The Behaviourist Approach

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The Behaviourist Approach

In Psychology learning is seen as a change in behaviour caused by an experience. Behaviourism is seen as a learning theory; an attempt to explain how people or animals learn by studying their behaviour. The Behaviourist Approach has two theories to help explain how we learn; Classical conditioning and operant conditioning. I will attempt to describe and evaluate this approach. 

Ivan Pavlov was a Russian Physiologist. At the end of the 19th century Pavlov was conducting research into the physiology of digestion in dogs. During an experiment he discovered something very interesting about the dogs’ behaviour and started studying it. He came up with the theory of classical conditioning, which lead on to more research into behaviour.

During Pavlov’s experiment dogs were hooked up to a machine that collected and measured saliva. He noticed that the dogs started salivating not only when offered food, but also in response to events immediately preceding the feeding. He referred to the salivation that occurred when the dogs where presented with food as an unconditioned response UCR; an inborn reflex or instinct that did not require learning, caused by the presence of the food which he referred to as an unconditioned Stimulus UCS; as food is necessary for survival it is instinctual to crave it.

Through his experiments he discovered that if a particular neutral stimulus NS; with no inborn reflex response, such as a bell ringing, was combined with an UCS such as food then the dogs would learn to associate that NS with the UCS, and thus the NS would trigger salivation on its own. The NS had now become a conditioned stimulus CS, and the UCS a conditioned reflex CR; stimulus and reflex learned through association.  

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John B. Watson is often referred to as the father of behaviourism. Watson believed that Psychology had failed to become a natural science, due to the focus on consciousness which he thought of as very unscientific and subjective. He believed that theories should be supported by careful scientific study of observable behaviour through laboratory studies.

Inspired by the work of Ivan Pavlov, Watson conducted his own experiment, with the help of his assistant Rosalie Rayner, to show classical conditioning in humans. It is often referred to as the little Albert experiment.

Watson and Rayner wanted to show that the ...

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