Behavioral And Social Learning Approaches

Behavioral and Social Learning Approaches

The behavioral approach is based on the concept of explaining behavior through observation, and the belief that our environment is what causes us to behave differently or suffer illnesses. The main categories of behaviorism are: Classical Behaviorism, Mythological Behaviorism and Radical Behaviorism. (PSYCHOLOGISTWORLD.COM, 2006-2010). Social psychology seeks to explain and understand social behavior. On this paper there will be some definitions and stories of real life experiences and examples will be given to determine any differences between them.

Initiated arguably by John B. Watson, with his publication of "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It" (often referred to as the behaviorist manifesto), who described his behaviorist approach in psychology as "a purely objective experimental branch of natural science". Methological behaviorism is based on the idea that all types of psychological research are based to a greater or lesser extent on observing behaviors; the closest insight, some may argue, we currently have into someone's psychological make-up. Radical behaviorists would claim that all our actions can be explained in terms of environmental factors. This is a somewhat extreme view in that it ignores biological and cognitive influences, particularly given research that has found genetic factors to play a part in disorders such as schizophrenia and depression and the success of cognitive treatments such as rational emotive therapy (RET). Popular holders of the radical behaviorism approach were J.B. Watson, and Skinner, but psychologists today widely acknowledge the importance of cognitive and biological factors in explaining disorders and behavior. (PSYCHOLOGISTWORLD.COM, 2006-2010).

The social learning theory proposed by Albert Bandura has become perhaps the most influential theory of learning and development. Social psychology seeks to explain and understand social behavior. While rooted in many of the basic concepts of traditional learning theory, Bandura believed that direct reinforcement could not account for all types of learning. His theory added a social element, arguing that people can learn new information and behaviors by watching other people, known as observational learning (or modeling); this type of learning can be used to explain a wide variety of behaviors. Social Learning Perspective include: Stresses, the importance of unique experiences in family, school, community, etc. According to this viewpoint, we learn behaviors through observing and mimicking the behavior of others. (Cherry, 2010).

I agree more with the social approach because people often learn and imitated other people’s attitudes and personalities, I also agree on the behavioral approach because many people let the environment and other situations affect their live and minds. They could rapidly change their state of mind and personality because on the environment they ere in.

One bad habit that I have is smoking. When I got divorced seven years ago I started smoking. I also started going out with my friends and some of them smoke too. For me it theme smoking did not give any more of a reason to do so, but made it more difficult for me to stop doing it. This is how I adopted and continued using this habit, may be at home I will not smoke, but if a go out with my friends and started drinking a bit I just need to get a cigarette. Since my experience with the divorce a keep this habit and even do sometimes I stop smoking and I could go on without doing it for weeks, when I’m in a difficult situation or any problem may come, the erg of buying a case of cigarettes comes and I just need to have one. Like the behavioral approach belief that our environment is what causes us to behave differently I continued to smoke depending on the situations that I confront in my personal life.

The operant conditioning plan to change this habit

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