• All behaviours are learnt from the environment which means it ignores biological influences or freewill therefore making it a nature approach.
• It assumes that all behaviours are automatically caused by response to stimulus such as in the case of Pavlov’s dog experiment where food being the stimulus and saliva being the response thereby creating the link between Response and Stimulus.
• It also assumes that our behaviours are determined by reinforcements whether positive or negative of the things we do such as pro-social behaviours like aggressive behaviours. For example; if parents and people around reinforce a child for politeness, sharing or helping others, then the child will learn such behaviours.
• It also assumes that psychology should only focus on observable behaviours rather than the mind as the mind cannot be directly observed.
• It assumes that animals and humans learn in similar ways so therefore it is safe to generalise human and animal behaviours.
• It also assumes that all of our behaviours are decided and shaped by the environment. Example, if a behaviour results in a positive outcome; it will likely be repeated but if behaviour has a negative outcome it is more likely to be shunned.
Two core features of learning in the behaviourist approach are Classical …show more content…
An example is Albert Bandura’s (1977) bobo doll experiment which deduced that observational learning (modelling) is the stimulus for a variety of children’s behaviour; children tend to imitate what they observe from models such as parents and adults therefore a positive reinforcements and stimulus i.e. kindness, love, respect and positivity is essential to encourage and shape positive behaviours especially in