Psychological approaches to coaching and mentoring (1 of 4)

There are 4 main learning approaches in psychology that we need to consider when it comes to coaching: behaviourist, cognitivist, humanist and social constructivist.

The behaviourist approach

This is focused on changing someone’s behaviour based on classic conditioning or stimulus and response. A typical example is the well-known Pavlov’s dog (McLeod) experiment. Another method used in this approach is operant conditioning, which is about achieving behavioural change using the consequences of positive or negative reinforcement or punishment. An example of positive reinforcement in an organisational context would be to reward good performance with a bonus or a simple smile or choosing a well-rounded employee for a special project.

The behaviourist approach is based on determinism, meaning that people don’t consciously choose their behaviour, they have no free will, their behaviour is merely the result of the surrounding environment, genes etc.

The most important behaviourists are: Ivan Pavlov, John Watson, B. F. Skinner, Albert Bandura and Fred Luthans.

Some behavioural techniques include (Peel, 2005, p. 20), (Peltier, 2010):

- Behavioural objectives and feedback on them,

- goal setting to observe measurable behaviour,

- cover rehearsal or visualisation techniques,

- observing an expert behaviour or role modelling,

- and a variety of other facilitative techniques including discussion and demonstrations.

Behavioural approaches are useful in many ways for coaching:

- Methods can be used to help the client understand their behaviour (self-awareness) e.g. 360 feedback as a benchmark

- Clients can be taught the importance and effect on their organisation.

- It is very easy to create measurement and metrics (very important in a corporate environment).

- It is good to treat coaching as an experiment to gather data about the problem, then adjust plans according to the results.

The weaknesses of this approach are that it can be very difficult to isolate the reinforcers of a complex behaviour from each other. Also, in my experience, working with only behavioural techniques can be seen as very simplistic and don’t produce long lasting results.

These methods are great when you work with an active, motivated, healthy individual or with people who are not very comfortable initially to go into deeper levels. Once rapport has been established and is strong, I use behavioural techniques as checkpoints.