Throughout history there has been many different psychologists who have each theorised their own different approaches to further the knowledge of human behaviour and psychology; undertaking several social and scientific experiments in an effort to provide validity to their studies. Taking a closer look into the ‘Behaviourism’ approach and the Social Learning Theory one can describe and evaluate each perspective to help better understand the theories and gain and slight insight into the validity.
John B. Watson started the idea of behaviourism when he wrote an article called ‘Psychology as the behaviourist sees it’ commonly referred to as the ‘Behaviourist manifesto’ (1913). In this he states that behaviourism is the theory that all behaviour …show more content…
Surprisingly like most great discoveries this was stumbled on by accident. In the 1890’s Pavlov was undergoing a study of digestion and salivation in dog, when he began to notice that after the repeat delivery of food, his dogs initiated salivating whenever he entered the room regardless the reason. This led him to delve deeper into the reasoning why. He learned that the dogs can be taught to associate persons or objects to certain situations and that this must have been learned unintentionally whilst in his care, as these behaviours where not present at the beginning and a dogs’ natural reflex is to salivate at the sight or smell of food this is hard wired and an unconditioned response. Therefore, stating that a change of behaviour in this matter has to be a direct result of learning. Pavlov wanted to see if he could then condition the dogs to salivate like they would instinctively for food for another …show more content…
Majority of said experiments being performed on animals. The general findings and results being deduced as representable within human psychology. Due to cognitive and unconscious processes not being measurable so thus can’t be taken into account for human alone behaviour. As previously stated this approach is popular in the attempts to change and potentially predict an individual’s behaviour. For an example of real life application, the principal of classical conditioning can be used to help cure phobias and fears. This is referred to as Systematic desensitisation and is when the unconditioned response of fear was attempted to be replaced with a response of relaxation towards the conditioned stimulus. Before counter conditioning then comes into effect. For example, the fear of spiders being associated with the feeling of peace before coming just that peace alone. This was developed and proven valid by Wolpe (1964) when he successfully treated a severe case of obsessive handwashing compulsion in a young adult male.
John B. Watson started the idea of behaviourism when he wrote an article called ‘Psychology as the behaviourist sees it’ commonly referred to as the ‘Behaviourist manifesto’ (1913). In this he states that behaviourism is the theory that all behaviour …show more content…
Surprisingly like most great discoveries this was stumbled on by accident. In the 1890’s Pavlov was undergoing a study of digestion and salivation in dog, when he began to notice that after the repeat delivery of food, his dogs initiated salivating whenever he entered the room regardless the reason. This led him to delve deeper into the reasoning why. He learned that the dogs can be taught to associate persons or objects to certain situations and that this must have been learned unintentionally whilst in his care, as these behaviours where not present at the beginning and a dogs’ natural reflex is to salivate at the sight or smell of food this is hard wired and an unconditioned response. Therefore, stating that a change of behaviour in this matter has to be a direct result of learning. Pavlov wanted to see if he could then condition the dogs to salivate like they would instinctively for food for another …show more content…
Majority of said experiments being performed on animals. The general findings and results being deduced as representable within human psychology. Due to cognitive and unconscious processes not being measurable so thus can’t be taken into account for human alone behaviour. As previously stated this approach is popular in the attempts to change and potentially predict an individual’s behaviour. For an example of real life application, the principal of classical conditioning can be used to help cure phobias and fears. This is referred to as Systematic desensitisation and is when the unconditioned response of fear was attempted to be replaced with a response of relaxation towards the conditioned stimulus. Before counter conditioning then comes into effect. For example, the fear of spiders being associated with the feeling of peace before coming just that peace alone. This was developed and proven valid by Wolpe (1964) when he successfully treated a severe case of obsessive handwashing compulsion in a young adult male.