Outline and evaluate the behaviourist approach in psychology (16 marks)

The behaviourist approach suggests that all behaviour is based on past experiences and
learned throughout their lives as humans are essentially ‘blank slates’ when they are born.
They also believe that we learn through either association or consequences. Pavlov’s
research, classical conditioning, showed learning through association by conditioning a dog
to salivate when a bell rings. Before conditioning, the unconditioned stimulus was food,
unconditioned response was salivation, and the neutral stimulus was the bell. Every time
Pavlov rang the bell, he would give the dog food. After conditioning, the conditioned
stimulus was the bell which led to the conditioned response of the dog salivating. So, Pavlov
showed how a neutral stimulus can come to produce a new learning response because the
dog now associated the sound of the bell ringing with being fed. In operant conditioning,
where behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequences, Skinner did research with
rats in cages. When the rat activated one lever it was rewarded with food, this is an example
of positive reinforcement which leads to behaviour being repeated. However, when the rat
activated a different lever, it was given a shock and then avoided that lever- this is an
example of negative reinforcement where the unpleasant factor is taken away or avoided.
Another consequence of behaviour is punishment which is unpleasant and prevents
behaviour being repeated.
One strength of the behaviourist approach is that it gave psychology scientific credibility.
This is because it focused especially on the careful measurement of observable behaviour
within controlled lab settings. For example, Skinner’s research was conducted in a controlled
environment and limit the effect of extraneous variables. Therefore, it improved the validity
of his research and is a strength as it gives the subject of psychology a greater credibility and
status.
Another strength of the behaviourist approach is its real-life application and how the
principles of conditioning have been applied to a range of behaviours and problems. For
example, token economy systems reward behaviour with tokens that are exchanged for
privileges. This is an example of operant conditioning and is successfully used in prisons and
psychiatric wards. Treatments like these are suitable for patients who lack ‘insight’ into their
condition and are not capable of talking about their problems.
However, a limitation is that the behaviourist approach portrays a mechanistic view. It
suggests that humans are passive and machine-like responders to the environment with
little conscious insight into their behaviour. Factors such as emotional and cognitive ones
are ignored as well as their possible influence on behaviour. Other approaches, such as
social learning theory and the cognitive approach, have placed much more emphasis on the
mental events that occur during learning. Therefore, it is clear that the processes that
mediate between stimulus and response suggest that humans play a much more active role
in their own learning.
Additionally, a limitation is behaviourism is a form of environmental determinism. This is
because the approach sees all behaviour as determined by past experiences that have been
conditioned and ignores any influence of free will on behaviour. Skinner suggested that free
will was an illusion- when something happens we impose a sense of having made the
decision but our past conditioning determined the outcome. This ignores the influence of
conscious decision-making processes on behaviour.