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Created by Saul Mcleod with EclipseCrossword © 2000-2006
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If your layperson's idea of psychology has always been of people in laboratories wearing white coats and watching hapless rats try to negotiate mazes in order to get to their dinner, then you are probably thinking of behavioural psychology. Behaviourism is different from most other approaches because they view people (and animals) as controlled by their environment and specifically that we are the result of what we have learned from our environment. Behaviourism is concerned with how environmental factors (called stimuli) affect observable behaviour (called the response). The behaviourist approach proposes two main processes whereby people learn from their environment: namely classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning involves learning by association, and operant conditioning involves learning from the consequences of behaviour.
Behaviourism also believes in scientific methodology (e.g. controlled experiments), and that only observable behaviour should be studies because this can be objectively measured. Behaviourism rejects the idea that people have free will, and believes that the environment determines all behaviour. Behaviourism is the scientific study of observable behaviour working on the basis that behaviour can be reduced to learned S-R (Stimulus-Response) units.
Classical conditioning (CC) was studied by the Russian psychologist Pavlov. Though looking into natural reflexes and neutral stimuli he managed to condition dogs to salivate to the sound of a bell through repeated associated of the sound of the bell and food. The principles of CC have been applied in many therapies. These include systematic desensitisation for phobias (step-by-step exposed to feared stimulus at once) and Aversion therapy for socially undesirable behaviours and bad habits (individual associates a disliked response to the habit through repeated pairing). However CC only deals with involuntary behaviour, operant conditioning tackles voluntary behaviour.
Skinner investigated Operant conditioning of voluntary and involuntray behaviour. Skinner felt that some behaviour could be explained by the person's motive. Therefore behaviour occurs for a reason, and the three main behaviour shaping techniques are positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment. Behaviourism has been criticised in the way it under-estimates the complexity of human behaviour. Many studies used animals which are hard to generalise to humans and it cannot explain for example the speed in which we pick up language. There must be biological factors involved.