Positive Psychology: WJEC: Behaviourist approach

1) . Blank slate. Newborn children do not have any innate characteristics traits or behaviours; these are learned from the environment.
2) There is a continuity between humans and animals, which means scientists can study the behaviour of animals to understand how we may react similarly.
3) Behaviour is learned through conditioning, which is considered as life’s accumulation of all conditioning experiences.

Associated with Ivan Pavlov 1897: he noticed that dogs would associate the researchers footsteps with food so they would begin to salivate.

Presenting food to the dog is an unconditioned stimulus followed by an unconditioned response. Pavlov then introduced the neutral stimulus, a bell, which the dogs then learn to associate with food.

So neutral stimulus (bell) plus food -> salivation.

After several times of ringing the bell and being given food, the dogs would then salivate at the ringing of the bell even before food was presented.

This is a process of learning through reinforcement and punishment, associated with BF Skinner (1948) and Thorndike (1911).

Thorndike tested cats in a puzzle box in which they had to press the latch to escape and then get food.

Skinner added the notion of reinforcement, which increases the chance of a behaviour occurring again.

E.g. throwing a stick to the dog and giving it a treat, the dog gradually believes that caught stick will be associated with a treat.

Skinner noted that such actions needed repeating otherwise the reinforcers would die out.

In operant conditioning, positive reinforcement involves the addition of a reinforcing stimulus following a behavior that makes it more likely that the behavior will occur again in the future

E.g. Skinner’s box in which the rat could accidentally hit the lever and then the food pellets were dropped into the box.

Negative reinforcement involves the removal of something negative to strengthen a behavior.

E.g. rats in skinners box would be given an electric shock which encouraged them to return to a lever to stop the electric shock. In this case the required action was to get rid of a painful experience.

Imposing something undesirable, or taking away a positive stimulus, to weaken or eliminate a behavior.

Scientific: uses measurable observable behaviour rather than internal mental processes.
Reductionist: studies support the notion that humans can learn from conditioning and these have been useful for therapies.
Can use animal research: scientists can use animals in research when there may be ethical considerations of using humans.
Humans learn in a similar way to animals: Evidence shows that classical and operant conditioning works on animals as well as humans.

Although scientific, which means measurable, many psychological issues are not observable or measurable.

Reducing behaviour to simple conditioning processes, i.e. reductionist, means that many other potential exclamations such as thinking and social influences are rejected.

Comparing humans to animals may be too simplistic since humans obviously project much higher levels of thinking and complexity.

While there are similarities with animals, human learning is more a product of cognition, including high-level complex learning.

Pets can behave in ways that are appealing to potential owners, such as showing signs of affection and attachment.

These are positive reinforcers for the owners: such connections can form strong bonds between owners and pets and can be used to stave off depression.

Pets learn that when they give us affection, they are more likely to be stroked.

A way of unlearning existing associations by creating new ones that replace undesirable behaviour.

E.g. injecting alcohol with a drug that causes a violent unpleasant reaction;

Or a bedwetting alarm used for young children who suffer from enuresis (bedwetting).

Bancroft, 1992, reported up to 50% of patients did not want to start or dropped out our aversion therapy. Evidence is that relapse (failure of the programme) is high.

Smith, 1988, however, reported on 300 smokers, and 52% who were treated with electric shocks did not smoke a year later.

There is some degree of harm involved since the aversion therapy involves creating some pain or strong reaction. But this is often explained fully beforehand.

Full consent is therefore needed.

Participants enter voluntarily. But it does require a lot of commitment.

More care must be used when using children, as the child needs to be considered physiologically and psychologically before treatment that they must be, for example, at least five years old for girls and seven for boys.

The therapy seeks to remove the fear response of a phobia by substituting a relaxation response to the conditional stimulus gradually using counter-conditioning.

Step one is learning how to relax to avoid fear, which involves tension. A person cannot be fearful and relaxed at the same time.

Secondly there is the use of an anxiety hierarchy, in which a therapist gradually introduces the concept or image or thing that the client finds frightening. E.g. think of a spider, share a picture of a spider, watch a movie of a spider, see a spider in a glass bowl, et cetera.

Thirdly, this leads to desensitisation sessions to fully remove the fear.

SpAg-Soc

Specific phobias: such as a fear of heights, an animal, or a situation.

Agoraphobia: fear of public and unfamiliar places, probably the most common phobias seen by therapists

Social phobias: such as using public transport or eating in public.

Paul, (1966), showed that clients improved much better than those with other treatments and the improvement was still there two years later.

Choy et al (2007) reviewed imagination based and real life systematic desensitisation, which exhibited different effectiveness.
Eg, Using virtual reality for heights or flying was reasonably successful but not so successful for animal or social phobias.
Sometimes these broader spectrum phobias required the learning of other skills to help the client get over the fear of, say, public speaking.
Choy et al also found a high-level dropout with real life desensitisation, perhaps due to the involvement of high levels of stress.

The therapy needs client consent.

The client can opt out at any point.

The client is fully involved in creating the anxiety hierarchy with the guidance of a therapist.