Behavioral and social learing approa

Behavioral and Social Learning Approaches
University of Phoenix
Victor Frias
Psy/250
Dra. Noemí Cortes
16 de junio de 2010









Behavioral and Social Learning Approaches
Thebehavioral 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 maincategories 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 hispublication 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 experimentalbranch 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, somemay 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 extremeview 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 successof 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 theimportance 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...