Outline the Behaviourist Approach to explaining Behaviour (12 marks)

The behaviourist approach believes that behaviour is mainly influenced by our environment, specifically stimulus-response associations. They seek a nurture view to behaviour, suggesting that we are born with no innate, defined characteristics or behaviours, they are learnt through our experiences with the world. Behaviourism explains behaviour in terms of 2 main aspects: classical conditioning and operant conditioning.Classical conditioning refers to the association between two stimulus, a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned response. The process of creating behaviour can be explained through Pavlov's research. Pavlov classically conditioned a dog to salivate at the sound of the bell. Initially, the dog would salivate (unconditioned response) to the sight of food (neutral stimulus). Pavlov paired this with the sound of a bell, so when the dog received food they would hear the bell. After repeated paired exposure, the dog would eventually salivate with the sound of the bell alone ( now conditioned response) due to association of the two stimuli. Operant conditioning operates of the basis of reinforcement. There are two types of reinforcement, positive and negative. Positive reinforcement is when someone repeats or acts out a behaviour in order to receive a reward e.g. we do our homework to receive praise from our teachers. Negative reinforcement is when we do a particular behaviour in order to avoid a consequence e.g. do our homework so we do not get in trouble with the teacher. This can be shown in the Skinner Box experiment, where rats, pigeons and other animals were positively reinforced, as they had to press a lever in order to receive food, so animals kept repeating this behaviour in order to get the reward. Therefore, we can see that behaviourist base their approach to explain behaviour on the processes and affects of association (classical conditioning)( and reinforcement (operant conditioning). Approaches that oppose this, would be those who come from a more nature-based approach such as the Biological Approach.