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How Is Hardus Lotter Behaviourism

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The purpose of this essay is to explore and understand the cause of Nicolette Lotter and her brother, Hardus Lotter’s behaviour with respect to psychoanalysis and behaviourism. To understand their behaviour, this essay will compare the Psychoanalytic approach and the Behaviourist approach. First the theoretical aspects of these approaches will be discussed respectively and then a comparison of both perspectives in relation to the Nicolette and Hardus.

Behaviourists are concerned with predicting and thus controlling behaviour (Nicholas, 2008; Kalat, 2011). Coon and Mitterer (2012) explain that John B. Watson (1878-1958), who had a doctorate in biology and neurology and later became a psychology professor at Johns Hopkins University, was against …show more content…

Watson extended his interest in animals by concluding that because all species evolve in similar ways it is possible that the behaviour of animals can be related to that of humans (Bernstein, Clake-Stewart, Penner & Roy, 2012). Watson expanded on the idea of conditioning and learning and strongly believed that behaviour was directly caused by a reaction to a stimulus (Coon & Mitterer, 2012). Behaviourism is a learning theory based on the idea that behaviour can be controlled or modified based on the antecedents (previous events that have occurred that can affect the likelihood of a behaviour occurring) and consequences of a behaviour or action. (Watson, 1913,1919) Where behaviour refers to any overt or observable response or activity by an organism. There are three kinds of learning that this essay will elaborate on: operant conditioning, classical conditioning and observational learning, which all affect how an organism reacts or behaves in certain situations. …show more content…

In doing so it was acknowledged that Nicolette and Hardus’ situation can be examined and understood by both behaviourist and psychoanalytic theories. However their case cannot only be understood by these two theories as important factors such as social and biological factors are not dealt with in sufficient detail. Evidence shows that Nicolette and Hardus’ case is not restricted to being understood by only one perspective of

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