Describe and evaluate the core theory of atypical behaviour (10

marks)

Behaviourists are psychologists that believe that behaviours are learnt instead of
them being natural. Behaviourist theory believes that people learn and develop a
phobia rather than being born phobic. Many people link their fear of an object or
situation to something bad they have experienced. For instance, if someone is
scared of needles, it may have been because they had a bad experience with it
as a child, thus causing a phobia. This I known as classical conditioning learning
by association; learn to associate a certain response with a certain stimulus.
However, even behaviourists do take into account that some behaviour are not
learnt, but are instinctive instead. This is called unconditioned response. This
contains of instinctive responses such as sexual arousal and anxiety.
Unconditioned responses are triggered by unconditioned stimulus. They can be
objects or events that naturally cause the reaction such as a threat may cause us
to be anxious. Yet, sometimes these responses happen in the presence of a
neutral stimulus. Neutral stimuli dont cause a reaction. However we assume it
does when we experience something good or bad. For example if a person ate
chips and got sick -vomited, they may assume chips cause a bad reaction every
single time. This is an example of classical conditioning. Therefore each of the
neutral stimuli is then described as a conditioned stimulus because they trigger a
learnt response. A reaction to a conditioned stimulus is called a conditioned
response. If we fear wasps there would be a great chance of us fearing bees and
house flies. This is called Stimulus Generalisation because we associate things
that are similar which would later develop as a phobia. Phobias can also become
extinct via the process of extinction. In classical conditioning, when a conditioned
stimulus is presented alone, it no longer predicts the coming of the
unconditioned stimulus, conditioned responding gradually stops. (For example,
after Pavlov's dog was conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell, it eventually
stopped salivating to the bell after the bell had been sounded repeatedly but no
food Also operant conditioning is a term used by the behaviourist to describe
learning by consequences. If the consequences of an action are worthwhile we
learn to do them again. Yet if the consequences are not good, we are likely not to
do it again. Atypical behaviours are learnt in the same manner as typical
behaviours.

One criticism of atypical behaviour is the fact behaviourists ignore the mind and
the thinking behind the behaviour. For example, two people may have been
attacked on a dark night. One may think rationally and realise that they are
unlikely to be a victim of the attack again. Another might think irrationally and
decide there are lots of potential attackers lurking in the dark. Therefore they
may develop a phobia of the dark.
Another criticism is that, Behaviourists cannot explain the fact that some people
have phobias of objects and situations that they have no direct (or indirect)

experience of. For example, a number of British people have a phobia of snakes
even though they are unlikely to come across one. It could be that some phobias
have more to do with nature!