Strengths of the Behaviourist Approach
Behaviourism provides simple, easily testable predictions about behaviour. For example, the effect of reinforcement on behaviour can be easily quantified.
Treatments based on classical or operant conditioning have been effective in treating some disorders. For example, systematic desensitisation can be used to treat Phobias (Wolpe, 1958).
Behaviourism played a key role in making psychology more scientific. For example, most researchers now accept that laboratory experiments with measurable variables are the best form of research.
Limitations of the Behaviourist Approach
Behaviourism’s assumption of a general process of learning does not account for biological predispositions. For example, it is easier to learn phobias of some objects than others (Seligman, 1971).
Behaviourism's assumption that learning takes place through gradual S-R association cannot explain how animals can learn without reinforcement. Tolman & Honzik (1930) showed that rats could learn maps of mazes without operant conditioning.
Behaviourism finds it difficult to explain how humans construct new solutions to problems. For example, children can generate the plural forms of nouns they have never encountered before and could not have learned (Berko, 1958).