Describe and discuss the behaviourist approach in psychology The behaviourists are a school of psychology that believe that behaviour is learned. The behaviourists don’t believe that people have the innate desire to act in a certain way. They think we are born as a blank sheet that is then developed by life experiences. As we develop interactions and life lessons mould us into the person who we become. Behaviourists do not believe that behaviour has any contribution from biology. They dismiss
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One strength of the Behaviourist Approach is that it is a scientific approach in that it has clear and measurable variables (stimulus‚ response and reinforcer) which allows scientific experiments to be conducted. For example‚ Skinner’s conducted an experiment to present operant conditioning where the independent variable was the reinforcer (food pellet) and the electric shock (punishment) and the dependent variable was the frequency of lever pressing. This is a strength as scientific experiments
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the behaviour is rewarded‚ via indirect‚ vicarious reinforcement. We can also learn new behaviours via being reinforced or punished directly. Therefore‚ learning is a combination of indirect and direct reinforcement‚ both key aspects of the behaviourist approach. Bandura then modified his original theory‚ to add in the importance of cognitive factors‚ and used this to explain gender development. He argued that gender
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can observe various physical actions of an individual in order to determine ones inner feelings. For example‚ if someone is smiling‚ skipping‚ and has their head up‚ one can assume that this person is cheerful or happy. Some psychology behaviourists believe the states of consciousness cannot be observed‚ so phychology should not be concerned with them. The behaviours of other individuals can be determined through some of the sense such as; sight and sound. Our eyes examine body language
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Evaluate two strengths and two weaknesses of the Behaviourist approach One strength of the behaviourist approach (BA) is it can be applied to everyday life and it has its advantages to society‚ for example Aversion Therapy helps stop people from doing unwanted behaviours such as excessive drinking. An experiment was conducted by Duker and Seys which proves this form of therapy works‚ with 7/12 children cured from self-injuring – stopping it altogether – and 3/12 reduced the amount of times they
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With reference to chosen theory of learning (behaviourist‚ social learning) discuss its application to patient education in context of general nursing. It may be said; why is psychology significant in nursing care and why do we use learning theories to assist in patient care? Well according to Walker et al (2007)‚ in the caring profession nurses‚ spend most‚ if not all of their working lives interacting with other people. A key part of a nurse’s job is to promote healthful behaviour. When a patient
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Compare and Contrast the Behaviourist Perspective with one other major approach in Psychology Psychology is a human science‚ which aims to describe and understand behaviour‚ emotion and mental processes of the mind. Modern Psychology began in the laboratories of Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzug Germany in 1879. (Lucy T Benjamin JR 2007). As the study of psychology grew‚ disagreements within the science arose leading to scholar’s creating different theories to outline their understanding
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In this essay I am going to explore two of the major approaches to Psychology‚ Cognitive theories and Behaviourist theories. I will discuss in some detail the two approaches‚ state how they compare and illustrate the similarities and the differences between them. John Watson‚ one of the founders of Behaviourism‚ based his theories on the principles of learning outlined by Pavlov who suggested the theory known as Classical Conditioning; he trained dogs to salivate whenever he rang a bell
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Behaviourist Theory (10 marks) First of all‚ behaviourists are psychologists that believe that behaviours are learnt instead of them being natural. Behaviourist theory believes that people learn to be phobic rather than are born phobic. Reason being‚ many people link their fear of an object or situation to something bad they have experienced. For instance‚ if someone is scared of needles‚ it may have been because they had a bad experience with it as a child‚ thus causing a phobia. This I known
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There are 3 elements in the behaviourist perspective‚ which are classical conditioning‚ operant conditioning and the social learning theory. The main assumptions made by the behaviourists are • That scientific methods should be used to study only behaviour that is observable • The environment (i.e. the people or events in it) causes our behaviour • The two ways in which we learn from the environment are through classical and operant conditioning. The classical conditioning theory was developed
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