Approaches in Psychology Revision
AS Level
Essay plans
Final exam grade received for A-level Psychology: A*
Blue= Point
Green= Evidence
Purple= Explanation
Orange= Link/Implication
1) Alison is a Psychology teacher who is keen to reduce plastic waste in her
school. She puts a sticker showing an ocean full of plastic waste on each
plastic bottle of water sold in the canteen.
Alison asks canteen staff to increase the price of bottled water by 20 pence and offer
free refills of water to any student taking in their own bottle.
Finally, Alison sets up a bottle return desk, where students can get 20 pence back for
any plastic bottle they hand in for recycling.
Describe and evaluate operant conditioning as a way of explaining people’s
behaviour.
Refer to Alison’s approach to reducing plastic waste in your answer.
[16 marks]
AO1 The principle of operant conditioning, put forward by behaviourists,
outlines how a person's behaviour is shaped and maintained by its
consequences; we learn through reinforcement. A reward increases the
likelihood of a desired behaviour being repeated.
AO2
Possible application:
• negative reinforcement – if students choose not to buy the
bottled drinks they no longer have to see the photo of the plastic
filled ocean therefore the photo
● students bringing in their own bottles have their behaviour
positively reinforced by providing free refills of drinks so
chances of students bringing their own bottle is increased
● students returning plastic bottles for recycling have their
behaviour positively reinforced by giving them 20p, so the
chances of students bringing their own bottle is increased
as well as the chances of students collecting plastic bottle
litter from around school site and recycling it
● the punishment of the 20p increase in cost of bottled drink
acts to decrease the chance of students choosing to buy
bottled drinks
● sticker of photo of the plastic filled ocean on bottles bought
, by students acts as a punishment to reduce the chances of
students buying the bottled drinks.
AO3 NOTE: Only need 2 AO3’s for Application Question
A strength of operant conditioning as an explanation of human
behaviour is that there’s supporting evidence from Skinner. Skinner
used the ‘Skinner Box’ to train rats to press a lever in reward for food.
This was positively reinforced. He also found that if the rats were not
enforced regularly, then they would forget the OC. This is known as
extinction. This adds credibility to and increases the validity of operant
conditioning. This furthers our understanding of human learning through
this way and can be practically applied in the real world, for example, in
school like Alison has done or in treatments and therapies.
Indeed, methods such as Token economy are based upon operant
conditioning and have been successful in encouraging positive
behaviour in institutionalised patients. Importantly, this requires much
less effort than psychoanalysis in which patients may struggle/lack
insight.
However, there are ethical and practical issues with using animal
studies like Skinner’s to explain human behaviour through OC. The
practical issue of animal studies is that it’s difficult to extrapolate the
findings and generalise this to the behaviour of humans; human
behaviour is much more complex than rats or pigeons. Moreover, it’s
unethical to subject animals to potential psychological distress or harm.
Not only this but the animals being exposed to stress may have affected
how they responded to the situation. Nevertheless, it is arguably much
more ethical to use animals than humans and this can be justified for
furthering our understanding and having major practical applications.
Yet, it should be noted that - unlike the SLT - OC does not explain
cognitive processes in human behaviour. This is because OC is a part
of the behaviourist approach which simply assumes that all behaviour is
learned but does not analyse the internal mental processes of humans;
there is no reference to human emotion or cognition. The SLT is a more
comprehensive approach than behaviourism because it acknowledges
mediational processes. For a more complete understanding of human
behaviour, we therefore need to consider other approaches, not just
behaviourism and OC.
It is also incredibly deterministic. The behaviourist approach sees all
behaviour as the product of past reinforcement. This means that it
disregards free will and conscious choices. Whilst this may apply well to
animals, the same cannot be said for humans because human
behaviour should also account for emotions, motivation and reasoning
skills (like the SLT acknowledges). This explanation is therefore limited
in use and is only a partial explanation for human behaviour; we would
need to consider other approaches like the SLT for a complete
understanding of human behaviour.
AS Level
Essay plans
Final exam grade received for A-level Psychology: A*
Blue= Point
Green= Evidence
Purple= Explanation
Orange= Link/Implication
1) Alison is a Psychology teacher who is keen to reduce plastic waste in her
school. She puts a sticker showing an ocean full of plastic waste on each
plastic bottle of water sold in the canteen.
Alison asks canteen staff to increase the price of bottled water by 20 pence and offer
free refills of water to any student taking in their own bottle.
Finally, Alison sets up a bottle return desk, where students can get 20 pence back for
any plastic bottle they hand in for recycling.
Describe and evaluate operant conditioning as a way of explaining people’s
behaviour.
Refer to Alison’s approach to reducing plastic waste in your answer.
[16 marks]
AO1 The principle of operant conditioning, put forward by behaviourists,
outlines how a person's behaviour is shaped and maintained by its
consequences; we learn through reinforcement. A reward increases the
likelihood of a desired behaviour being repeated.
AO2
Possible application:
• negative reinforcement – if students choose not to buy the
bottled drinks they no longer have to see the photo of the plastic
filled ocean therefore the photo
● students bringing in their own bottles have their behaviour
positively reinforced by providing free refills of drinks so
chances of students bringing their own bottle is increased
● students returning plastic bottles for recycling have their
behaviour positively reinforced by giving them 20p, so the
chances of students bringing their own bottle is increased
as well as the chances of students collecting plastic bottle
litter from around school site and recycling it
● the punishment of the 20p increase in cost of bottled drink
acts to decrease the chance of students choosing to buy
bottled drinks
● sticker of photo of the plastic filled ocean on bottles bought
, by students acts as a punishment to reduce the chances of
students buying the bottled drinks.
AO3 NOTE: Only need 2 AO3’s for Application Question
A strength of operant conditioning as an explanation of human
behaviour is that there’s supporting evidence from Skinner. Skinner
used the ‘Skinner Box’ to train rats to press a lever in reward for food.
This was positively reinforced. He also found that if the rats were not
enforced regularly, then they would forget the OC. This is known as
extinction. This adds credibility to and increases the validity of operant
conditioning. This furthers our understanding of human learning through
this way and can be practically applied in the real world, for example, in
school like Alison has done or in treatments and therapies.
Indeed, methods such as Token economy are based upon operant
conditioning and have been successful in encouraging positive
behaviour in institutionalised patients. Importantly, this requires much
less effort than psychoanalysis in which patients may struggle/lack
insight.
However, there are ethical and practical issues with using animal
studies like Skinner’s to explain human behaviour through OC. The
practical issue of animal studies is that it’s difficult to extrapolate the
findings and generalise this to the behaviour of humans; human
behaviour is much more complex than rats or pigeons. Moreover, it’s
unethical to subject animals to potential psychological distress or harm.
Not only this but the animals being exposed to stress may have affected
how they responded to the situation. Nevertheless, it is arguably much
more ethical to use animals than humans and this can be justified for
furthering our understanding and having major practical applications.
Yet, it should be noted that - unlike the SLT - OC does not explain
cognitive processes in human behaviour. This is because OC is a part
of the behaviourist approach which simply assumes that all behaviour is
learned but does not analyse the internal mental processes of humans;
there is no reference to human emotion or cognition. The SLT is a more
comprehensive approach than behaviourism because it acknowledges
mediational processes. For a more complete understanding of human
behaviour, we therefore need to consider other approaches, not just
behaviourism and OC.
It is also incredibly deterministic. The behaviourist approach sees all
behaviour as the product of past reinforcement. This means that it
disregards free will and conscious choices. Whilst this may apply well to
animals, the same cannot be said for humans because human
behaviour should also account for emotions, motivation and reasoning
skills (like the SLT acknowledges). This explanation is therefore limited
in use and is only a partial explanation for human behaviour; we would
need to consider other approaches like the SLT for a complete
understanding of human behaviour.
