Behavioral Psychology

(introduction)
Ashfaq Ahmad sahil
Lecturer INS (KMU)

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 Objectives

At the end of this unit learners will be able to:

• Define term Psychology.
• Describe goals of psychology.
• Explain historical roots of modern psychology.
• Identify different school of thoughts.
• Define Behavioral Psychology.
• Outline the major perspectives which developed
into modern psychology.

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 WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?
• “Psychology is the scientific study of behavior
and mental processes …. Human or Animal”
• Behavior is overt, manifest, obvious, and easy to
study; the mental processes that help carryout
these behaviors are covert, underlying, hidden,
and not easy to study.
• Besides behavior, what causes these behaviors
to occur and the mental processes involved in it
is an important area of interest for a psychologist.
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 Goals of Psychology
• To understand the nature and mechanisms of
behavior and mental processes
• To develop an understanding of the relationship
between behavior and mental processes.
• To apply this understanding to real life situations
and, on the basis of this understanding, predict
for the future.
• To employ the scientific approach for developing
this understanding.

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 5 Goals of Psychology
1. Observe
– Exam, watch, or interview a person’s behavior.
2. Describe
– Record specific behavior under certain situations.
3. Explain
– Give reasons for behavior in terms of feeling of anxiety or
distraction.
4.Predict
– Determine how a person will behave under a certain situation.
5. Control
– Change the behavior or mental process by teaching patient
new ways of keeping their anxiety under control.
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 Historical Roots of Modern Psychology

Study of Soul

Study of Mind

Study of
Conscious
Experience

Study of
Behavior

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 Study of Soul
• In 1590, Rudolf Goeckel used the term “psychology”. This
word is the combination of two Greek words “ psyche” and “
logos”, the former means the “ soul” and the later “ discursive
knowledge”.
• Thus literally, psychology means the science of soul.
• Aristotle gave a very important place to soul in human life.
• Life has no meaning without soul. But he couldn’t explain the
relationship of the soul to the body.
• The problem of the relationship between body and soul
persisted for centuries.
• Later on, the spiritual aspect was discarded altogether and
substituted by a more comprehensive word “mind”.
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 Study of Mind
• Psychology was also defined as the “science of mind”. But
psychologists were never satisfied with this definition
because mind was a vague term that could not be defined
in objective terms.
• Mind and mental experiences were primarily subjective in
nature. Therefore the later psychologists switched their
positions and began investigations into behavior that was
an objective and observable phenomenon.
• The “mind approach” in psychology was rejected because
mind can not be studied using scientific procedures;
besides there is no scientific way to determine whether an
entity such as mind actually exists.
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 Study of Consciousness

• Psychology has also been defined as the science of

consciousness.
• Structuralism, an important early school of thought in
psychology, considered psychology as the study of
conscious experience.
• In the words of Wilhelm Wundt, “psychology has to
investigate that which we call internal processes or
experiences---- i.e., our own sensations and feelings, our
thoughts and wishes in contradistinction to the subject of
external experience”.

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 Cont.…….

• The word consciousness does not include

animal or human behavior.
• Psychology also studies unconscious and
sub- conscious processes.
• Therefore there is sufficient rationale
behind the belief that it cannot be called
the science of consciousness alone.

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 Study of Behavior
• Modern psychologists define it as a science of behavior,
both of animals and humans.
• It was Watson, the founder of the behaviorist school of
thought, who postulated this definition.
• This definition is comprehensive in the sense that it
identifies behaviors that are overt and can be observed. But
this definition also has some limitations.
• This definition takes behavior in a very narrow sense;
behavior, as Watson saw it, was merely stimulus-response.
• Behavior, for modern psychologists, includes both the overt
behavior as well as the mental processes that accompany
those behaviors i.e., the inner experiences that carry out
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those behaviors
 Earlier Schools Of Thought
• Structuralism: focused on studying the conscious
experience by looking into its individual parts or elements.
• Structuralism entailed early concepts of psychology and
primarily used the procedure called introspection (in which
the subjects were asked to describe in detail what they
were experiencing when they were exposed to a
• stimulus) in order to study the mind.
• Functionalism: It is an approach that concentrated on
what the mind does; the functions of mental activity, and
the role of behavior in allowing people to adapt to their
environments.
• This school founded by the American psychologist William
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James.
 Cont.….

• Gestalt psychology: focused on studying the whole

experience of a person rather than breaking it into
individual components.
• They concentrated on how people consider individual
elements as units or wholes.

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 What is behavioral psychology?

• “Behavioral psychology is the study of the connection

between our minds and our behavior”.
• Sometimes you will hear behavioral psychology referred to
as behaviorism.
• The researchers and scientists who study behavioral
psychology are trying to understand why we behave the way
we do and they are concerned with discovering patterns in
our actions and behaviors.
• The hope is that if we can use behavioral psychology to help
us predict how humans will behave, we can build better
habits as individuals, create better products as companies,
and develop better living spaces as communities.
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 What is Behavior?

Any action that others can observe and measures:

–Walking

–Talking

–Physical movements

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 Prevalent Approaches / Models /
Perspectives
• Biological Approach
• The psychological model that views behavior from the
perspective of biological functioning..
• An understanding of biochemical processes will give an
understanding of psychological and social phenomena.
• Physical structures and hereditary processes determine
behavior or behavior potential.
• Physical/physiological interventions can alter mental
processes and behavior.
• Root cause of abnormalities and disorders lies in biology
and requires medical intervention.
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 Neurotransmitters
• Neurotransmitters and Their Role
• Acetylcholine: Learning, Memory and Muscle control
• Dopamine: Motor activity, Coordination, Emotion and
Memory
• Epinephrine: Emotion, Stress
• GABA (Gamma-Amino Butyric Acid): Anxiety,
Arousal, Learning
• Serotonin: Sensory Processing, Sleep, Arousal
• Glutamate: Anxiety, Mood

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 Psychodynamic Approach

• The approach that concentrates on the belief that

behavior is motivated by the inner forces, over which
individuals have little control.
• Founded by the Viennese physician Sigmund Freud in
early 1900s.
• Psychodynamic perspective give importance to the inner
unconscious experiences and the forces that led that
behavior.
• Freud’s work has provided a way not only for treating
mental disorders but also for understanding everyday
phenomena such a prejudice and aggression.

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 Cont.….
• One of the main ideas is that there is an inner
tension for the fulfillment of instincts, the tension
leads to action for fulfillment, the fulfillment leads
to reduced tension.
• Psychodynamic Model of Personality is a three-
part structure of the mind; containing id, ego and
super ego.

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 Behaviorist / Behavioral Approach

• The psychological model that focuses on the overt

observable behavior.
• This is a psychological approach that considers the
relationship between behavior and environmental stimuli
as the focus of study.
• The model emerged as a reaction to the earlier
approaches that emphasized the significance of hidden,
underlying, predetermined forces.
• The behaviorists suggest that observable behavior alone
should be the main area of interest to psychology.

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 Cont.….
• The Law of Effect: Any response that leads to an
outcome that is satisfying for the organism is likely to be
repeated; a response leading to an outcome that is not
satisfying is not likely to be repeated.

• Classical Conditioning: The Theory

• Is a type of learning in which a previously neutral
stimulus starts eliciting a response that was originally
attached to a natural stimulus, because the neutral
stimulus has been closely associated with the other
stimulus.
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 Humanistic Approach
• The psychological model, that suggests that people are in control of
their lives.
• It is considered as one of the most recent approaches to
psychology.
• This approach rejected the view, that predetermined, automatic,
biological forces, unconscious processes or the environment
determines behavior.
• It proposes that people themselves decide about their lives.
• A failure in being capable of doing so leads to psychological
problems.
• It also stresses the idea that people, by nature, tend to move
towards higher levels of maturity and maximum potential.
• Free will: Humans possess the ability to make decisions about 22
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their
life.
 Cognitive Approach

• The psychological model that focuses on how

people know, understands, and thinks about the
world.
• Main emphasis is on how people understand of
the world, and their thinking, affects their
responses; how it may lead to positive or
negative psychological consequences, and even
health-related outcomes.
• Such processes include perception, memory,
thinking, problem solving, imagining, and
• language.
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 Evolutionary Approach

• How human behaviors required for

survival have adopted in the face of
environmental pressures & evolution.
• Influenced by Darwin.

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 Sociocultural Perspective

• Importance of social and cultural

influences on behavior, as well as
interpreting others behaviors.

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