Advantages and Disadvantages of the Behaviourist Approach Essay

Outline twain Advantages and Two Disadvantages of the Behaviourist Approach (12)One of the strengths of the behaviourist climb up is that it just focuses on behaviour and behaviours that can be find and manipulated. Consequently this approach has proven itself to be useful in experiments where behaviour can be observed and manipulated for desired effects such as the experiment Burrhus Frederic Skinner conducted on rats, manipulating them to press buttons and levers until they are given food and the experiment Ivan Petrovich Pavlov conducted on dogs where he manipulated them to salivate to the ringing of a bell, rather than to food.The behaviourist approach as well concentrates on here and now and what can be seen, rather than exploring a persons past like the psychodynamic approach does. This is an advantage because it is non concerned with what cannot be seen and what happened in the past and many people do not know and believe that their past causes behaviour and personaliti es in their later life, and many people the think removing the undesirable behaviour is more meaning(a) than understanding the causes of the behaviour.On the other hand, a disadvantage of the behaviourist approach is that the theories are too deterministic as behaviourists believe that our behaviour is ascertain only by environmental effects such as unsullied conditioning and operant conditioning which is a disadvantage as behaviour can be indeterministic and at that place can be no causes for it. It in like manner undermines the amount of free will a person has and doesnt convey that ever human can make choices about their behaviours and begin virtuous responsibility for their behaviour which is a deficiency in the approach as a person can choose to change their behaviour and constitution at any given moment and the environment doesnt have to effect their decision.Also, the behaviourist approach emphasises too much on nurture. It focuses only on the environment effects on a person, so it only ignores effects constitution can have on a economic consumption and disregards genetics as an explanation of behaviour which is a disadvantage as behaviour can be altered and modified by nature every day in different ways like where a personlives, where they visit, even what bus route they take etc. Furthermore, a question often put to behaviourists is If learning is the only factor that makes us who we are, then we should all be capable of becoming whatever we ask to be and many behaviourists cannot justify this question properly, the bottom line is that there are many different factors affecting our abilities other than learning.In addition, the theories of behaviourism have been mainly tested on animals so the findings may not completely apply to human behaviour, which is much more a plenteousness more complex.