Behavioral Sciences

Course 1
 Behavioral Sciences
(The science of behavior)
• Sciences concerned with the study,
observation and explanation of human
behavior either in single individuals or in
groups.
• Behavioral sciences encompass disciplines
that explore the activities of and interactions
among organisms in the natural world.
 Spectrum of Behavioral Sciences
• Psychology
(Will be explained later in this presentation)
• Sociology
The scientific study of society. The study of the
development, nature and laws of human
society.
• Anthropology:
The study of the origins, history, mechanisms and
constitution of human cultures
 Psychology
• Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and
mental processes.
• This definition has 3 main components:
1. Scientific study: Research in psychology employs the
scientific method, which involves orderly and
systematic procedures.
2. Behavior: Ways of adapting to the environment. Every
act of an organism.
3. Mental processes: Workings of the human mind which
are often internal and unobservable; e.g. planning,
problem solving, thinking, attention, memory, etc.
 The scientific method
 Identify a Research Problem
 Design a Study
 Collect and Analyze Data
 Draw Conclusions
 Communicate findings
 Human Behavior
• Behavior involve ways of adapting to the
environment. It refers to every act of an
organism.

• Human behavior is the collection of behaviors

exhibited by human beings.

• Behavior can be:

• Conscious or unconscious,
• Overt or covert (observable or unobservable).
 The objectives of psychology
1. Describe behavior/mental processes
2. Explain behavior/mental processes
3. Predict behavior/mental processes
4. Control behavior/mental processes
 Historical background of psychology
• Greek influence
• Democritus: Believed that the human mind
and body is composed of atoms which could
circulate freely and which penetrated the
whole body.
• According to him, atoms from our
environment enter through our «sense organ»
enabling us to perceive the world around us.
 Plato
• The mind or soul has a distinct power and is
God-given.
• The soul is composed of 3 parts:
• Head – exerts reason
• Heart – noble impulses
• Diaphragm – owns passions and desires.
 Aristotle
• Believed that at birth, the mind is a tabula
rasa.
• Distinguished 3 functions of the soul:
• Vegetative – concerned with basic
maintenance of life.
• Appetitive – motives and desires
• Rational – governing function.
 Pre-modern period
• Descartes – formulated a theory of mind-body
interaction (dualism)
• Locke – tabula rasa.
 Scientific psychology
• The German scientist Wilhelm Wundt opened
the first laboratory and faculty of Psychology
in the University of Leipzig in 1879 and
established the first Psychological Journal in
1881.
• His work focused on consciousness – or the
awareness of immediate experience.
 Modern approaches

• Psychodynamic approach – Freud

• Behaviorism – Skinner & Watson
• Humanistic approach
• Cognitive psychology
• Biological approach
• Evolutionary approach
 Sigmund Freud

• Sigmund Freud – Austrian physician who founded the

psychoanalytic approach to psychology.
• From his work with people with psychological
problems like phobias, irrational fears, and anxieties,
Freud developed a theory based on the existence of
the unconscious. He felt that these disturbances
were based on personal conflicts on an unconscious
level.
 Resistance to unconscious
• The theory initially faced great resistance because of
it’s reliance on unconscious, let alone conscious
events in a time when observable science
dominated.
• Unconscious – collection of thoughts, memories, and
desires that are well below the surface of conscious
awareness but that exert influence on behaviour.
• Psychoanalytic Theory – explains personality,
motivation, and mental disorders by focusing on
unconscious determinants of behaviour.
 Behaviourism
• Behaviourism was founded by John
B. Watson in 1913.
• It stated that scientists should only
study observable behaviour and
that consciousness should be
abandoned because ultimately,
consciousness and perceptions are
private events and cannot be
objectively verified.
• This means that psychology would
suffer from a lack of reliability.
 B.F. Skinner

• Behaviorism gained greater influence in the 1950’s

with the work of B.F. Skinner, who was voted the
most important influence in the history of
psychology.
• By using stimulus and response pairings, he could
control the behavior of rats and pigeons with
remarkable consistency.
 “Free will is an illusion…”
• He discovered the principle that organisms tend to
repeat responses that lead to positive outcomes and
not repeat responses that lead to negative ones.
• This simple principle would go on to form the
foundation of behavior modification used in schools,
prisons, factories and hospitals.
• Skinner’s work sparked heated debates over the
concepts of free will and determinism in his work
“Beyond Freedom and Dignity”. If all our behavior
was determined by external stimuli, what choice did
we really have concerning our behaviors and desires?
 Humanists revolt
• This debate sparked the next wave of
innovation in psychology.
• Humanism was a direct reaction to the
stripping of free will that psychoanalytic
theory and behaviorism entailed.
• Humanism is the approach that emphasizes
the unique qualities of humans, personal
freedom, and personal growth.
 Carl Rogers and Abraham
Maslow

• Humanism was championed by Carl Rogers and

Abraham Maslow. They both believed that human
behaviour is determined by an individual’s “self-
concept”, which animals presumably lack.
• Each of these self-concepts seeks to grow, evolve
and develop and psychological disturbances arise
when these drives are blocked.
 Clinical Psychology

• With the onset of WWI, psychologists were pressed into

service along with every other profession.
• Mental testing of new recruits developed at this time – Binet
Intelligence Test (I.Q.)
• Mental/Psychological injuries from combat identified for the
first time - “Shellshock”
• When WWII broke out, psychologists were again pressed into
service to screen recruits for mental stress.
• After the war ended, these same workers found themselves
treating those affected by the war mentally.
• A new branch of psychology would now focus on therapy and
recovery – professional psychology
 Cognitive Psychology

• Cognition – the mental processes involved in acquiring

knowledge.
• Renewed the belief that thinking was a physical
experience and needed to be studied even though it was
unobservable.
• Piaget – studied children’s cognitive development
• Chomsky – studied language acquisition and cognitive
roots.
 Observing the unobservable
• Cognitive psychology gained influence when James
Olds discovered that stimulating parts of the brain
elicited sensations, memories, and emotions in
patients.
• Roger Sperry – discovered that the right half and left
half of the brain perform specialized functions.
• Begins the mapping of the brain.
• Cognitive processes can now be scientifically
observed.
 Biological Approach

• Advances in knowledge of how the brain works led to

an increase in the research in the biological basis of
human behaviour
• They believed that much of human behaviour can be
explained in terms of the bodily structures and
biochemical processes that allow organisms to
behave.
 Evolutionary Psychology

• Most recent development, pioneered by David Buss

• Examines behavioural processes in terms of their
adaptive value for members of the species over the
course of generations.
• Eg. Men are engineered to behave as hunters and
women as gatherers. Therefore our visual-spatial
organization would be different.
 The Fields of Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Physiological Psychology
• Experimental Psychology
• Personality Psychology
• Clinical and Counseling Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Industrial and Organizational Psychology
 Developmental Psychology
• Study of physical and mental growth from
birth to old age
• Subfields
– Child psychology
– Adolescent psychology
– Life-span psychology
 Physiological Psychology
• Investigates the biological basis of human
behavior
– Neurotransmitters
– Effects of drugs on the nervous system
– Development of the nervous system
– Gender differences in brain structure and function
 Cognitive Psychology
• Perform experiments on basic psychological
processes
– Learning
– Memory
– Sensation and perception
– Cognition
– Motivation
– Emotion
 Personality Psychology
• Study of how people differ from one another
on traits such as
– Anxiety
– Sociability
– Self-esteem
– Need for achievement
– Aggressiveness
Clinical and Counseling Psychology
• Clinical psychologists are concerned with
diagnosis and treatment of psychological
disorders
• Counseling psychologists deal with “normal”
problems, such as stress caused by career
change or marital problems
 Social Psychology
• Study of how people influence one another
• Topics include:
– First impressions
– Interpersonal attraction
– Attitude formation
– Prejudice
– Behavior in a group
 Industrial and Organizational Psychology

• Study of psychological principles in industry

and business
• Examples
– Selecting and training personnel
– Productivity improvement
– Working conditions
– Impact of automation on workers
 Enduring Issues in Psychology
• Person–Situation
– Is behavior caused by factors inside the person or outside?
• Nature-Nurture
– Is a person the product of genetics (nature) or simply the
sum of their experiences (nurture)?
• Stability–Change
– Are behavior patterns learned in childhood permanent or
do people change over time?
• Diversity-Universality
– How are people similar to others and how are
they unique?
• Mind–Body
– What is the relationship between the mind and
the body?