In Studying Human Behavior Contemporary Psychologists Rely Most Heavily On

In Studying Human Behavior Contemporary Psychologists Rely Most Heavily On

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Many psychologists work as health care providers. They assess behavioral and mental function and well-being. Other psychologists study how human beings relate to each other and to machines, and work to improve these relationships.

The use of animal models in psychology research that is not of a neurobiological nature is quite rare in UK laboratories. This may lead many psychologists to consider the use of animals in scientific research as irrelevant to them. With the continued advancement of technologies and non-invasive methodologies, many ask whether experiments involving animals still have a place in psychology and neuroscience research. It is easy to overlook the basic biological investigations that many areas of psychology are built on, and will rely on in the future to continue to develop. I hope to address this issue, offering an explanation as to why animal models are important to contemporary psychology research.

Reductions in neuroscience funding in recent years from research councils as well as the closure of pharma-funded neuroscience institutes in the UK may give the impression that research into neurological deficits, psychological disorders, pharmacological treatment and the underlying basic neuroscience is no longer a priority. This inevitability leads to an opinion that the use of animal models in brain research, be it behavioural, physiological or anatomical, should also not be a priority or a necessity. Despite the reduction in available funding, the fact remains that we still have a long way to go in understanding the human brain, from biological, behavioural, clinical and social perspectives alike. Further research across all aspects of brain science is necessary. In my opinion, animal models continue to provide an important contribution to many areas of brain science. It is evident that the use of animals does not play an important, or arguably even relevant, role in most aspects of contemporary human social, behavioural or cognitive psychology. However, animal models are an important aspect of biological research, including anatomy, physiology, behavioural and cognitive neuroscience. The brain is a complex organ comprising a combination of multiple systems and processes. Without the knowledge gained from work with animals in neuroscience labs on the underlying structure of complex functions, we can never hope to fully understand the social, behavioural and cognitive aspects of the human brain.

Because social psychology concerns the relationships among people, and because we can frequently find answers to questions about human behavior by using our own common sense or intuition, many people think that it is not necessary to study it empirically (Lilienfeld, 2011). But although we do learn about people by observing others and therefore social psychology is in fact partly common sense, social psychology is not entirely common sense.

Among other things, penal institutions require inmates to relinquish the freedom and autonomy to make their own choices and decisions and this process requires what is a painful adjustment for most people. Indeed, some people never adjust to it. Over time, however, prisoners may adjust to the muting of self-initiative and independence that prison requires and become increasingly dependent on institutional contingencies that they once resisted. Eventually it may seem more or less natural to be denied significant control over day-to-day decisions and, in the final stages of the process, some inmates may come to depend heavily on institutional decisionmakers to make choices for them and to rely on the structure and schedule of the institution to organize their daily routine. Although it rarely occurs to such a degree, some people do lose the capacity to initiate behavior on their own and the judgment to make decisions for themselves. Indeed, in extreme cases, profoundly institutionalized persons may become extremely uncomfortable when and if their previous freedom and autonomy is returned.

Behaviorism is dismissed by cognitive scientists developing intricateinternal information processing models of cognition. Its laboratoryroutines or experimental regimens are neglected by cognitiveethologists and ecological psychologists convinced that its methodsare irrelevant to studying how animals and persons behave in theirnatural and social environment. Its traditional relative indifferencetowards neuroscience and deference to environmental contingencies isrejected by neuroscientists sure that direct study of the brain is theonly way to understand the truly proximate causes of behavior.

The problem to which Chomsky refers, which is the problem ofbehavioral competence and thus performance outstripping individuallearning histories, goes beyond merely the issue of linguisticbehavior in young children. It appears to be a fundamental fact abouthuman beings that our behavior and behavioral capacities often surpassthe limitations of individual reinforcement histories. Our history ofreinforcement is often too impoverished to determine uniquely what wedo or how we do it. Much learning, therefore, seems to requirepre-existing or innate representational structures or principledconstraints within which learning occurs. (See also Brewer 1974, butcompare with Bates et al. 1998 and Cowie 1998).

Before the development of this approach, the psychology profession was dominated by the behavioral and psychodynamic approaches. Some psychologists critiqued these approaches as deterministic and pessimistic. Some of the central principles of the humanistic perspective are:

PSY 133 Psychology & Law. This course will focus on applications of psychology to the study of the legal system. Drawing on theory and research from a range of areas within psychology (cognitive, developmental, clinical, and physiological, with a particular emphasis on social psychology), we will examine a variety of topics, including: criminal behavior; police interrogations and suspect confessions; lie detection; eyewitness performance; children as witnesses; persuasion in the courtroom and jury decision-making; the insanity defense. Class will consist of guest speakers, lectures, and demonstrations, but will rely heavily on student-led discussion of assigned readings.

It is part of the human condition to crave knowledge. Consequently, numerous scientists, psychologists, and thought leaders have devoted their careers to studying learning theories. Understanding how people learn is a critical step in optimizing the learning process.

Educational theories have come a long way since the days of Socrates and even the pioneers of behaviorism and cognitivism. And while learning theories will no doubt continue to evolve, teachers and students alike can reap the benefits of this evolution as we continue to develop our understanding of how humans most effectively learn.

The scientific study of children began in the late nineteenth century and blossomed in the early twentieth century as pioneering psychologists sought to uncover the secrets of human behavior by studying its development.

Archaeology is the study of human behavior through material culture, the things we rely on for survival. Behavioral change was likely a driving factor in the evolution of our species, and archaeology therefore plays a central role in understanding human origins from the beginning of the known archaeological record some 2.5 million years ago. From its origins to subsequent diversification, the material record of human behavioral innovation provides an essential learning tool for understanding human behavioral diversity and also serves as a gateway to critical thinking in education.

In addition to providing a potentially different time perspective on the past, the relatively abundant archaeological traces from about 2.5 million years onward signal our increasing reliance on material culture as a key element of human survival and socialization (Table 1). Unlike most other animals, humans have long relied extensively on material items for basic survival needs (e.g., tools for hunting and cutting), as we lack, for example, the claws or sharp canine teeth of most carnivores. In addition to a complex knowledge of animal behavior and plant properties, human hunting and gathering involves bows, arrows, traps, digging sticks, and other items of material culture. Indeed, the earliest archaeological traces suggest hominins used tools to gain access to food and that natural selection may have favored those hominin groups with ready access to meat, marrow, and other food items more readily obtainable with tools.

Fossils found at early archaeological sites also show changes in the types of food hominins acquired and the distances they were transported. Early hominins such as H. habilis were probably often out-competed by carnivores, rarely acquired meat, and when they did, likely consumed it a short distance from the kill site (Faith et al. 2009). But by 50,000 years ago and probably much earlier, hominins were acquiring a diverse range of animals and transporting selected pieces with the most meat or nutritional value to home bases (Assefa 2006). Increasingly diverse wild game and careful selection of nutritionally rich elements may signal better hunting and has at least two more important implications. First, greater hunting skill combined with increased human population size had the consequence of putting substantial stress on local animal species, many of which underwent local population depletions or extinctions, at which point human hunters switched to different species, often with similar disastrous results on these other animal populations (Kuhn and Stiner 2001). Evidenced by this example, human impact on the environment is a very ancient story. A second important feature of food selection (particularly large game) and its transport to a home base or camp is that the transportation of the food, and its delayed consumption, provides the context for sharing amongst a larger group and thus the formation of the complex social obligations. It may also contribute to the sexual division of labor and changes in life history patterns that include extended periods of learning and paternal provisioning of young that are among the foundations of human society (Bird and O'Connell 2006; Hawkes et al. 1991, 1998; Isaac 1978). 2b1af7f3a8