The behaviourist approach

Question 1

mWhat do behaviourists believe?

Answer 1

we are born neutral - no inherited personality - the environment shapes who we are

Question 1

What is assumption 1?

Answer 1

we are born as a blank slate “tabula rasa” - the environment then shapes us
babies are born neutral - only with the most basic responses(crying) they will then be moulded by the environment - innate - environmental determinism - behaviour determined by the environment we had grown up in

Question 2

What is assumption 2?

Answer 2

behaviour is learnt through conditioning
2 types: classical and operant

classical conditioning - learn through association - pavlov - salivation of dogs - before conditioning - food unconditioned stimulus - salivation in the unconditioned response - during the conditioning neural stimulus (the bell) being presented alongside the unconditioned stimulus - repeated several times - this is called association - bell is now the conditioned stimulus and the salivation is the conditio ned response

Operant conditioning - learning through reinforcement - reinforcement is where something will increase the behaviour from happening again - positive or negative and shapes behaviour

Positive reinforcement - if behaviour is rewarded animal is likely to do this again
negative reinforcement - strengthens the behaviour because it involves escaping something that is unpleasant, eg: getting a detention when not completed the homework
Punishment - weakens the behaviour and decreases the likelehood the behaviour will happen again - the skinners box - the rat was reinforced when it pressed the lever - shock the rat when the lever was pressed

Question 3

What is assumption 3?

Answer 3

humans and animals learn in similar ways - learning is the same for humans and animals - we can study animals in a lab and generalise to human behaviour - pavlov theory has been applied to phobias - systematic desentilisation - client will associate the phobic object - operant conditioning - token economy system - behaviour is reinforced with tokens can be used to get rewards

Question 4

What is the methodology of Watson and Rayner?

Answer 4

One participant - normal male infant - he is aged 9 months - “little Albert”
Not a case study as focusing on Little Albert’s response to the conditioning - case study has more in depth analysis of the individual and there life
No experiment - one condition
Investigating to determine the effects of certain stimuli
It had been conducted within controlled conditions - in a well lit dark room - placed on a matress on the top of the table - this was a controlled observation

Question 5

What was the procedures of Watson and Rayner?

Answer 5

Emotional tests: Albert had been tested with various stimuli to gauge his emotional reaction

session 1: establishing a conditioned emotional response : his emotional responses were tested again - albert was presented with a rat - when reached for it a steel bar was hit with a hammer - this had then been done twice

findings: he was showing fear and was crying each time

session 2: Testing the conditioned emotional response
Week later - his reaction to the rat was then being tested again - rat and loud noise was being paired 5 more times

Findings: Albert was a little afraid of rat - showed no fear to wooden blocks - when rat was then paired with the noise he was showing fear - 5 pairings he was showing a great deal of fear towards the rat even without the noise

session 3: generalisation
- five days later he was then being brought back into the lab

Question 6

What were then the findings of this experiment?

Question 7

What were then the conclusions of this research?

Answer 7

• demonstrates the ease a fear response is able to be created
• two “joint stimulations” were able to create a conditoned fear response - 7 used to bring the full reaction
• conditioned responses generalise to other stimuli - fearful response to loads of furry objects
• said that “it was probable” that many phobias are acquired this way - suspected that the persistance of the earlier conditioned responses would only be found in people who were “constitutionally inferior” (someone who is unable to adapt to social norms and behaviours)
• he suggested that Albert’s fear would continue unless he would then be unconditioned - like a constant exposure then to his fear

Freudian position - Freudian’s ideas were considered as being popular - he says that sex is the principle force that shapes personality - shows fear being important separate from sex

• his thumb sucking - freudian would say this is a pleaure seeking activity whilst watson would have said it was then used to block out the fear
• watson had said that if adult Albert was to seek counselling for the phobia - psychoanalyst may say that his phobia is due to a sexual event that is involving his mother - simple explanation is classical conditioning

Question 8

What was the aims of the Watson and Rayner research?

Answer 8

babies are simple beings - eating, crying and sleeping - rage, fear, love
The home life of a baby is a “lab” where emotional reactions are then learned
They used the neural stimulus of the rat - if fear was developed they could state it was because of the conditioning - supporting the assumption that behaviour is then learned from the environment

Question 9

What were the 4 key questions that Watson and Rayner asked when trying to conduct there research?

Answer 9

can fear of a previously neutral stimulus be conditioned by presenting it simultaneously with an established negative stimulus?
Could the conditioned stimulus be transferred with other animals or objects?
Does this conditioned response then change over time?
if after a reasonable period the emotional responses have not died out, how might they be removed?

Question 10

The evaluation of the methodology and the procedures?

Answer 10

• the study of Little Albert had been run under controlled conditions - conducted in a lab of sorts(dark room) the extraneous variables are able to be controlled - there was a baseline condition to show that his pre manipulation was established to show he was then not a fearful child - There was a control condition(building blocks) showing that little albert was only scared of furry objects - films were recording albert’s behaviour so findings are then being confirmed by others - the control’s then allow us to conclude the the observed effects were due to the conditioning and not other sources
• Although, a problem with the study being in a lab of sorts could then mean that the study may then be lacking ecological validity as it is being conducted within an artificial setting(dark room), this may mean that the results that are further being produced may then lack validity
• Researcher had an intention to then try and study more than one participant - they had been dismissed from the University which then meant they were not then able to achieve this - so the conclusions must be then made from this one case - Watson and Rayner had described him as being a calm and even tempered baby - they suggest that he had been emotionally unstable - might have responded with greater fear and conditioned response might have persisted for longer - there were no comparisons that were made - difficult to know whether the observed responses were then unique or not

Question 11

What were the ethical and social implications of the Watson and Rayner’s research?

Answer 11

• Unsure whether they created excessive fear in Albert - early article “we had done him relatively little harm” - later tests - “in order to not disturb the child no tests were given for 1 week” - - they were aware what they were doing was then distressing albert
• However, psychologist’s may then determine what is and is not ethically acceptable - consider whether the researcher is experiencing greater stress than they would in everyday life - they were comforting themselves and said “attachments would arise anyway as the child left the sheltered home of nursery and the rough and tumble at home” - felt what albert was experiencing was normal - life in the hospital was further protecting him
• There is a risk of harm that is caused by creating fear in a young child - Watson and Rayner had further been making the fear worse - One of Alberts responses when he was frightened was he sucked his thumb - this calmed him down - reduced the effect of the loud noises when conditioning Albert - to observe the full effects of the fearful stimuli - removed thumb from the mouth so conditioned response is obtained - they wanted to make sure he was really scared

-They did intend to remove his learned conditioned responses - he was removed from the hospital so it was then not done - they believed the responses they created would persist within the home environment - unless there was an accidental method of removing them - they knew he would then continue being afraid of furry objects

• They should have anticipated this issue in the start of the study and ensure there are procedures that are then being put in place to stop the situation from happening - child’s mother should have been informed of the procedures and the long term consequences - should have ensured that he should have been “unconditioned”

Question 12

What is a phobia?

Answer 12

an exaggerated fear of an object or situation

Question 13

What happens if the fear is irrational?

Answer 13

the fear of the thing opposes a greater risk than the risked posed by the thing itself

Question 14

What do behaviourists believe about phobias?

Answer 14

That they are learned like other behaviours

Question 15

What is reciprocal inhibition?

Answer 15

• It is almost impossible too feel two opposing emotions at the same time
• We cannot feel fear and relaxation at the same time, the two emotions are not compatible
• If we replace fear with relaxation - we will not be able to feel fear

Question 16

What are the aims of SD?

Answer 16

• it aims to teach the patient to learn more appropriate association - for example being taught relaxation alongside the feared object - this is called counterconditioning

Question 17

What are the steps of SD?

Answer 17

• they are first learning relaxation techniques- aims eventually to acquire a new stimulus response link - responding to feared stimulus then with relaxation - this is called counterconditioning - new association countering the original association

Question 18

What is the Desensitisation hierarchy?

Answer 18

series of gradual steps that are determined at the beginning of the therapy when the client and the therapist work out a hierarchy of feared stimuli from least to most fearful

step 1: taught how to relax there muscles
step 2: they work together to construct the hierarchy - a series of imagined scenes - each one causing more anxiety than the previous
step 3: patient gradually works through the hierachy - visualising the anxiety evoking event while engaging in the competing relaxation response
step 4: when mastered one step they are ready to move to the next
step 5: they master the situation they fear that had caused them to seek help

Question 19

What happens in the early days of the therapy?

Answer 19

they are presented directly with the feared stimulus - In vivo
In vitro - the participant is asked to imagine the feared object

Question 20

Evaluation of SD - the effectiveness?

Answer 20

• There is lot’s of research support - SD has been proven to then be more successful when the problem is learned - specific phobias - Capafons et al(1998) found clients who had a fear of flying showed less Physiological signs of fear and lower levels whilst in flight simulator following a 12-25 week treatment period - this was when both In vivo and In Vitro treatment was then being used
• There is research that suggests SD is not effective for more generalised fears like the fear of spiders - may not be sutiable for “ancient fears” - Martin Seligman arguing that animals including human’s - genetically programmed to learn association between life threatening stimuli - stimuli are “ancient fears” - these would have then been dangerous in the evolutionary past - - adaptive to learn to avoid the stimuli - the biologically preparedness - explaining why people may not develop fears of modern objects like toasters that are more of a threat than spiders - they were not a danger in the past
• There is lot’s of research studies for biological preparedness - For example: Bregman failed to condition a feared response with infants aged 8 to 16 months by pairing a loud bell with wooden blocks - fear responses may only be learned with living animals - linking to ancient fears
• Behavioural therapies may not work with certain phobias - symptoms only tip of the ice burg - if removing the symptoms the cause still remains but the symptoms will simply resurface but in another form (symptom substitution) - for example: the psychodynamic approach phobia develop because of projection - Freud recording the case of Little Hans - he had a phobia of horses - he had a problem with the intense envy of father - could not express this directly so the anxiety was projected to the horse - cured when h accepted the feelings of his father - if the therapist was treating the phobia as the underlying cause it would have resurfaced elsewhere - may resolve the problem it is eliminating or supressing symptoms can then result in other symtpoms appering

Question 21

What are the ethical issues of SD?

Answer 21

• more ethical than other behavioural therapies - like flooding - rapidly exposing the phobia to client - SD each step is slow - this pace is dictated by the client - Therapist is able to gauge whether whether the client is fully relaxed at each stage of the therapy - they then will only attempt to move up if client is comfortable - anxiety no issue
• SD is used with phobias - not with problems like depression and Schizophrenia - the clients are in touch with reality and healthy enough to understand what the therapy will entail - able to provide valid consent -attend the sessions as there free will - choose to withdraw - some think there is still stress involved as client is exposed one way or another to object as they have spent ages feeling anxious and avoiding mild levels of anxiety is impossible

Question 23

What is a strength to the behaviourist approach?

Answer 23

It is a scientific approach - the behaviour that is being studied is observable and directly measurable - intangable concepts like feelings and thoughts were operalationised through stimulus and response behaviours - behavourists believe that through the use of scientific method we can analyse,quantify and compare behaviour

A strength would also be that due to the approach being scientific it enables us to distinguish between beliefs and real facts, for example if you said that drinking a potion would get rid of trolls we would not know without conducting experiments - when treating mental disorders people like the evidence showing successfull treatment rather than just being asked to believe they work - this means the approach is then is desirable

Question 24

What is another strength to the behaviourist approach?

Answer 24

not concerned with the a person's past events - other appraoches seek to explain a person's behaviour in terms of what happened in childhood or innate things - does not look at complicated causes but just current and then tries to then treat them - e.g: SD treats phobias like being scared of social situations, teaches a new stimulus response link between feared situation and relaxation - does not want to understand why phobia has happened just want to remove the symptoms they are experiencing

Question 25

What could then be argued as being a weakness to the behaviourist approach?

Answer 25

Some people may find that the therapy may then not further work for them or may not then be working for all disorders - this then suggests that the here and now is not always the most sufficient

Question 26

What is another strength to the behaviourist approach?