BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE INTRODUCTION DEFINATION Psychology is the scientific study of human and animal behavior with the object

of understanding why living beings behave as they do. As almost any science, its discoveries have practical applications. People often confound psychology with psychiatry, which is a branch of medicine dedicated to the cure of mental disorders. Some topics that 'pure' psychologists may study are: how behavior changes with development, when a behavior is instinctive or learned, how persons differ, and how people get into trouble. 'Applied' psychologists may use scientific knowledge to find better ways to deal with adolescents, to teach, to match persons with jobs, and to get people out of their troubles. In the Army, it happened during the earlier part of the war that some companies or regiments made much slower progress in training than others; and a whole Division was delayed for months because of the backwardness of a single regiment. Psychology, which began as a pure science and only recently has found ways of applying its discoveries to practical affairs. There are several branches of psychology: developmental psychology, animal psychology, educational psychology, psychotherapy, industrial psychology, psychology of personality, social psychology, are but some of them. EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY Educational psychology concentrates on those aspects of the psychic activity that have to do with learning. Experimenting with animals and people, it tries to understand how they learn, and to devise better ways of teaching. A psychological school, known as behaviorism, maintains that every human behavior is a learned response to a stimulus, and consequently tried to establish learning as the central topic of psychology. ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY Animal behavior is studied by psychologists mainly in laboratory. The study of animal behavior in their natural habitats is undertaken by the science of ethology. The comparative study of human and animal behavior is one of the sources of evolutionary psychology, that tries to understand how evolution has shaped the way we think and feel. PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY Physiological psychology is a field akin to neurophysiology that studies the relation between behavior and body systems like the nervous system and the endocrine system. It studies which brain regions are involved in psychic functions like memory, and activities like learning. It also studies the complex interaction between brain and hormones that gives rise to emotions. PSYCHOLOGY OF PERSONALITY The study of emotion and the study of personality are two related fields that delve into the profound question of why we are different and why we feel how we feel. While some scientists propose genetic traits as the reason, others look to the social environment as the cause of our differences. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Social psychology studies problems that arise from the interaction of men, because a person will behave differently when isolated than when in the company of other humans. DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY Developmental psychology is interested in the ways in which the behavior of people changes as persons pass from childhood to old age.

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY Abnormal psychology, also known as psychopathology, is a branch that attempts to describe and classify abnormal behaviors. Applications include the development of diagnostic tools like tests, and the proposal and evaluation of therapies. The corresponding applied specialty is known as clinical psychology or psychotherapy. Besides clinical psychology, the largest field of applied psychology, two other areas are important in terms of the number of people involved: the educational and the industrial areas. Educational psychologists help pupils with learning problems and give counsel on curriculum and career choice. Industrial psychologists help people to work together, and deal with aspects such as motivation and job satisfaction.

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY
Until the last decades of the 19th century, psychology was considered a branch of philosophy and its object was defined as the study of the mind. As a philosophical discipline, it was not subject to experimental control because the only condition of philosophical arguments--and also of other abstract disciplines like mathematics--is to be internally coherent. Philosophers can thence propose different views about a same phenomenon, and it is up to each person to decide what proposal is more appealing. During this period, philosophers of the Modern Age who deal significantly with psychological topics were Ren Descartes and the British empiricists: Hume and Locke. They were concerned with issues like: the nature of mind, the relation of mind with body, and how men elaborate a mental representation of the world and arrive to abstract concepts. The first psychological laboratory, founded in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany, was committed to the experimental study of sensation and perception. Several scientists of the time: Wilhelm Wundt, Herman Ebbinghaus, Gustav Theodor Fechner, and Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz, collaborated in the formulation of the laws of perception. In the United States of America, Edward B. Titchener and William James help to separate psychology from philosophy. Titchener insisted in the study of experience, and James published in 1890 a book that became a landmark: Principles of Psychology. James, who was a philosopher, is mostly known for his theories on learning and emotion. He maintained that the mastering of new situations results in the formation of habits, which are then the result of the adaptation to environment changes. As to emotion, he stated that it was the consequence of physiological changes. In the early twentieth century, a book was published that marked a change in the orientation of psychology. This change was going to influence the work of psychologists till the century was well into its second half. The philosophical conception of psychology as the introspective study of the mind had been preserved by the founders of the new discipline, though introducing experimental methods. This approach was first challenged by the movement known as functionalism, which endorsed the use of other methods than introspection, such as the intelligence tests that at the moment were having increased use in the United States In a work published in the scientific journal Psychology Review in 1913, Watson defined psychology as a natural science whose goal was the study of behavior. Thus, Watson dispensed with any use of introspection and any reference to mind. Data obtained by introspection, he said, was only evident to the person who produced them. The only objective evidence was externally observable behavior.

Watson's ideas were shared by many psychologists, and soon a movement was formed called behaviorism, of which Watson is considered the founder. Learning is one of the major topics in psychology; behaviorism made it the central topic. Under the behaviorist point of view, every human behavior is learned, and every human being can be taught new behaviors. Watson was heavily influenced by the works of Ivan Pavlov. Subsequently, how learning was accomplished was the subject of many prominent psychologists, and many experiments with animals were carried out whose results where said to be transferable to humans. Among these scientists were Edward C. Tolman, Edward L. Thorndike, and Clark Hull. Their theories about learning were influential in the area of educational psychology. The next psychologist of the behaviorist school to became a well-known figure was B. F. Skinner. Skinner brought forward a variant of behaviorism, called radical behaviorism, which took consciousness in consideration. He was the creator of a famous device to perform experiments with animals, called the Skinner box. In this box, a rat presses a lever, or a pigeon pecks a key to obtain some reward, thus permitting to uncover the principles of conditioning. He argued that language was a learned skill, acquired by action of the mechanisms of punishment and reward, and independent of genetic factors. In this view, he was at odds with another theorist, Noam Chomsky, who contended that no theory of learning could explain the acquisition of language. Skinner wrote a book where he advanced some ideas about society that were very controversial. While in America the behaviorist movement was expanding, in Europe a new form of psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, had made its appearance with the publishing in 1900 of Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams. A physician and neurologist, Freud founded his therapy in models of hydrodynamics that were developed at the end of the nineteenth century. He was more interested in the clinical treatment of patients than in the development of theoretical models. However, until his death he constantly updated his conceptual model, called psychodynamic psychology, according with the breakthroughs made at clinical work. He thus provided clinical psychologists with a scheme to frame their professional work, which encompassed the today widely known concepts of ego, id, and superego. Disciples of Freud who introduced variations to his theory were Carl Jung and Alfred Adler, among others. An invitation that G. Stanley Hall made to Freud to speak at Clark University marked the introduction of psychoanalysis in the United States. As early as 1942, an alternative to behaviorism and psychoanalysis was brought out by Carl Rogers with his client-centered therapy. Rogers' proposal was part of a movement founded in the philosophical schools of phenomenology and existentialism, which received, among others, the names of "humanistic psychology" or the "third force." Two key concepts of humanistic psychology are the importance of self-concept (how it develops and how it affects behavior), and the idea of the person as growing towards the full expression of his potentialities. Mental disorders are caused by society hindering this natural development. Leading figures of this movement, related with the human potential movement of the 1960s and 1970s, were Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, and Fritz Perl. Another approach to the study and treatment of emotional disorders is cognitive psychology, and its corresponding clinical branch, cognitive therapy. Behaviorism had banned all study of higher mental processes arguing that they were outside the scope of stimulus-response model. Cognitive psychology broke the prohibition and undertook the study of activities such as thinking, problem solving, and creativity, as well as returning to older subjects like memory and perception. Cognitive therapy, evolved mainly during the 1970s, assumes that mental disorders are caused by an ill conception of the world. The perceptions and beliefs of the patient are considered as the determinants of his emotions and behaviors. Leading cognitive therapists were Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis.

METHODS OF PSYCHOLOGY: Methods of observing mental activities. Introspective Introspective, the observing by an individual of his own actions. The method of classical psychology as practiced by Wilhem Wundt at his Leipzig laboratory and taught by Edward Titchener at Cornell was introspection. Introspection is the consideration of one's own inner events. Systematic introspection, an orderly method of recording one's insights, was the research method used from approximately 1880 to 1920. This is observation by an individual of his own conscious action. It is also called subjective observation. Notice that it is a form of observation, and not speculation or reasoning from probabilities or from past experience. It is a direct observation of fact. The idea that the mind can infallibly perceive its own activity was challenged first by Sigmund Freud in the early 20th century. Freud found that unconscious motives, entirely hidden to introspection, can actually influence human behavior. The method of introspection was also of no use to psychologists when an upsurge of evolution theory led them to the study of animals. In experiments with animals, psychologists had only behavior to observe as the subjects could not make a report of their inner events. Objective Objective, the observation of the behavior of other individuals. Research based on observation can use the observation of natural groups, can conduct experiments, or may center in a person or small group of persons as in a case study. The comparison of natural groups consists in observing two groups of individuals of the same kind that differ in some way of interest to the researcher. For example, children reared at home and at an institution. Generally, the observation is made in their ordinary everyday setting, but it can also be made in laboratory: two samples of children can be brought to laboratory to perform the same task. Field observation of some animal and human behaviors is sometimes possible. In this method the individuals are observed in the surroundings were they naturally live. When observation is limited to a single person or a small group, as a family, it is called a case study. Although general conclusions cannot be drawn from case studies, they have served as a significant source of new ideas. The development of psychodynamic psychology by Sigmund Freud was achieved mainly with the help of case studies. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF PSCYCOLOGY IN CLINICAL SETTINGS Psychology is relevant to anybody who works in a clinic or medical setting. That is why students in per-medical or nursing programs often take psychology courses as part of their studies. Diagnostic testing, using standard psychological tests to assess mental disorders, level of adaptive functioning, brain damage, or other clinically-relevant characteristics Patient interviews to determine the possible relevance of psychological factors or possible need for counseling before or after medical intervention Staff support, talking to the physicians and making morning rounds with them Counseling patients before surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation treatments on what emotional reactions to expect and how to deal with them

Therapy for specific disorders, such as pain, facial or muscle tics, and bed wetting. Rehabilitation counseling helps people revise their schedules and lifestyles when this is required by time-consuming, repetitive treatments like hemodialysis (the blood-cleansing procedure used in cases of kidney failure). It helps with marriage and family counseling when the symptoms of a disease have an impact on day to day life. For example, patients with systemic lupus erythematosus ("lupus") may benefit from counseling to help them cope with the symptoms of that disease, which can include mood changes, loss of energy, weakness, and hair loss. Rehabilitation counseling and training for amputees and for victims of stroke, burn, spinal cord injuries, and heart disease. Psychologists counsel people suffering medical disorders or facing medical treatment that requires lifestyle adjustments. This is rehabilitation psychology or rehabilitation counseling. Rehabilitation psychology is aimed at helping people adjust to the aftereffects of injury or disease. An example of successful rehabilitation psychology is group therapy for open-heart surgery patients. Radical changes in diet and exercise programs may help prolong the life of individuals with heart problems. This requires a degree of behavioral change that is unlikely to take place without concentrated support. Sometimes a weekly group meeting is effective for promoting the needed changes. Counseling over utilizers, patients who use medical services too often health psychology The discipline known as health psychology overlaps behavioral medicine and medical psychology. The difference is one of emphasis. A health psychologist is typically involved in preventative medicine and promoting healthy lifestyles. This includes promoting. Physical fitness Good nutrition and weight control Programs to eliminate smoking, alcohol, and chemical abuse Accident prevention Screening for high blood pressure Appropriate medical self-care Stress management Preventative health care for children Health psychologists face the challenge of trying to persuade people to be good to their own bodies so they can lead longer and healthier lives. This means making behavioral changes to prevent obesity, or quitting smoking, or wearing seat belts or avoiding text messaging or drinking while driving, to increase their chances of staying alive to old age. stress is the response of an organism to novel or threatening situations that are unpleasant in character. In the 1930s physiologist Walter Cannon described how the sympathetic nervous system reacts to threatening situations. According to Cannon, a chemical called "sympathin" made the organism ready to run away or fight. Here is a list of symptoms reported by fighter pilots during World War II from the stress of aerial combat.