John B. Watson replaced introspection, investigations on learning in animals became the dominant
focus of psychology which switched from thinking to learning.
behaviourism can be defined as an approach that focuses on observable behaviour rather than on
consciousness.
Three types of learning:
Classical conditioning:
o (Pavlov), unconditioned stimulus; a stimulus elicits a response with no prior learning.
o Unconditioned response: the response elicited by an unconditioned stimuli.
o Conditioned stimulithe conditioned stimulus is previously neutral stimulus that, after
becoming associated with the unconditioned stimulus, eventually comes to trigger a
conditioned response.
o Conditioned response: the conditioned response is the learned response to the
previously neutral stimulus.
o Extinction: refers to the lowering of the probability of a response when a characteristic
reinforcing stimulus is no longer presented.
Classical conditioning could instil pathological fear.
Operant Conditioning:
o (Thorndike), law of effect: behaviour that is followed by satisfying consequences will be
repeated and behaviour that is followed by unpleasant consequences will be
discouraged (first called instrumental learning)
o Skinner introduced operant conditioning, applied to behaviour that operates on the
environment. He reformulated the law of effect by shifting the focus from the linking of
stimuli and responses (S-R connections) to the relationships between responses and
their co
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