Behaviourism Behaviourism was first formulated around the beginning of the 20 th century (the same time as Freud’s theories). Radical behaviourists believe all behaviour is learned and that we are born as ‘Tabula Rasa’ (a blank slate).
Jan 03, 2016
Behaviourism
Behaviourism was first formulatedaround the beginning of the 20th century(the same time as Freud’s theories).
Radical behaviourists believe allbehaviour is learned and that we areborn as ‘Tabula Rasa’ (a blank slate).
BehaviourismBehaviourism is also known as Black BoxPsychology. Researchers are onlyinterested in responses to stimuli andnot in the thoughts, feelings and
motivationsbehind behaviours.
Behaviourism includes:• Classical Conditioning• Operant Conditioning• Social Learning Theory
Classical Conditioning
New behaviours are learnt throughassociations.
For example if every time you heard thephone ring someone gave you a ‘tenner’,you would learn to associate the phonewith getting money.
Classical Conditioning
The most well known
psychologist whoexamined classicalconditioning was Ivan Pavlov
(1902).
Classical Conditioning
Pavlov taught dogsto associate thesound of a bell withfood. The dogswould salivate whenthey heard a bellringing.
Operant Conditioning
New behaviours are learned throughreinforcement.
For example if you want your dog to siton command, you might reward your dogwhen it obeys; this is known as positivereinforcement.
Operant Conditioning
The most well knownpsychologist whoexamined operantconditioning wasSkinner (1938).Skinner taught rats& cats to escapeelectric shocks bypressing levers.
Social Learning Theory
New behaviours are learnt throughobservation.
For example people may observecharacters on the television as rolemodels and copy their behaviour.
Social Learning Theory
The most well known
psychologist whoexamined sociallearning theory
wasBandura (1961).
Social Learning Theory
Bandura (1961)demonstrated thatchildren who watch arole model behaveaggressively werelikely to imitate thatbehaviour.
The next slide is a video clipof Bandura’s research.