It is from Ivan Pavlov’s (1849-1939) study of dogs that the behaviourist approach took the theory of classical conditioning. Behaviourism believes we learn to operate in our world by forming associations between a particular stimulus and the most appropriate behavioural response, stimulus response unit’s, which explains why we behave the way we do. Classical conditioning attempts to account for this through learning by association. Watson used this in his conditioning of his case study ‘little Albert’. He conditioned a baby to fear that which he previously had not by associating it with an instinctive fear. Watson was able to conclude from this that phobias are not a result of the unconscious, as psychoanalytic had believed, but were the result of conditioning. E.L. Thorndike’s concluded for his experiments on cats that there were two laws of learning; the law of exercise and the law of effect. The law of exercise stating that the more times a task is carried out the better we become at it; learning having taken place. The law of effect says that there is a link between our behaviour and its consequences. Thorndike showed we not only learned through Pavlov’s stimulus-response conditioned behaviours but also because behaviour has resulted in a positive outcome in the past.

B.F. Skinner, influenced by Thorndike, contributed to behaviourism with the concept of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning requires a reward or unpleasant consequence during the learning process to encourage or discourage us in our learning and repeating of the behaviour. By studying the behaviour of rats Skinner was able to show that behaviour followed by a reinforcing stimulus results in the behaviour occurring more frequently in the future. Positive and negative reinforcement increases the likelihood of a similar response to the stimulus in the future. Punishment should reduce the