Outline the Behaviorist and Biological Model of Mental Illness Essay Example
There are many different ways that someone can develop a mental illness behaviourist and biological are just two of them. The behaviourist model suggests that abnormal behaviours are learnt in the same way that any other behaviour is learnt-though classical and operant conditioning. Operant conditioning suggests that people learn from consequences of actions through positive and negative reinforcement –meaning learning through a consequence of an action either a consequence that is positive (have a good outcome) or negative (the removal of something bad). There are many different examples that support the view of operant conditioning these include. * Anorexia-this shows positive reinforcement as the desire to lose weight is fulfilled by not eating. * Bulimics-they fell guilty for eating food this results in them getting rid of the guilt by making themselves be sick. * Maintaining phobias- phobias are maintain by people avoiding contact with these phobias this prevents people from overcoming their fears.
Classical condition (also behaviourist) this is used to help explain how some phobias are created. Fears are said to be learnt through association of a natural fear response to a particular stimulus Watson and Rayners (1920) experiment with 11 month old little Albert produces a fear response through the association of a loud noise with a white rat little Albert showed no fear of the rat until association of the natural fear response of a loud noise was conditioned little Albert also developed fear for many other fluffy objects including a woolly coat.
The biological model of abnormalities is very different that conditioning by saying that mental abnormalities are very similar to illnesses such as the flu there are many different ways that illnesses can be developed biologically: * Genetics-Faulty recessive genes have been known to cause psychological effects in mental state and example of this is Huntington’s disease (certain nerve cells in the