Wednesday, 29 November 2017

+ and - of behaviourist perspective


Strengths-

Scientific = research done by behaviourists is usually scientific = highly replicable = easily testable because it's about easily observed behaviour

Practical application = understanding roles of observational learning in aggression has helped the violence, we can use classical conditioning as mental disorder therapy and operant conditioning is used to modify compliance to medical recommendations


Weaknesses-

Reductionist = reducing something complex like behaviour, to something simpler like conditioning

By ignoring mental processes, behavioural theories are generally guilty of reductionism, ignores other aspects, e.g. biology, social, cognitive and so putting aggression down to a learned response = reductionist

Ethics = it's not ethical to forcibly alter behaviour and use punishment/manipulation to shape behaviour = unethical
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