Describe the application of behaviorist perspectives in health and social care. (P1)
Operant conditioning is a type of behavior modification which can be used to either decrease or increase the likelihoods of a certain aspect of a behavior will occur. The process relies on the idea that organisms (a person) respond to stimuli, and that if they can be taught to associate a specific stimulus with a particular behavior, they will be more likely to engage in or avoid the behavior, depending on the type of stimulus involved.
This approach first came to notice B.F Skinner (s famous psychologist) were of his work was carried out in the 20th centaury. His work was mainly with the use of rats and ...view middle of the document...
In this case operant behavior is occurring on both sides being the carer and the child. The child may have a tantrum if they want some sweets and there carer has said no. if the child continues to have a tantrum the carer will them give into the child and but them some sweets. After the child has done this repeatedly they will learn that of they have a tantrum they will get what they want in this case being the sweets sop there for this is positive reinforcement. Also if due to the carer giving into the child every time the child has a tantrum the carer is also being operant conditioned as they learn that when they give in to the child the child will stop there tantrum. This is the reason why a child may have persistent tantrums because they have learned they will get what they want. In this case negative reinforcement is not being used as this is a form to put the behavior right but the carer does not do so.
Classical conditioning is another technique used in behavior learning. It is a type of conditioning and learning process in which something (conditioned stimulus) that had not previously produced a particular response becomes associated with something (unconditioned stimulus) that produces the response. As a result, the conditioned stimulus will elicit the response that the unconditioned stimulus produces. Ivan Pavlov a Russian physiologist used this form working with dogs to explore how their digestive system acts to stimuli. He measured the rate of their salivation by attaching them to a harness and fixed monitors to their mouth and stomachs. When a lab supporter would enter the room with a bowel of food the dog would salivate just by seeing the food and without even having tasted the food. As salivation is linked with becoming into contact with food due to being a reflexive response Pavlov seed this as abnormal as he thought salivation was a result of the food actually making contact with the tongue. From this is grasped that the dog began to salivate because it had learned that the entry of the lab assistance means that food was arriving, so there for he came to the conclusion that food led to an automatic reaction of salivation and sue to this response not being learned he called this an unconditional response and the food being an unconditional stimulus as this is what gave the dog the unlearned response. He also explored if he could use conditional stimulus’s to change the dogs’ behavior. He did this by using a bell by ringing it at the same time of presenting food to the dog. So the bell acted as a conditional stimulus. Conducting this tested out many times the dog had now learned that the bell was associated with food so after a while the dog began to salivate when just the bell was ringing. So now the dog has learned a conditional response of salivation to the conditional stimulus of the bell. This led Pavlov to com to a conclusion that behavior was learned from responding to stimuli. This theory can also be used to understand...
