Importance of Biology in understanding human behaviour.

Behaviour of an individual is guided mainly by biological and socio cultural factors.(combination of nature and nurture)

Biological factor include:

ØHeredity,

ØRole of nervous system,

ØNeurotransmitters and

ØDifferent hormones secreted by glands.

These biological factors are very much important in determining behaviour.

Human beings are biosocial creatures. This is the reason biology is needed in psychological understanding of organism’s behavior.

ØIt describes behavior and cognition related to biological process.

ØIt studies neuroscience with the functioning of genes, nervous system, the brain and endocrine glands.

ØIt describes how neurons function in learning process,thinking,emotions,motivations etc.
ØIt gives insight to hereditary factors to describe behavior.(eg-twinstudy,intelligence,personality
etc)
ØIt provides insight into the problems of human behaviour having maladjustment symptoms

Eg-oHippocampus and Amygdala are involved in formation of new memories.

oImbalance in the neurotransmitters Dopamine and serotonin may underlie mental disturbances like schizophrenia and depression.

Neuron

Cell is the basic unit of living organism.

Neuron- Neuron is a Cell of Nervous  system or,

It is the Basic Unit of Nervous System

Nervous System- It consists of all the Nerves in our Body, together with our Brain and Spinal Cord.

The human body is composed of different types of Cells like

   ØBone cells,
ØMuscle cells,
ØBlood cellsØBody cells ,ØNerve Cell etc..

“All neurons are Cells but all cells are not Neurons”

Each type consists millions of tiny cells, and forms a single unit which has a specialized function.

“The duty of carrying Electrical Messages from one part of the body to the other has been assigned to Nerve Cells/Neuron.”

Neuron

ØNeuron is the basic unit of Nervous system . A nerve cell with all its branches is called a Neuron.

ØNeuron is defined as the structural and functional unit of Nervous system that process and transmits information of nervous system .It is otherwise called as Nerve cell.

ØNeuron is like any other cell in the body having nucleus .

ØThe duty of carrying Electrical Messages from one part of the body to other has been assigned to neuron.

Types of Neuron according to their function.

1.Motor Neuron

2.Sensory Neuron 3.Inter Neuron

Functions of Neurons

vReceiving the information – Neuron Receives the changes that occurs around

the environment of an organism.

vProcessing the information – Finally, Coordinate to adapt to that Changed Situation.

vTransmitting the information – It Circulates the changed information all over the body. 

Psychology

Psychology is derived from two Greek Word

Psyche (soul) + logos (study or, Science)

In its history of evolution. Psychology was known as the Study of the Soul.

Gradually as the study of Mind ,Consciousness

 And  the Study of Behaviour.

Today it is considered as the Science of Behaviour and Mental process.

Before arriving to the modern definition, psychology went to a very  difficult period or, It had undergone several stages and Meaning

The main four stages of psychology are :-

vPhilosophical stage- Study of Soul/Mind

v

vStructural stage till -Science of mental life, Consciousness

v

vBehaviorist stage- Science as the observable behaviour

v

vModern stage , Till  date - Today it is considered as the Science of Behaviour and Mental process.

Definition of Psychology

According to NL Munna, ” Psychology is concerned with the Scientific investigation of behaviour”.

Crow and Crow, ” Psychology is the study of human behaviour and human relationship”.

Edwin Boring,1939  “what is man? To this question Psychologist seeks an answer”

Recently, David G. Myers (1997) defined psychology as 'the science of behavior and mental processes'.

Robert S. Feldman in 2000 defined psychology as the 'scientific study of human behavior and mental processes.‘

Meaning of Behaviour

qBehavior is the sum total activity of a person that reflect directly or indirectly.

q Behaviour includes anything of a person or animal which can be observed in some way.

q

vThe term behaviour includes all the motor , cognitive  and affective activities:

 Motor Activities - (Walking, Swimming, Dancing, etc)

Cognitive Activities - (Thinking, Reasoning ,Imagining etc)

Affective Activities -  (Feeling Happy, Sad ,Angry etc).

It Includes The activities of Subconscious and unconscious mind .similarly, Overt and Covert Behaviour.

vOvert – behavior that can be observed directly

Covert - Internal Subjective Experiences. or measured through special instruments or techniques.

 Such as: Sensation, Thought, Emotions, Feelings and Motives that others cannot directly observe

vPsychologist Studies the Behavior of All living organism.a)Human beings 
b)Animals      
c)Insects       
d)Birds and sometime even plants.

In 1913 ,J.B Watson became the first psychologist to make human behaviour the centre of psychology. He established the School of Behaviorism in psychology.

Similarly, Famous psychologists like ‘Pavlov and skinner’ Further developed the school of Behaviorism.

1.Pre-conscious- Past incident which is easy to remember( How was your Christmas, Birthday, Dashera Celebration etc last year) It is also called  Sub-conscious. The thought wishes, desires, motives needs to be pushed up to bring to the conscious level.

 2.Conscious- It is the immediate, awareness. It represents current thoughts, feelings emotions of a given moment. Knowing the general things (Which color you are wearing today? Who is sitting beside you).

3.Unconscious Mind- UNCONSCIOUS lies beneath(under) the preconscious level.

It consists of thoughts, wishes, feelings and impulses that people are unaware of. This can be brought back into consciousness with help of psychologists through psychological instruments and techniques.

Unconscious material are directly denied to the conscious level because many of our unconscious material are painful/ that may hamper our sensations and lower our self esteem, saddening us and so on.

•

 

S-R and S-O-R

S- Stimulus (Input)

O-Organism (processing)

R- Response (output)

vS- Stimulus (Input)Stimulus is the Variable which initiates activity for e.g.- Lights, Sounds Incentives .

Stimulus sometimes is referred in terms of the sense organ which is affected e.g. Visual stimulus, auditory stimulus and so on…

vO-Organism (processing)It is known as individual variables (of any age sex, education level, personal values, aspirations, intelligence, thoughts which has great role in organism for resulting response)

vR- Response (output)Responses are different depending upon the species and stimulus e.g. Blinking eye is the response to an intense light(stimulus),Crying in pain, smile while being happy etc..

Later, John B. Watson criticized the content (consciousness) and method (introspection) of Wundt's psychology. It is subjective and it is socially colorful.

And Watson (1913) put forwarded the idea that “psychology an objective/positive science or, “psychology is the science of behavior".

His theory is called behaviorism and it focuses on behavior not the mind. (This is S-R approach to psychology)

S means stimulus and

R means response.

Behavior (B =  [S(stimulus)+R(Response)]

He said that “Behavior is observable and measurable with objective technique”. Behaviorism always emphasizes the study of observable behavior.

S-R psychology dominated the field of psychology for several decades. Later, the observable behavior (S-R) failed to explain many complex behaviors.

Later, S-R paradigm led to the conception of S-O-R view of human behavior. This view emphasized both behavior and cognitive processes are important to examine and to get a complete picture of human functioning.

In other words, the concept of behavior is broadened with the S-O-R view. Both 'subjective' and 'objective' psychology is combined and organized in this period.

Other perspectives like Psychoanalysis and Gestalt psychology were also in practice,

Gestalt-Concept of whole greater than its small

Psychoanalytic- Behaviour is guided by inner /hidden forces.

Psychoanalyst and Gestalt psychologists look at the 'subjective' (or inner) world of the individual and tried to find out the meaning and source of the behavior 'inside' the individual.where,Behaviorist looks 'outside' (environment and person's response) for explanation of human behavior.

Recently, David G. Myers (1997) defined psychology as 'thRobert S. Feldman in 2000 defined psychology as the 'scientific study of human behavior and mental processes.‘

In the modem definition key terms include scientific study of human behavior and mental or cognitive processes.

It is accepted now that psychology is concerned with both observed behavior and cognitive processes (such as perception, thinking, and motivation and so on) in their attempt to understand human behavioral phenomena.

•

The subject matter of psychology is human beings/Living Organism and the unit of analysis is behavior (overt and covert).

S-R:---This theory believes that organism responds according to the nature of stimulus(Stimulus response

Watson and Pavlov advocates this concept

This approach believes that nature of stimulus and nature of organism play role in the particular response (stimulus- organism- Response)

Methods of studying Psychology

Psychology is termed as the scientific study of Behaviour.

There are number of methods and techniques depending upon the types and nature of the condition which observation have been recorded :

1.Experimental Method

2.Observation Method

3.Clinical Method

4.Statistical Method

5.Survey Method

Case History Method

1.Observation Method:

vThis method is easy simple and traditional.

vIt provides valuable information about human behaviour.

vHuman behaviour is more extensively understood in its own environment rather than in a laboratory.

vObservation may be Subjective or Objective.

Subjective observation- It is the process by which the people ,rather than outsider observe their own feelings desires and experiences (Introspection).

A person is encouraged to voice out their feelings by giving them Questionnaires, through discussion and interviews and also by giving them topic to speak on.

2.Experimental Method:

It is widely used method.Ruch (1970) ,the most highly developed ,Formalize and accurate of all scientific method is experimental method.

In 1979,Wundt established first psychology laboratory.The experiments or research takes place in special laboratories under artificially controlled conditions. which requires special equipments ,well planned and facilitated laboratory , equipments , Subject and experimenter, problems, objectives, hypothesis etc,,,

In Experimental method certain hypothesis is framed on the basis of the previous findings are tested by systematically

Limitations:

vThis method cannot be used on situation of choice

vIt is difficult to keep the person controlled fully.

vIt is very difficult to study unconscious mind of individual fully.

vSometime a person shows irregular behaviour in a controlled environment. So reliability may decrease.

2.Clinical Method This is used only when people come to psychologists with personal problems.  Information is collected by interviewing the person.  They collect complete history of the subject and record in the format of case study/case history. 

3.Statistical Method- From 17th Centaury onwards this method has become a very important tool in analyzing the various human affairs. The term statistical method refers to the method that is used to measure social phenomena mathematically. It also helps to analyze the collected data.

4) Survey Method – Survey is the research methods in which standard set of questions are asked to a large number of participants.In survey, large amount of information is usually gathered from a large population very quickly.Polling is one example of survey method. This method is very useful in finding out the attitudes, values  toward something.Survey may be carried out either through use of interview or written questionnaire. Either closed ended (or multiple choice questions) or open ended questions (in which the participants have freedom to respond) are used during interview. In questionnaire method a set of questionnaire is given to respondents and ask to respond it.To understand Human behaviour ,survey method is more important than observation or experimental method.

This method uses Questionnaires,interviews,rating scales etc..to collect information.

Information usually collects on mass. Such as Election, Consumers interest, thoughts of family planning, women's right etc…

Analysis of information received from this method gives light on inner mentality of an average person.

The survey method must be conducted by a trained and experienced person

5)Case Study Method: Practice derived from legal study.This method helps in qualitative analysis of the issues.This method is specially used for diagnosis and treatment.

v It attempts to analyze the life history of the person from birth to present situation.

vObserving and interviewing the parents,teachers,friends or associate guardians are done in this method.

vIt tries to find out what type of Hereditary and environmental factors have influenced the individual and the fact of cause and problem development to the individual.

vIt helps to find out the causes of behaviour disorders.

vIn-depth study of an issues.

v“Burgess called this method as Social Microscope”

It is more applicable in: Alcoholic, addicts, Criminal, Juvenile Deliquent,immigrants etc. 

Programming C++

Write a program to concentrate two string without library function strcat .

#include<stdio.h>

#include<conio.h>

                                Main()

{             

                                Int len a=0,lenb=0, i;

                                Char a[50] , b[50];

                                Printf(“enter first string”);

                                Gets(a);

Printf(“enter second string”);

                                Gets(b);

                                /* finding string length of first string */

                                     For (i=0; a[i]!=’\0’ ; i++)

                                                Lena=lena+1;

                                /* finding string length of second string */

                                     For (i=0; b[i]!=’\0’ ; i++)

                                                Lenb=lenb+1;

                                /* string concatenate */

                                     For (i=0; i<lenb; i++)

                                     a[lena+i] = b[i];

                                printf(“in the concatenate string is %s”,a);

                                }

Write a program to check weather a string is palindrome or not without using library function.

#include<stdio.h>

#include<conio.h>

                Main ()

{

                Char st[40];

                Int len=0, i=0, flag=1;

                Printf(“enter a string”);

                Gets(st);

                For(i=0; st[i]! = ‘\0; i++)

                Len=len + 1;

                For (i=0; i<=len/2; i++)

                {

                If(st[i]! = st [len-1-i])

                {

                Flag =0

                Break:

                }

}

If (flag==1)

Printf(“the given string is palindrome”);

Else,

Printf(“the given string is not palindrome”);

}

Write a program to read 10 string & display.

#include<stdio.h>

#include<conio.h>

                Main ()

{

                Char a [10] [20];

                Int i;

                For (i=0; i<10; i++)

                {

                Printf(“in enter %d string”, i+1);

                Gets(a[i]);

                }

                /* display 10 string */

                For (i=0; i<10; i++);

                Printf(“in %s”, a[i]);

                Gets();