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LEARNING PSYCHOLOGY ISSUES AND DEBATES (ETHICS / SOCIALLY SENSITIVE (Lab…
LEARNING PSYCHOLOGY ISSUES AND DEBATES
ETHICS / SOCIALLY SENSITIVE
Lab reared animals have been used extensively; Skinner electrified the floor of a cage or box that would be turned off when the animal pressed a lever, deliberately exposing animals to adverse stimuli; conditioning a rat to press a lever to dispense food requires some food restriction which contravenes ethical guidelines
Watson and rayner deliberately distressed little Albert which caused harm and his mother withdrew him from the study before he could be desensitised
Bandura has been criticised for deliberately exposing children to aggressive models and for causing distress by frustrating the children when they were told they could not play with the toys in a room
Treatments based on learning theories can be regarded as socially sensitive because the control of the client’s behaviour is managed directly by the therapist
PRACTICAL ISSUES
Using animals in conditioning research is not generalisable to humans; we have the same biological basis to the nervous system but animals do not have self awareness so would respond very different from humans in conditioning experiments - the ability of humans to be aware of being conditioned means they grasp the nature of the aims of an experiment and will respond accordingly with demand characteristics
REDUCTIONISM
Classical and operant conditioning explain learned behaviour as a result of stimulus-response connections being formed which explain the acquisition of complex behaviour which is highly reductionist
Explaining human behaviour as a set of learned responses makes the study of behaviour less complicated, because each stimulus-response link can be isolated and causation can be ascertained; but it’s only a partial explanation because it ignores the role of other factors that affect how and what we learn - Bandura addresses this by taking account of both behavioural and cognitive factors associated with learning through observation and imitation
COMPARISONS
Learning theories can often be used to explain the same human behaviour eg phobias can be explained through association, reinforcement or imitation
One theory may be a more likely cause in a particular situation but you should consider which one is the most appropriate
PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE
Closest that psychology has come to a paradigm, with the endeavor to be scientific as an underpinning principle
Behaviourists create testable hypotheses and collect empirical data using objective methods, they are principally concerned with only observable behaviour that can be scientifically studied and objectively recorded
Internal processes and activities such as thinking, perception and memory, cannot be observed or objectively measured so should not be studied
ISSUES OF SOCIAL CONTROL
Theories are based on deterministic principles which believe that all behaviour can be shaped by environmental forces; essentially proposing that human behaviour can be manipulated and therefore be subject to control
Learning theories are important when considering that a number of psychological theories employing behaviourist principles are used to manage the behaviour of vulnerable individuals; with the power in the hands of the therapist, the behaviour of a client is directly and deliberately altered to conform to what is considered to be ‘normal’ /acceptable
Flooding forces people to confront anxiety provoking situations or objects from which they cannot escape; it is based on the principles of classical conditioning and can be viewed as a distressing form of social control
Token economy programmes have been employed in prisons to manage the behaviour of prisoners, with no actual therapeutic benefit
CULTURE AND GENDER
Theories are based on nurture which is concerned with what we learn from our environment rather than what innate; different cultures will have different experiences that impress on a developing human; specific behaviours familiar to a culture will be observed and specific behaviours that are deemed acceptable reinforced
Male and female children are treated very differently by others and strongly socialised according to their gender; children observe stereotypical male and female behaviour and are encouraged through reinforcement to adopt behaviours appropriate to their assigned gender
NATURE - NURTURE
Gender-appropriate behaviours can be attributed to learning but many are determined by our biology and the evolution of traits, such as male aggression and female nurturing
Classical and operant conditioning firmly focus on nurture because they consider it unscientific to investigate cognitive processes