EVALUATION OF THE BEHAVIOURIST APPROACH

Strengths

Behaviourism is a scientific approach, and only accepts objective, empirical evidence. All of the study results are measurable and factual, enabling this approach to be reliable and it's therapies to be desirable (as clients will be clear on the exact success of previous subjects)

This approach has a strong focus on stimulus - response, meaning that behaviour can be observed and then changed through conditioning. There is no desire to look to a persons childhood or innate characteristics, as humans are viewed to be born as a 'blank slate' and can be conditioned to do any number of things. This could be desirable to patients seeking therapy as there are no difficult questions to answer and no digging deep into the dark corners of the mind, there is just a focus on the task at hand using scientific and measurable processes.

Due to the success of the assumptions (classical and operant conditioning & social learning theory), these ideas are being used in many circumstances, eg. schools - there is an emphasis on reward and punishment, and association is often used in revision techniques. The therapies - systematic desensitisation and averstion therapy have been successful in helping to cure people of phobias and addiction.

Weaknesses

Behaviourism places a strong emphasis on nurture rather than nature, for example the 'Tabula Rasa', we are believed to have been born with the potential to be conditioned by the environment in any possible way. Our genetic make-up and other internal factors are ignored by this approach, despite being an important part of how we function and succeed.

This approach stemmed from experiements on animals, not humans, and can be seen as more relevant to animals. The intricate and intelligent thought processes of humans are ignored, and behaviour is reduced to stimulus and response. Behaviourists reject the idea that behaviour is determined by anything other than environment.

It is a determinist approach, as the belief is that we are made entirely who we are by our environment, therefore ignoring the thought processes and decision making that happens before certain behaviours. Operant conditioning implies that a persons behaviour can be dictated by reward and punishment, rather than being taught to think rationally and responsibly.

SYSTEMATIC DESENSITISATION

Systematic desensitisation (Wolpe, 1950's) is a therapy used in behaviourism to treat phobias. 

A phobia is an irrational and exaggerated fear of an object or situation, and is believed to be a learned response to a stimulus. (eg. Little Albert was made to develop a phobia through classical conditioning)

How a phobia can be developed through conditioning (using the example of a certain food making you sick):

Before conditioning

UCS (illness)        →            UCR (sick)

NS (food)             →          No response

During conditioning

UCS (illness)      +      NS (food)     →     UCR (sick)

CS (food)          →           CR (sick)

The aim of systematic desensitisation is to extinguish an undesirable behaviour (fear) by replacing it with a more desirable one (relaxation) - this is reciprocal inhibition, we cannot feel fear and relaxation at the same time.

The subject is first given training in deep muscle relaxation techniques, and then a hierarchy of fear is negotiated between the client and therapist (with most frightening stimulus at one end and least frightening at the other)

An example of a hierarchy of fear (for fear of dogs):

• Think about dogs
• See a picture of a dog
• Be in the same room as a dog
• Sit with a dog while it is held
• Sit next to it while it is loose
• Put a hand on the dog
• Stroke the dog

At each stage of this hierarchy, the subject is made to relax, and will only progress to the next stage once they feel that the fear of the previous stage is gone and they are sufficiently relaxed.

Wolpe claims that 80-90% of patients are cured/significantly improved after 25-30 sessions.

Lang and Lazovik (1963) found that the fear rating of snakes by college students fell between the beginning and the end of an 11-session period. Systematic desensitisation was found to be effect for the majority of the group, and the progress was still evident after 6 months.

Rothbaum et al (2000) found that for a fear of flying, after a virtual reality presentation of the anxiety hierarchy, 93% of people agreed to take a trial flight and their anxiety levels were lower than that of the control group - this improvement was also maintained after 6 months.

EVALUATION OF SYSTEMATIC DESENSITISATION

Strengths:

• It is effective for phobias of animals or objects (as evidence suggests)
• The positive effects on phobias seem to last longer than other therapies
• It is less stressful that flooding or 'being thrown in at the deep end'
• The patient has a lot of control over the treatment, so it is considered an ethical therapy.

Weaknesses:

• It does not work for all phobias (eg. social phobias)
• It can be stressful
• It is not 100% effective and does not work for everyone
• All stages of the therapy may not be entirely necessary - exposure to the feared object may be enough to combat the phobia alone.
• It can be very time consuming and often expensive
• Some phobias are a result of unconscious/underlying issues and cannot be cured by systematic desensitisation. 

An Example of Social Learning Theory - BANDURA'S BOBO DOLL EXPERIMENT

Bandura et al (1961) investigated whether upon exposure to aggression in a role model, children would develop aggressive behaviour themselves.

The participants were 76 children - 36 boys & 36 girls in university daycare. The children were seperated into two mixed-gender groups, and one group watched a video of a woman acting violently towards a bobo doll. The other half were the control group, and were not exposed to the aggressive video.
All of the children were put into a room with many toys including a bobo doll, and levels of aggression in the children was measured by how much they hit the bobo doll.

The children mimicked the actions and sounds from the video - even taking the aggressive behaviour further by using weapons such as a toy hammer and gun. The group of children who watched the video showed more aggressive behaviour than the control group.

Bandura concluded that children who witness aggressive behaviour in adults are more likely to become aggressive themselves.

EVALUATION

This experiment was repeated many times over several years and still produced the same findings, even across other countries (high ecological validity!)

The only contradictory evidence for this theory is Charlton et al (2000), who found that people living on a secluded island (St. Helena) without television experienced no change in levels of aggression after television was introduced.

The children may have experienced demand characteristics as they weren't told not to hit the bobo doll, and after seeing a video of the doll being hit and then being subjected to one themselves they may have assumed that it was what they were expected to do. The video made the aggression towards the bobo doll look appealing, and no punishment was given for the aggressive behaviour by the other person.

ASSUMPTION 3: SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

Social learning is learning through observation, imitation and modelling.

Social learning, according to Bandura (1977) involves four processes:

• Attention
• Retention
• Reproduction
• Motivation

These processes mean that you observe another persons behaviour, remember it, re-enact it and have reasons for doing so. Factors such as being the same gender, similar age, higher status and a having desirable or admirable personality are things that increase the likelihood of a persons behaviour being imitated.

This theory is similar to operant conditioning in that it also involves rewards and punishment, but rather than receiving the reinforcement yourself, the behaviour is learned through observing the response that somebody else's behaviour receives. This is called vicarious learning.

Vicarious reinforcement is reinforcement that is received indirectly by observing another person being rewarded for a behaviour.
Vicarious punishment is witnessing another person being punished for a behaviour, and consequently stopping that behaviour in yourself.

Vicarious extinction is stopping doing a behaviour after seeing another person receive no reward for it themselves.

ASSUMPTION 2: OPERANT CONDITIONING

Operant conditioning is learning through reinforcement.

(picture from simplypsychology.org)

This assumption can be explained in terms of Skinner's Box (above), Skinner, 1938 conducted experiments on small animals - rats, pigeons, etc - and as they moved around their specially designed box, a specific action would result in a food pellet being delivered as a reward (or reinforcer), and he noticed that the animal would repeat the behaviour in order to achieve the reward again. Reinforcers aim to increase the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated, and punishers aim to decrease unwanted behaviour.

Positive reinforcement is when something good is given as a reward for a desired behaviour.
Negative reinforcement is when something unpleasant is taken away as a reward for a desired behaviour.

An Example of Classical Conditioning - LITTLE ALBERT

Little Albert was a baby who was experimented on by John Watson in 1920 (John Watson believed that all children are born as a ‘blank slate’ or ‘tabula rasa’ and all of our behaviour is determined by our environment)

The aim of the experiment was to determine whether responses such as fear could be conditioned (seeing as fear is an emotional response as well as a physical one). Albert was described as normal and healthy, and his reactions to various stimuli were neutral (eg. rats, masks, dogs, beards, etc). The only stimulus they produced that frightened him was a hammer striking a four-foot steel bar just behind his head - making a loud noise.

At 11 months old, Albert was presented with a rat which he reached out to stroke. At this point, Watson hit the steel bar with the hammer just behind Albert, frightening him. This was repeated several times over a period of seven weeks, and eventually the rat on it’s own would frighten Little Albert (as he would associate the rat with the loud scary noise).

As a result of this experiment, Albert’s fear translated to rabbits, dogs, fur in general, cotton wool and hair/beards - but not other things such as building blocks.

Ethics

This was an unethical experiment, as it caused distress to the baby (who couldn’t consent anyway, being a baby and everything) and prolonged psychological issues.  No desensiting took place, so the fears were never removed. Little Albert died young.

ASSUMPTION 1: CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

Classical conditioning is learning through association.

UCS - Unconditioned Stimulus
UCR - Unconditioned Response
NS - Neutral Stimulus
CS - Conditioned Stimulus
CR - Conditioned Response

Evidence

Pavlov, 1904 - observations of salivation in dogs.

He measured the salivation of dogs when presented with food. He then rung a bell each time he presented the food - after this was repeated enough times, just the bell would cause the dogs to salivate as they associated the sound with being fed.