Behaviourism
Assumptions:
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Early behaviourists, such as John B. Watson (1913) rejected introspection as it
contained to any vague and untestable. It is not interested in studying mental
processes of the mind (= black box).
This approach is only interested in studying behaviour that can be observed and
measured.
Behaviourists tried to maintain more control in their studies so relied more on lab
experiments to conduct their research.
They believed that all species learn in a similar way, so in behaviourist research
animals were often substituted for humans.
Two important forms of learning were identified by behaviourists: Classical and Operant
conditioning.
Classical- John B. Watson
Operant- B.F. Skinner
Classical conditioning:
Classical conditioning = learning by association
Watson was an American psychologist who founded
behaviourism and applied the principles of classical
conditioning to humans.
With his infamous experiment on ‘Little Albert’, he
showed that phobias could be learnt through classical
conditioning.
Before conditioning:
unconditioned stimulus (UCS)  unconditioned response (UCR)
neutral stimulus (NS)
 no response
During conditioning:
NS + UCS  UCR
After conditioning:
conditioned stimulus (CS)  conditioned response (CR)
Operant conditioning
Positive reinforcement: This is receiving a reward when a certain behaviour is performed;
for example, praise from a teacher for answering a question correctly in class.
Negative reinforcement: Occurs when an animal or human avoids something unpleasant.
When a student hands in an essay so as not to be told off, the avoidance of something
unpleasant is the negative reinforcement. Similarly a rat pressing a lever to stop being
electrocuted.
Punishment: This is an unpleasant consequence of behaviour, for example being shouted at
by the teacher for talking during the lesson (finding a way to avoid that would be negative
reinforcement).