All behaviours are learned through processes of classical and operant conditioning.
• Classical conditioning- learning by association.
For example, Little Albert had a fear of sudden loud noises as all children do. In this case, at the same time he was given a rat and the loud noise started which later made him to associate the rat with a sudden noise.
Although he also showed a fear of a rat even when there was no noise at all. But before the experiment Little Albert showed no fear at a rat which means that the fear was learned.
• Operant conditioning – learning through reinforcement.
If a behaviour is rewarded it is much more likely to be repeated again and again.
For example, if a child starts to scream and goes into a panic attack parents will receive a lot of attention which will be of course rewarding for them. This can after lead to the behaviour to be repeated in the future. But this can also be seen as an abnormal way of getting what the human wants.
However, behaviourists are focusing only on the influence of external factors which means that they didn’t look at the factors such as genetics. The model has made a variety of treatments but they don’t always address straight to the causes of abnormality but only changing the symptom.
Also, it is absolutely impossible to explain many phobias because this model is told that learning needs to be direct and personally experienced. But this criticism is not very reliable because nowadays SLT proposes that a child can learn fear by just observing mother’s