Download Behaviourism - Shrewsbury Moodle

Behaviourism/classical conditioning
(Lesson questions/hand-out)
These are some of the questions we will be looking at during the lesson.
When asked you should work in small groups and attempt these on a
separate piece of paper.
This is important. These are the
main assumptions that the
assignment asks you to outline
initially
1. The main assumptions of behaviourism are that:
-
All behaviour is observable and it is impossible to understand the
mind
-
The majority of all behaviour is learned from the environment after
birth. Therefore, psychology should investigate how people learnt
their behaviour (e.g. afraid of spiders)
-
We are all born a blank slate (tabula rasa)
-
Look at the assumptions of behaviourism. Identify two different
types of behaviour and comment on how you think behaviourists
might explain that behaviour.
2. Do you think all behaviour can be explained in this way? Give an
example to support your answer.
Your answers to 3
and 4 are the sorts of
comments that are
‘evaluative’
3. Ivan Pavlov used dogs in his groundbreaking experiments concerning
association learning. Give one critical comment about this.
4. Pavlov also based his findings on lab experiments. Give two critical
comments concerning this.
5.
Think of your own example of classical conditioning using appropriate
terminology. Also use the three stages, before, during and after
conditioning. Where do you think this type of learning is important?
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Page 1
Classical
conditioning
Classical conditioning (Pavlov) argues that we learn through a
process of association of a stimulus (what causes the behaviour
– e.g. the lead) with a response (e.g. wag tail and think of
walkies). This can be thought of as occurring through a series
of 3 stages. In Pavlov’s experiment this can be thought of in
the following way.
A real life application of classical conditioning
Imagine a six year old child, Sam, who is shy and does not enjoy
being with lots of different people. Sam’s parents decide to
take him to karate/martial arts classes to meet other people,
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in an attempt to help him overcome his shyness. Before each
session, Sam feels anxious and does not look forward to it.
After a few weeks his parents buy him the suit to wear to the
weekly sessions. Sam puts it on just before setting off for the
class. Soon, just the sight of the outfit hanging in his wardrobe
is enough to make him feel anxious as he has learnt to
associate it with the anxiety of attending the classes.
Now, have a go at filling in the blanks in the table below.
UCS
UCR
Karate class
Anxiety
UCS
--------------
+
CS
----------------
UCR
Anxiety
CS
CR
--------------
---------
Now have a look at the Little Albert study by Watson & Raynor
(1920) and have a go at the questions that follow on the next
page.
M. Morgan
Page 3
Classical conditioning experiment: Little Albert (Watson & Raynor,
1920).
John Watson was interested in
taking Pavlov's research
further to show that emotional
reactions could be classically
conditioned in people.
The participant in the experiment was a child that Watson and Raynor
called "Albert B.", but is known popularly today as Little Albert. Around
the age of nine months, Watson and Raynor exposed the child to a series
of stimuli including a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey, masks, and burning
newspapers and observed the boy's reactions. The boy initially showed no
fear of any of the objects he was shown.
The next time Albert was exposed the rat; Watson made a loud noise by
hitting a metal pipe with a hammer. Naturally, the child began to cry
after hearing the loud noise. After repeatedly pairing the white rat with
the loud noise, Albert began to cry simply after seeing the rat.
Watson and Raynor wrote: "The instant the rat was shown, the baby
began to cry. Almost instantly he turned sharply to the left, fell over on
[his] left side, raised himself on all fours and began to crawl away so
rapidly that he was caught with difficulty before reaching the edge of
the table."
Your task now is to find out what is the unconditioned stimulus (UCS),
the unconditioned response (UCR), the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the
conditioned response (CR)? You should write your answer in the space
provided on page 4).
M. Morgan
Page 4
Key terms: Association learning, stimulus, response, unconditioned,
conditioned, anticipatory anxiety, associated stimuli, and generalisation.
Anticipatory anxiety – this is where a person experiences increased
levels of anxiety by thinking about an event or situation in the future (e.g.
thinking about a presentation you have to deliver)
Associated stimuli – these are all the stimuli that you associate with
something (e.g. things that relate to something that causes you anxiety –
a letter for an interview)
Generalisation - transfer of a response learned to one stimulus to a
similar stimulus
Extension task: If you finish the task early then consider what you think
some of the issues are with Watson & Raynor’s experiment, and also
consider what some of the good points are (.e.g. is it useful for explaining
behaviour?).
M. Morgan
Page 5
Systematic desensitisation is one example of how
behaviourism and specifically classical conditioning
has been applied – this is useful for the assignment
(and you could use your example that you devised in
the lesson in your assignment)
SYSTEMATIC DESENSITISATION
-
First developed by Wolpe (1950’s)
-
Basic idea: Individuals might learn that their feared stimulus was
not so fearful if they could only re-experience it – but the anxiety
it creates blocks such recovery
-
This is overcome by gradually introducing the feared stimulus,
based on the principle of counterconditioining
-
Therapy involves: (a) teaching the patient how to relax their
muscles. (B) Creating an anxiety hierarchy, a series of scenes or
events that are rated from lowest to highest in terms of the
amount of anxiety they elicit. (C) Then move through the hierarchy
with the patient
The case of Little Peter (Jones, 1924)
Peter was a 2 year old living in a charitable institution. Jones was mainly
interested in those children who cried and trembled when shown animals
(such as frogs, rats and rabbits). Peter showed an extreme fear of rats,
rabbits, feathers, cotton wool, fur coats, frogs and fish; although in
other respects he was regarded as well adjusted. It wasn’t known how
these phobias had arisen.
Jones, supervised by Watson, put a rabbit in a wire cage in front of Peter
while he ate his lunch. After 40 such sessions, Peter ate his lunch with
one hand and stroked the rabbit (now on his lap) with the other hand. In a
series of 17 steps, the rabbit (still in the cage) had been brought a little
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closer each day, and then let free in the room, eventually sitting on
Peter’s lunch tray.
Example of a hierarchy generated by a person with arachnophobia (1 =
no anxiety, 100 = extreme anxiety)
Ratings
Items
10
Hearing the word spider
20
Writing the word spider and drawing a spider
30
Seeing a picture of a spider
40
Seeing a spider in a clear tank
50
Briefly touching a spider
60
Having the spider placed on your arm
70
Holding the spider in the palm of your hand
briefly
80
Letting the spider move from hand-to-hand
90
Allowing the spider to crawl over you
100
Holding and stroking a tarantula
Task: Referring to the phobias hand-out, select one type of phobia and
produce an 8 – 10 point hierarchy aimed at treating an individual with a
phobia. You can use any values (e.g. 1 – 10 is perfectly ok to use). The
key point is that it is hierarchical – it starts off with little steps and
builds to much bigger steps/actions.
M. Morgan
Page 7