Examples of behavioral neuroscience in the following topics:
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- The fields of behavioral neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and neuropsychology are all subfields of biological psychology.
- Because all behavior is controlled by the central nervous system, biopsychologists seek to understand how the brain functions in order to understand behavior.
- Behavioral neuroscience has a strong history of contributing to the understanding of medical disorders, including those that fall into the realm of clinical psychology.
- Philosophers like Rene Descartes proposed physical models to explain animal and human behavior.
- The emergence of both psychology and behavioral neuroscience as legitimate sciences can be traced to the emergence of physiology during the 18th and 19th centuries; however, it was not until 1914 that the term "psychobiology" was first used in its modern sense by Knight Dunlap in An Outline of Psychobiology.
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- Similar to clinical psychology in many respects, counseling psychology focuses on the assessment and treatment of emotional and behavioral disorders.
- It focuses on the psychology of the workforce, including issues such as recruitment, selecting employees from an applicant pool, performance appraisal, job satisfaction, work behavior, stress at work, and management.
- This subfield focuses on the biological aspects of behavior and mental processes, and there are different specialties within this subfield.
- For instance, physiological psychology uses animal models to study the neural, genetic, and cellular mechanisms that underlie specific behaviors; cognitive neuroscience investigates the neural correlates of human psychological processes using neural-imaging tools; and neuropsychology uses psychological assessments to determine the extent of cognitive deficits caused by brain damage or disease.
- Comparative psychology is the scientific study of the behavior and mental processes of nonhuman animals, especially as they relate to adaptive significance and the development of behavior, which can lead to a deeper and broader understanding of human psychology.
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- Understanding the brain is of vital importance to psychologists because of its influence over behavior and mental states.
- Psychology is commonly defined as the scientific study of
behavior and mental processes.
- Neuroscience is a relatively new field, but
the more research that is done, the more it appears that much of human behavior
and mental processes—the key interests for psychological study—are intimately
intertwined with activity in the brain.
- Lesions are important to the study of brain and behavior because if a psychologist sees a person with a partially damaged brain and then sees changes in that person’s behavior, those behavioral changes can often be attributed to the brain damage.
- This gives us more information about neuroanatomy and also about the influence the brain has on behavior.
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- One of the most extensively studied behavioral traits is intelligence.
- Educational neuroscience, or neuroeducation, seeks to link an understanding of genetics and brain processes with how people learn, for the purpose of informing classroom instruction and experiences.
- Educational neuroscience seeks to link an understanding of genetics and brain processes with how people learn for the purpose of informing classroom instruction and experience.
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- Social psychology includes the subfields of cognitive social psychology and social neuroscience.
- Social perceptions can influence an individual's behaviors and attitudes.
- Second, social psychology attempts to describe the influence that individual perceptions and behaviors have on the behavior of groups.
- Third, social psychology explains the dynamics of groups as behavioral entities.
- It involves questions about the nature of social behavior: for example, does social behavior ultimately stem from the individual, or is it largely a product of socialization, interaction, and greater social structures?
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- When people with social anxiety disorder are unable to avoid situations that provoke anxiety, they typically perform safety behaviors: mental or behavioral acts that reduce anxiety in social situations by reducing the chance of negative social outcomes.
- Research into the causes of social anxiety and social phobia is wide-ranging, encompassing multiple perspectives from neuroscience to sociology.
- One of the most well-established risk factors for developing social anxiety disorder is behavioral inhibition (Clauss & Blackford, 2012).
- A recent statistical review of studies demonstrated that behavioral inhibition was associated with a greater-than sevenfold increase in the risk of development of social anxiety disorder, indicating that behavioral inhibition is a major risk factor for the disorder (Clauss & Blackford, 2012).
- The cognitive and behavioral components seek to change thought patterns and physical reactions to anxiety-inducing situations.
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- Modern neuroscience has taken a more serviceable approach to the field of emotions.
- Emotion is also linked to behavioral tendency.
- Our behavioral response to emotional stimuli is a product of the various brain processes.
- These automatic responses are one way our emotions affect our behavior.
- Explain the role of cognition in the processing and experiencing of emotions and their influence on behavior
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- Social cognition is a specific approach of social psychology (the area of psychology that studies how people's thoughts and behaviors are influenced by the presence of others) that uses the methods of cognitive science.
- For example, if there is one female in a group of seven males, female gender schemas may be more accessible and influence the group's thinking and behavior toward the female group member.
- People with autism, psychosis, antisocial personality disorder, and other disorders show differences in social behavior compared to their unaffected peers.
- However, cases like Phineas Gage's suggest that there is some kind of relationship between neural activity and social behavior.
- Phineas Gage's brain damage became an important case study in the field of psychology; damage to his frontal lobe with a tamping iron (pictured) changed his social behavior, leading psychologists to believe that there were neural aspects of behavior.
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- Neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience are two disciplines that seek to understand how the structure and function of the brain relates to perception, memory, and thought processes behind behavior.
- As the disease advances, symptoms can include problems with language, disorientation (including easily getting lost), mood swings, loss of motivation, not managing self care, and behavioral issues.
- Treatment of behavioral problems or psychosis due to dementia with antipsychotics is common; however, it is often not recommended due to its limited benefit and the increased risk of early death associated with it.
- Later, thinking and behavioral problems may arise, with dementia commonly occurring in the advanced stages of the disease, whereas depression is the most common psychiatric symptom.
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- This approach is still used today in modern neuroscience research; however many scientists criticize the use of introspection for its lack of empirical approach and objectivity.
- Built on structuralism's concern for the anatomy of the mind, functionalism led to greater concern of the functions of the mind, and later on to behaviorism.
- Functionalism considers mental life and behavior in terms of active adaptation to the person's environment.
- Functionalism's emphasis on the scientific study of the adaptive functions of behaviors and mental processes advanced the study of psychology as a science.