1. ‘We are born as a tabula rasa (blank slate)’
What do you think this means?
Can you remember which Psychological approach do you think said this and why?

2. Baseline assessment: Wednesday 26th
Homework
A/B (past and present): research methods
C (future): nature vs. nurture and lab experiments
Baseline assessment: Wednesday 26th
20 minutes

3. Starter
In groups…. 4 minutes You have been given paper + pens – create the psychology timeline from scratch (main psychologists, approaches, dates, key words) (1879, 1900, 1913, 1950, 1960, 1980, 2000) Individually…5 minutes Complete as many questions as you can to recap the content that we have covered so far Extension: can you explain how the behaviourist approach differs from introspection?

4. The Learning Approach: Behaviourism
Lesson Objectives
The Learning Approach: Behaviourism
Understand
To describe key assumptions and concepts of the behaviourist approach.
Apply
To explain real life examples of the behaviourist approach
Evaluate
To discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the behaviourist approach in Psychology

5. Ring any bells? What was this? From this…
What might the assumptions of the behaviourist approach be?
Think in terms of human behaviour, psychology as a science, and nature/nurture

6. Assumptions
We are born as a blank slate – a ‘tabula rasa’ – everything we become is shaped by the process of learning from our environment.
Extreme ‘nurture’ end of nature-nurture debate. Behaviour is learnt and not innate.
Argues that in order for psychology to be scientific it should focus on observable behaviour which can be objectively measured, rather than on things like cognitive processes which can only be inferred – rejected the idea of introspection!
Lab experiments are the best way to achieve this! Psychology should use scientific methods to study behaviour.
Behaviourists also assume that humans are like any other organism in how they develop therefore animals can be studied to draw conclusions about humans.
We do not need to study unobservable concepts such as the mind.

7. Behaviourism has two main forms of learning
Classical conditioning
Operant conditioning & reinforcement
NOTE: Social learning theory is NOT part of the behaviourist approach – Why?

8. Learning through association…
Behaviourism
Classical Conditioning - Pavlov
Learning through association…
Who has a dog?

9. 1. Before conditioning 1. Before conditioning 2. During conditioning
3. After conditioning
3 minutes in your pairs to look at the image and without using key terms tell me what is happening here

10. Application: How might this be used to learn/condition a fear?
How does it work?
Before conditioning
Bell: Neutral stimulus (NS)
Food: unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
Salivation: unconditioned Response (UCR)
During conditioning
Bell: Neutral stimulus (NS)
Pairing +
Food: unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
Salivation: unconditioned Response (UCR)
After conditioning
Bell: Conditioned stimulus (CS)
Salivation: Conditioned response (CR)
Application: How might this be used to learn/condition a fear?

11. Activity: application to phobias
Watch the video of Little Albert:
Identify the following in Watson and Rayner’s research NS
UCS
UCR CS CR

12. Watson and Raynor (Little Albert – 1920)
Who is Little Albert? Little Albert was a 10 month old infant who at first showed no fear and was a bold child. The only stimulus that appeared to upset Albert was loud noises which made him cry. Albert had a pet rat which he loved. Using Alberts likes and dislikes to his advantage, the researcher Watson conditioned Albert to be afraid of rats by pairing it with a loud noise. In a very short length of time, Albert showed extreme fear towards his pet rat and would cry whenever he saw it.
An evaluation point of Pavlov’s dog is that it was done on animals, so there is Little Alberts study on humans to look at too. Explain that this is not explicitly mentioned in the spec however is still another example of classical conditioning and using this on a human, furthermore it also shows a real life application of classical conditioning (phobias).
Make notes on this if you would like to. The video will also show stimulus generalisation to other furry animals.
Show video clip – ask after what the UCS, , UCR, CS, NS, CS and CR were.

13. Learning check Outline the process of classical conditioning (4)
Classical conditioning is learning by association that takes place in humans and non human animals. The process involves pairing a neutral stimulus (produces no response) with an unconditioned stimulus (produces a reflex response). After a number of pairings of the NS and the UCS an association is made and the response will be made to the NS alone. After this process the NS becomes the conditioned stimulus and the response to this is the conditioned response.
This process was seen in Pavlov’s research where dogs learnt to associate the sound of a bell with the provision of food. The dogs had an unconditioned response of salivating to the food and the bell was the neutral stimulus. After a number of pairings of the bell with the food the dogs learned to salivate to the sound of a bell.

14. Important features of classical conditioning
Timing Conditioning does not take place if the interval between the UCS and NS is too large. Extinction The CR is not permanent, after a few presentations of the CS in the absence of the UCS, it loses its ability to produce the CR. Spontaneous Recovery Following extinction, if the CS and UCS are then paired again, the association is made again very quickly. Stimulus generalisation Once an animal has been conditioned, they will also respond to other stimuli that are similar to the CS.
Check that they are all okay – write a question to each other that they can answer

15. Consider the following…
How do you train..?
A Child
A Dog
A Pigeon

16. Learning through consequences
Operant Conditioning – Skinner
Learning through consequences

17. Skinners research
In a typical experiment, a rat or pigeon would be put into the Skinner box in which temperature, light and noise could be kept constant.
On one wall of the box, there would be a lever and a hopper that could deliver a food pellet to the animal when the lever was pressed.
Initially, the rat is likely to wander around the box aimlessly until it accidentally presses the lever and receives a food pellet (the reinforcer).
Skinner would leave the animal in the box and measure how frequently the animal pressed the lever over time.
The frequency should indicate the strength of the conditioning of the behaviour
This would then be repeated with other animals.

18. The method of Skinner’s study
In your own words, describe the method of skinner’s research
Need help….
Put these stages into order and copy them down/draw them.
In no time at all the hungry rats begin pressing the level in order to obtain food.
Skinner developed a special cage (called a skinner box) in order to investigate operant conditioning.
If the food pellet stops, the rat presses the lever a few more times and then abandons it (extinction).
The rat moves around the cage, and when he accidently presses the lever, a food pellet (the reinforcer) falls into the cage.

19. Positive reinforcement :
Match the definitions
Anything which has the effect of increasing the likelihood of the behaviour being repeated by using consequences that are pleasant when they stop. Aspirin to get rid of a headache. In simple terms, it is behaviour that makes something unpleasant go away.
Positive reinforcement :
Negative reinforcement :
Anything which has the effect of decreasing the likelihood of the behaviour being repeated by using consequences that are unpleasant when happen
Anything which has the effect of increasing the likelihood of the behaviour being repeated by using consequences that are pleasant when they happen i.e. food for the rat/pigeon. Giving a child sweets when they clean their room.
Punishment :
A pigeon pecks a button to stop an electric shock being administered to his feet.
A rat taps a lever to gain a food pellet.
Each time a rat presses a button an electric shock is delivered.
On your handout, identify whether these statements are referring to positive/negative reinforcement or punishment

20. Schedules of reinforcement
When and how often we reinforce a behaviour can have a significant impact on the strength and rate of the response.
2 types of schedules
Continuous reinforcement: the desired behaviour is reinforced every single time it occurs.
Partial (variaable/ratio) reinforcement: the response is reinforced only part of the time.
Could discuss relevance to gambling here as they may study this at A2, and how even when we don’t win every time people still gamble.

21. Apply it: Big bang theory
Answer the following…
Which type of conditioning is used in the clip?
How is it being used?
Extension: can you think of when operant conditioning is used in the real world?

22. Task: Bullet point in your pairs, how you might answer this question
Exam focus
A. Sarah is terrified of lifts because she was trapped in one for 5 hours. She cannot go in a lift now.
B. Jerry ‘s mum awards him sweets for cleaning their pet hamster’s cage. The next day, Jerry’s mum finds him cleaning out the hamster cage again.
How can the behaviours described in A and B above be explained by the behaviourist approach? [6 marks]
Task: Bullet point in your pairs, how you might answer this question

23. Answer: in pairs, add the correct psychology terminology to improve the answer
Sarah has learned to fear lifts because of conditioning. Originally, the lift was neutral; however, Sarah has now formed an attachment between the lift and being trapped, which would result in fear. Consequently, the lift produces a conditioned response of fear, which explains why Sarah is now afraid of lifts. Jerry is cleaning out the Hamsters cage because of conditioning. Jerry has been given sweets for cleaning the pet hamster’s cage, which is a form of reinforcement. This can explain why Jerry’s mum found him cleaning out the hamster cage

24. Sarah has learned to fear lifts because of classical conditioning
Sarah has learned to fear lifts because of classical conditioning. Originally, the lift was a neutral stimulus; however, Sarah has now formed an association between the lift and being trapped, which would result in an unconditioned response of fear. Consequently, the lift has become a conditioned stimulus which produces a conditioned response of fear, which explains why Sarah is now afraid of lifts.
Jerry is cleaning out the Hamsters cage because of operant conditioning. Jerry has been given sweets (a reward) for cleaning the pet hamster’s cage, which is a form of positive reinforcement (something desirable given). This can explain why Jerry’s mum found him cleaning out the hamster cage again as he is likely to repeat the behaviour in the future to gain further rewards.
Exam Hint: While students typically perform well on questions relating to classical and operant conditioning, students need to ensure that they do not muddle the key terms (e.g. neutral stimulus). For example, some students do not realise that ‘being trapped’ is an unconditioned stimulus which leads to fear which is the unconditioned response. 

25. Exam focus
Explain how the work of Skinner and Pavlov have contributed to our understanding of human behaviour (6)

26. Ivan Pavlov studied the role of classical conditioning in behaviour
Ivan Pavlov studied the role of classical conditioning in behaviour. This is learning by association. Pavlov discovered that dogs will salivate to the sound of a bell if it is repeatedly paired with food. The dogs had associated the sound of the bell with food. This has contributed to our understanding of the development of phobias as Watson used Pavlov’s ideas to show how an infant could develop a fear of a white rat if its presence was repeatedly paired with a loud noise. This shows that phobias can develop through an association of two stimuli. B.F. Skinner studied how the consequences of behaviour can influence whether a behaviour will be repeated or not. He found that if a behaviour was positively reinforced (something desirable given) behaviour would be repeated. Also behaviour would be repeated if it led to something unpleasant being taken away (negative reinforcement). But if a behaviour was punished (something unpleasant given) the behaviour would stop. This has contributed to our understanding of positively reinforcing desirable behaviour in schools and prisons and, although Skinner thought this was less useful, to use punishment to reduce criminal behaviour.

27. Examples of reinforcement and punishment
Table 1– An example of positive reinforcement Table 2– An example of negative reinforcement Table 3 – An example of punishment Each person will create an example which will then be given to an individual on another table who needs to use the same example but change it depending on their table focus. Read these through and check you agree.

28. Learning Approach- Questions
What is a basis assumption of the behaviourist approach?
What is conditioning?
What type of conditioning was investigated by John Watson and little albert?
Who were the participants in Pavlov’s research?
In Pavlov’s research what was the unconditioned response?
In Pavlov’s research what was the conditioned stimulus?
Define classical conditioning
Who researched into operant conditioning?
Define operant conditioning
Name the three aspects of operant conditioning.
If a rat receives a shock every time it presses a leaver what aspect of operant conditioning is being tested?
What is negative reinforcement?
Extension: Provide one criticism of the learning approach
Extension: Provide a real life application of the learning approach
Learning Approach- Questions