The Strengths and Limitations of the Behaviourist Approach in Explaining Behaviour

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The aim of this essay is to describe and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the behaviourist approach in terms of ability to explain behaviour. This essay will briefly outline the historical development of the behaviourist approach and include psychologists ranging from Watson to Bandura. This essay will describe in detail the different perspectives held within behaviourism from classical conditioning to the social learning theory and discuss the strengths and weakness surrounding these theories. The idea of Behaviourism dates back to Descartes. Descartes was a philosopher that introduced the mind and body debate, he believed that the mind and body were two separate existences that casually interacted with each other, he named this his theory of interactive dualism however the idea of behaviourism didn’t derive from just this one point. Theories on the mind and body originated from as far back as Plato and Aristotle. (Gentile 2008) Another contributor to the idea of the behaviourism approach was John Locke with his belief that all humans are born with ‘tabular Rasa’ a blank state. Locke believed that the mind at birth had no innate conceptions and that all behaviour is learnt from the environment. Locke wanted to validate his nurture belief so employed empirical methods of research. All these different theories helped Behaviourism come into a discipline in its own right from the twentieth century onwards (Gentile 2008) The behaviourist approach is somewhat different to the other approaches in Psychology as the main focus is on the external environmental factors and the effect these have on behaviour. Behaviourists believe that People have no free will and that a person’s environment determines their behaviour and that psy... ... middle of paper ... ...lots of contrasting views surrounding the behaviourist approach and the explanations it gives for explaining behaviour however it can be said that behaviourism has made great contributions to a better understanding of behaviour. Works Cited Flannagan,C (1997) A Level Psychology.London: Letts Educational Gentile,B and Miller,B (2008) Foundations of Psychological Thought: A History of Psychology.Los Angeles :Sage Publications Ltd Glassman,W and Hadan,M (2004) Approaches to Psychology.4Ed.Berkshire:Open university Press. R,Gross 2004 Key studies in psychology.3Ed.Oxford:Hodder and Stoughton Gross,R (2009)Psychology. The science of mind and behaviour. 5ed.Oxford:Hodder and Stoughton Moxon,D and Brewer,K.(2003) Heinemann Psychology.Oxford:Educational Publishers Roth,I (2000) Introduction to Psychology.Glasgow:Bath Press Colour books.

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