The Strengths and Limitations of the Behaviourist Approach in Explainin

The aim of this essay is to describe and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the behaviourist approach in terms of exponent to explain behaviour. This essay will briefly outline the historical development of the behaviourist approach and include psychologists ranging from Watson to Bandura. This essay will describe in tip the different perspectives held within behaviorism from classical conditioning to the social learning theory and discuss the strengths and weakness surrounding these theories. The idea of Behaviourism dates back to Descartes. Descartes was a philosopher that introduced the mind and body debate, he believed that the mind and body were two separate existences that casually interacted with each other, he named this his theory of interactive dualism however the idea of behaviourism didnt derive from just this one point. Theories on the mind and body originated from as far back as Plato and Aristotle. (Gentile 2008) Another contributor to the idea of the behavio urism approach was John Locke with his belief that all humans are born with tabular Rasa a blank state. Locke believed that the mind at birth had no indispensable conceptions and that all behaviour is learnt from the environment. Locke wanted to validate his nurture belief so employed empirical methods of research. All these different theories helped Behaviourism come into a contain in its own right from the twentieth century onwards (Gentile 2008)The behaviourist approach is somewhat different to the other approaches in Psychology as the briny focus is on the external environmental factors and the effect these have on behaviour. Behaviourists believe that People have no free will and that a soulfulnesss environment determines their behaviour and that psy... ...lots of contrasting views surrounding the behaviourist approach and the explanations it gives for explaining behaviour however it can be said that behaviourism has made commodious contributions to a better understanding of behaviour.Works CitedFlannagan,C (1997) A Level Psychology.London Letts EducationalGentile,B and Miller,B (2008) Foundations of Psychological Thought A History of Psychology.Los Angeles Sage Publications LtdGlassman,W and Hadan,M (2004) Approaches to Psychology.4Ed.BerkshireOpen university Press.R,Gross 2004 Key studies in psychology.3Ed.OxfordHodder and StoughtonGross,R (2009)Psychology. The science of mind and behaviour. 5ed.OxfordHodder and StoughtonMoxon,D and Brewer,K.(2003) Heinemann Psychology.OxfordEducational PublishersRoth,I (2000) Introduction to Psychology.GlasgowBath Press Colour books.