt through observing those we
look up to (such as celebrities and peers) There may have been something Keira
observed discussing the positive effects of painkillers. She may have discussed with
a friend who also may be on painkillers, how great they are and how much they help
her, this will reinforce her addiction as there are others around her also
demonstrating the behaviour. The social learning theory may also help Keira recover
, from her addiction, if there is an individual she looks up to who shares their story on
drug abuse/addiction and that they have recovered, she may also take this into
account and gain the motivation to recover.
The social learning theory has many strengths, one of these is that it has validity - as
the experiments were conducted on humans, the results can be easily applied to the
greater population (as opposed to experimenting on animals). This makes the
experiment more realistic as it was conducted in a way that could occur in a real life
setting - a child could experience an adult hurting an animal in a park and imitate the
behaviour. However, a weakness of this theory is that there may be some individuals
who do not conform to the results as they are ‘naturally aggressive’ or naturally
‘more empathetic’ This would contradict the theory as ‘naturally aggressive’ children
behaviour cannot be explained as it was learnt in the absence of a model. Another
weakness is that the experiment had ethical issues, this is because after exposing
children to aggressive behaviour, with the knowledge they might reproduce it and so
could lead to psychological or physical harm. It is ethically wrong to subject children
to an activity that may later cause physical harm. Bandura may have also
underestimated the influence of biological factors on the observing and copying of
behaviour. Despite the results of the study showing that after observing behaviour, it
is copied, boys tended to show more aggression than girls. Therefore the findings
cannot be applied to everyone as there are differences in gender.
Psychodynamic Approach
The psychodynamic perspective is another perspective which can be used to
describe human behaviour. Sigmund Freud theories that what we are aware of, is
stored within our ‘conscious mind’ but many of our memories of our past feelings and
experiences are part of the ‘unconscious mind’. He had the belief that the conscious
mind could only account for a small but if what we experience is a small part
available to awareness.
Freud theorised three levels of the mind, these are the conscious, unconscious and
preconscious mind. The conscious mind contains most thoughts and memories - this
is what would be used when thinking reasonably, it also includes some aspects of
memories - these are not always within conscious memory however can easily be
brought into awareness. The unconscious mind is that of emotions and experiences
that are out of conscious awareness. These are usually unpleasant memories or
feelings one would rather forget. The precocious memory includes anything that
could be retrieved and bought into the conscious mind.
An example of something that could be within the unconscious mind is Andy’s road
traffic accident - it is something he would like to forget as it causes him grief and pain
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