University of Phoenix Material Biological Psychology Worksheet Answer the following questions in short-essay format. Be prepared to discuss your answers. 1. What is biological psychology? Biological psychology, also known as “biopsychology is the scientific study of the biology of behavior” (Pinel, 2009).
Biological Psychology Worksheet Sandra Rodriguez PSY/340 Biological Foundation in Psychology 09/30/2012 Lisa Briand Biological Psychology Worksheet What is biological psychology? Biology is defined as the study of life (from the Greek bios meaning ‘life’ and logos meaning ‘study’). Psychology is defined as the study of the mind so therefore, the definition of biological psychology defines the study as “bringing, together biology and psychology to understand behavior and thought” (Psychology Glossary). Biological psychology is a school of thought that looks at the body to explain what’s going on in the mind. In general to researchers, it’s the study of relationships between behavior and any other body functioning; a link between behavior and the brain or even behavior and the mind.
University of Phoenix Material Biological Psychology Worksheet Answer the following questions in short-essay format. Be prepared to discuss your answers. 1. What is biological psychology? Biological psychology is the study in which we try to understand the processes of the mind and its mental processes.
University of Phoenix Material Biological Psychology Worksheet Answer the following questions in short-essay format. Be prepared to discuss your answers. 1) What is biological psychology? According to page three of Biopsychology by J.P.J. Pinel, biological psychology “is the scientific study of the biology of behavior.” Essentially biological psychology; also known as behavioral neuroscience, looks at the biological reasons for psychological differences.
The DNA in each chromosome carries information called genes. For our entire life these genes influence our body and all its functions. Research on the influence of genes has often been carried out on animals such as rats. Psychologists can then manipulate certain genes so they can measure the effects on human behaviour. Selective breeding, genetic engineering and genetic mapping programmes help us understand the genetic basis of behaviour.
In the area of child development psychology Swiss born Jean Piaget (1896-1980) is the lead name in the constructivism theory. Piaget originally started his life as a biologist. His interest in how organisms develop and adapt to their environment lead to his interest in child development. Piaget described his studies as genetic epistemology; he was interested in the development of knowledge and saw it as an adaptation to the environment, Oates, Sheehy and Wood, (2005,p63). It was Piaget’s opinion that children have to construct their own understanding of the world.
Human development studies began with Darwin and other evolutionists who shared his theories. Darwin wanted to prove his theory of evolution; he believed the only approach to this was him studying human development. (Boyd& Bee, 2006) The definition of a lifespan is the average or minimum length of time an organism, material, or object can be expected to survive or last. (American Heritage Dictionary, 2000) The definition of development based on biology is the process of an individual organism growing organically a purely biological unfolding of events involved in an organism changing gradually from a simple to a more complex level. (Collins English Dictionary, 2003) Ultimately the two words conjoined define the methodical intra-individual change associated with progresses corresponding to age.
Psychologist have studied what makes humans do the things they do, why they do these things, what are the causes for the brain to think in certain ways for years, and if biology plays a role in the development of their personality. In the field of psychology, Abraham Maslow was world-renowned for the creation of his theory, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The Hierarchy of Needs theory that Maslow created has five different stages that start from the bottom with the most basic needs and continue to work its way up to more complex needs. This theory means that humans must satisfy their most basic needs to survive. These physiological needs or basic biological essentials consist of food, sleep, clothing, shelter, breathing, and water.
Alternatively, professor and physician, Jean-Baptiste Denis, used Harvey’s discovery of knowledge about blood and transfusion to create his own experiments. He performed experiments of blood transfusions from dog to dog. He concluded that animal blood can be transfused into human blood. William Harvey constructed concepts with the help of other scientists, while helping other scientists assemble their own
Some of these psychologists believed that “ the basic principles of learning, or acquisition of new behaviour, would be the same in any organism.” (Mc Leod 1993) Because of this belief they set out to understand the psychology of people by observing the behaviours of animals. In the early 1900’s the behaviourist movement was viewed by many people in counseling and psychotherapy as “an impoverished and inadequate vision or image of the human person.” (Mc Leod 1993) However, this movement did have an impact on the upcoming counselors of that era who had a psychology background, in that, they developed behavioural thinking and attitudes. In 1948, Edward Tolman carried out a series of experiments which led them to believe that a stimulus-response model was insufficient to account for behaviour and argued that some form of cognition must have taken place. This then led to the introduction of cognition to behavioural psychology. Throughout their history, behavioural psychologists have looked for ways to link behaviour to psychological and emotional problems.