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IB Paper One – Questions on Perspectives
You must be able to…
(a) List 5 researchers/theorists important in the perspective
(b) Explain key ideas of the perspective
(c) Explain the perspective’s attitude toward determinism
(d) Explain the application of the perspective to dysfunctional
psychology, therapy, development, education, and personality
development.
(e) Explain ethical issues
(f) Explain criticisms of the perspective
(g) Explain research methods employed
(h) Explain issues of cross-culturalism
…for each perspective!
Learning/Behaviorist
(a) List 5 researchers/theorists important in the perspective
Ivan Pavlov – classical conditioning experiments with dogs.
 Experiments – Conditioned a dog to salivate upon hearing a bell ring.
 Findings – Found that an unconditioned stimulus will naturally elicit a behavior
(unconditioned response). But when a neutral stimulus is paired with the unconditioned
response, the neutral stimulus alone can elicit the response (conditioned response).
B.F. Skinner – operant conditioning experiments to manipulate behavior.
 Experiments – often experimented with pigeons. “Superstition in pigeons” - Put hungry
pigeons in a cage with a machine that dispensed food at automatic intervals. Found that
pigeons tried to manipulate the delivery of food with certain behaviors (head tossing,
circling, etc.). Pigeons would repeat these behaviors when it appeared they caused the
delivery of food in an attempt to deliver more food (when, in actuality, they were not
affecting the delivery at all).
 Findings – Found that pigeons exhibited superstitious behavior, thinking that they could
control things that they couldn’t. Applied this behavior to humans. Nothing is attributed
to free will.
 Contributions – Schedules of reinforcement
o Experiments with Skinner Box- Skinner found that if he did not deliver food
reward after every leverpress that his rat subjects made, the rate of leverpressing
did not decrease and become irregular, as he had expected, but (after a few hours
of experience of the situation) increased and became more regular.
o Schedules
 Simple schedules are those involving a single rule to determine the
delivery of a single type of reinforcer for making a single type of response.
 Continuous reinforcement- reinforcement of every response
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Extinction- the cessation of all reinforcements.
Fixed Ratio- reinforcement after a fixed number of responses have
been made
Variable ratio- reinforcement after a variable number of responses
have made
Fixed interval- reinforcement of the first response after a fixed time
interval has passed since the previous reinforcement
Variable interval- reinforcement of the first response after a
variable time interval has passed since the previous reinforcement.
Albert Bandura – Observational learning, social learning theory, modeling
 Experiments – “Bobo Dolls”: Children watched a video of adults beating up a doll.
Children were observed with the doll both before and after viewing the video. Children
were taken into a room with toys after watching the video and not allowed to touch
anything. They were then taken into a room with the same toys as the ones in the video.
They were then seen exhibiting the same behaviors as the adults after watching the video.
 Findings – Bandura believed that aggression is learned through behavior modeling and
observational learning. Individuals do not actually inherit violent tendencies, but model
them after seeing the behaviors (especially in family members, also in media, especially
television). Reinforcement is also very important. If children believe that they are or will
be “rewarded” for this behavior, they will continue to exhibit it. Males were more likely
to exhibit the behaviors than females.
 Criticism – The Bobo doll experiment is criticized because the children were frustrated at
not being allowed to touch the toys. Therefore the aggression they exhibited may not
have been solely due to the video they observed. Also is unethical to manipulate children
to be aggressive. There are possible long-term consequences for these children.
 Contributions – The social learning theory of Bandura emphasizes the importance of
observing and modeling the behaviors, attitudes, and emotional reactions of others.
Bandura states: "Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if
people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do.
Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from
observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later
occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action."
Martin Seligman – learned helplessness
 Experiments – Experiments with dogs. Control group: Dog was placed in a box and given
a shock paired with hearing a tone. Dog was allowed to escape the shock by jumping into
another compartment of the box. Dog learned to jump as soon as the tone sounded,
thereby escaping the shock. Experimental group: Dog was tied down and shocked with
no chance to escape the shock. Dog passively accepted the shock. When the dog was
placed in the two-compartment box and given the opportunity to jump and escape, dog
still passively accepted the shock.
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Findings – Applied the observations of dogs to humans, especially to women. Stated that
women in an abusive relationship tend to develop learned helplessness and do not try to
escape their situation. Also applied findings to depression.
Criticism – unethical to abuse dogs. Applied animal behaviors to humans. Only related
learned helplessness to women.
John Watson – classical conditioning generalization
 Experiments – “Little Albert”: Small children’s fear of loud noises is innate and elicits an
unconditioned response of crying. Watson paired the loud noise (unconditioned stimulus)
with an object that had previously not elicited a fear response (rat). The child was shown
the rat as the loud noise occurred. After repeated occurrences, the rat (original neutral
stimulus, now conditioned stimulus) with the loud noise (unconditioned stimulus) was
now producing the fearful or emotional response of crying (originally the unconditioned
response to the noise, now the conditioned response to the rat).
Loud sound (US)  Fear (UR) Natural response.
Loud sound (US) + Rat (NS)  Fear (UR) After pairing them.
Rat (CS)  Fear (CR) Learning occurs. Notice how the response never changes.
 Findings – Little Albert also generalized the behavior and elicited the fear response when
presented with any similar object (rat, bunny, furry dog, Santa Claus beard).
 Criticism – extremely unethical to cause emotional distress in children. Little Albert’s
mother was not informed of the experiment. Little Albert experiment was not done over
an extended period of time and long-term effects were not observed. Little Albert was
never systematically desensitized and may have suffered long-term damage.
(b) Explain key ideas of the perspective
a. The only valid data in psychology is behavior because behavior is observable and
can be objectively measured.
b. Subjectivity should be eliminated from psychology and methods like
introspection should be replaced with more objective methods.
c. All species learn the same way, through a series of stimulus-response interactions.
d. All learning can be explained by the process of classical and operant conditioning.
1. Classical Conditioning- a process of behavior modification by which a
subject comes to respond in a desired manner to a previously meutral
stimulus that has been repeatedly presented along with an unconditioned
stimulus that elicits the desired response.
2. Operant Conditioning- a process of behavior modification in which the
likelihood of a specific behabior is increased or decreased through
positive or negative reinforcement each time the behavior is exhibited,
so that the subject comes to associate the pleasure or displeasure of the
reinforcement with the behavior.
e. Behavior is determined by environmental contingencies
f. Critical periods in learning- Piaget (cognitive)
(c) Explain the perspective’s attitude toward determinism
a.
The learning persepective believes in “hard determinism”- that human behavior
is completely controlled by the environment and can be manipulated regardless of
the will of the individual.