Term
| What are the 3 principle? |
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Definition
- There are biological correlates of behavior.
- Animal Research can provide insight in human behavior.
- Human behaviors is, to some extent, genetically based. |
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Term
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Definition
| Biological psychology is a type of psychology that relates to both biology and psychology in order to understand behavior and thought. Biological psychology looks at the link between biology and psychological events such brain processes on memory/information, neurotransmitters, hormones, and genes. There are three main principles that define the biological level of analysis. |
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Term
| Explain the 1st Principle |
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Definition
| The first principle claims that behaviors have a biological correlate. Which means that there are physiological origins of behavior such as hormones, genes, brain areas, and neurotransmitters. This biological level of analysis is based on reductionism, which attempt to explain certain behavior in term of causes. |
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Term
| 1st Principle: CASE STUDIES? |
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Definition
| Few case studies were performed to support the principle, ones are called Newcomer et al in 1999. The aim of the research was to investigates how levels of cortisol interfere with verbal declarative memory. The participants were interview and exceptions to the participants was from their past pregnancy, mental illness, suffered head trauma or illness. The procedure was to divide participants into 3 groups which the 1st group participants in the high level cortisol group were given tablet containing 160 mg of cortisol for per day. The 2nd group participants in the low level cortisol were given table containing 40 mg of cortisol per day. The 3rd group participants were a control group and were offered placebo tablets. Participants were asked to listened to a prose paragraph and had to recall it as they were tested for their verbal declarative memory. This memory is often known to affected during longterm stress, and the results showed that group1 showed the wort performance on the test compared to group 2 and 3. The researcher concluded that an increase in cortisol over a period has a negative effect on memory. |
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Term
| Explain the 2nd Principle |
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Definition
| Principle 2: Animal researcher can provide insight into human behavior which simply means that the researchers use animals to study physiological processes, because it is assumed that biological processes in humans are same compared to animals. One main reason for using animal to an experiment is that research where humans cannot be used for ethical reasons. |
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Term
| 2nd Principle: CASE STUDIES? |
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Definition
| Case studies that supported this principle are called Rosenzweig and Bennet in 1972 which performed an experiment to investigate whether environmental factors such as an impoverished environment affect development of neurons in the brain. The experiment participants were rats. The procedure was to divided rats into 2 groups: an enriched environment group whom receive no stimulation and were isolated, while another group, impoverished environments that were given stimulus objects to explore, and maze training. The rats spent between 30 to 60 days in their respective environments before they were killed so the researcher would be able to study changes in their brain. The result was that the brains of rats in an enriched environment had increased thickness and higher weight of the cortex while the impoverished environment rats had developed more acetylcholine receptors in the cerebral cortex. There are ethical issues in the use of animals in research as this. Since the results contributed to a much better understanding of the role of environmental factors in brain it can be argued that the research was justified in spite of the ethical issues. |
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Term
| Explain the 3rd Principle |
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Definition
| 3rd Principle: Human behavior is, to some extent, genetically based. This means that behavior can, to some extent, be explained by genetic inheritance, although this is rarely the full explanation since genetic inheritance should be seen as genetic predisposition which can be affected by environmental factors. |
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Term
| 3rd Principle: CASE STUDIES? |
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Definition
| Case Studies such as Minnesota Twin Family Study supported the principle. As two twins were separated since birth but as it turns out, they have really similar personalities and traits. Even with different environments, parents, friends, and they were raised differently. They still turn out to be really similar in terms of their personality. This shows how behavior is, to some extent, genetically based. It is debatable whether human behavior is nature or nurtured but we can agree on the fact that it is some what genetically based. In this experiment on the Minnesota Twin, it showed us that even though the twins were raised up in two different places. They still had traits that were similar such as their personality. Proving that genetics partly shapes our behavior. |
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