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BEHAVIOUR
• Behaviour is difficult to define.
– It has been a subject of debate for many
years.
– Compulsive evasion by most authors
• Man lives in an environment where he is
being acted on by uncountable number
of stimuli through his specialized sense
organs.
BEHAVIOUR
• These stimuli, some of which
emanate from within the organism),
may cause them to react to his
environment.
• It is this reaction that is called
behaviour.
BEHAVIOUR
• Because of man’s standing on the
evolutionary scale, his behaviour is
more complex than other organisms.
• With man a fresh complications is
introduced by the fact that “we feel” and
“know”.
• Again, we possess the ability to
distinguish right from wrong and so our
actual behaviour often appears to be the
result of certain mental activity.
BEHAVIOUR
• While some theorists such as the strict
behaviour advocate for restriction of the
definition of behaviour to only observable
measurable ones?
– Scientificity will suffer
• others (such as the cognitive
Psychologists) argue for the inclusion of
covert mental processes
BEHAVIOUR
• In this lecture, we shall use the term
behaviour to refer to the things we do.
– all observable, measurable activities,
– responses,
– reactions,
– movements,
– operations (overt) and the
– mental/ cognitive (covert) processes (if it
could be operationally defined and inferred)
that inform them.
BEHAVIOUR AS AN ASPECT OF ATTITUDE
•
COGNITIVE
•
mental processes (thinking, knowledge, memory,
judgment etc).
– The word cognitive comes from cognition,
which is an act or process of knowing. Cognition
includes attention, memory, reasoning,
judgment, imagining, thinking, and some people
include speech.
•
CONATIVE
•
•
( Ability to initiate a goal directed behaviour)
AFFECTIVE
•
(emotions/ feeling domain of behaviour)
ATTITUDE - DEFINITION
• Several definitions
• Review a few
– “An attitude is a psychological
tendency we express when
we evaluate something or
someone” (Eagly and
Chaiken, 1993)
• Quoted in Matlin, M. W
(1999;510)
– “Learned predisposition to
respond in a favorable or
unfavorable manner to a
particular person, behavior,
belief or thing”
• Quoted in Feldman, R. S
(1996; 605)**
– “is a mixture of belief and
emotion that predisposes a
person to respond to other
people, objects, or institutions
in a positive or negative way”.
• Coon, D (1995:661)***
• 1st KEYWORDS
– Tendency****
– Predisposition
• general inclination or
likelihood
• liability to something: a
liability or tendency to do
something, for example,
behave in a particular way
ATTITUDE - DEFINITION
• 2nd Key Evaluate*
– examine and judge: (its value,
quality, importance, condition)
• We evaluate the condition of
patients, their worth etc
before we deal with them)
• 3rd Key (OBJECT) we
evaluate
– something or someone
– person, behavior, belief or thing
– other people, objects, or
institutions
• 4th Key
– positive or negative way”.
– Means attitude may be positive
or negative.
• Summary
– Tendency/ Learned
predisposition
– Evaluate (Cognitive)
– Positive/ negative
predisposition
– (ATTITUDE OBJECT)
Something/ someone/ person/
behavior/ belief/ institution
• It means we do not only have
an attitude towards products;
its virtually towards every
thing
– Institution, friends, patients,
lecturers, School, job etc
ATTITUDE
• “Attitudes are likes & dislikes – favorable &
unfavorable evaluations of and reactions to objects,
people, situations, or any other aspects of the world,
including abstract ideas and social policies” by Smith
et al (2001)*
– Our attitudes are therefore not restricted to consumer products.
We also develop attitude towards individuals (Job, Patients) and
issues/ events.
– Example, consider all the important people in your life, you
would realize you have vastly different attitude towards each
one of them, depending on the nature of your interaction
with them.
– These attitudes may range from highly positive as in the
case of lover, to extremely negative, as with despised
rivals.
ATTITUDE
– Attitude is a –ve/+ve
predisposition/tendency we acquire for
an object, a person, event (called
attitude object) as a result of evaluation
(cognitive appraisal).
– This becomes an acquired Potential
(covert).
• Interaction of our Cognition and
affective domains results in some
acquired potential to behave in a
positive or negative way towards the
object.
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
• All three aspects (Cognitive, Affective and
Co-native) must almost always be in
harmony.
• Lack of harmony (Cognitive Dissonance)
may persist for some time but eventually
may lead to Behavioural Change where all
three aspects of behaviour are brought into
harmony.
• Example, shaking somebody you don’t really
like because of social circumstance.
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
• COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
• is a concept developed by a social
Psychologist Leon Festinger (1957),
• refers to an individual’s motivation to
reduce the discomfort (Dissonance)
caused by inconsistent thoughts.
TYPES OF BEHAVIOUR
• Inherited and Learned behaviours
• INHERITED BEAVIOUR
• Simple organisms may show complex
inherited behaviour patterns, which are
often referred to as instinctual.
• They may facilitate feeding,
• as in the web – building of spiders,
• or ensure successful reproduction,
• as in courtship behaviour in fishes
UNLEARNED BEHAVIOUR
• Humans are also said to be born with some
inherited behaviours – present at birth. They are
reflex movements that are inborn and made
without thinking.
• They are Adaptive
• for example when human infants cling
instinctively to their mothers.
• As mentioned most of them come as reflex
(involuntary) responses in infants but some
seem to get extincted after sometimes.
UNLEARNED BEHAVIOUR
• Example include swallowing and sucking
reflexes,
• rooting (turning the head towards the
direction of touched cheek);
• grasp (hand automatically grasp);
• and walking reflexes (walking movements
when held upright with feet touching a firm
surface).
BEHAVIOUR
• The rest are startle reflex
– (hands are clenched, and elbows are bent to bring
forearm in when startled) when they are startled by
sudden noise or bright light.
• Moro falling reflex
– (catching movement in the incidence of sudden
movement).
• There are many more of such reflex responses in
infants but some seem to get extincted after
sometimes.
• According Pamela Minett (1994), these reflexes are
replaced by actions which the baby has to learn by
age 3 months.
– For example the walking reflexes disappear long before
the child learns to walk.
BEHAVIOUR
• these inherited actions of many of these
kinds are modified by experience,
• This allows for an animals behaviour to
be better suited to a complex and
changing environment.
• Human inherited behaviours are no
exceptions.
LEARNED BEHAVIOURS
• Some other behaviour is learned. Lion’s
cubs, for example, learn to hunt by
watching and copying their parents, while
many insectivorous birds learn to avoid
eating unpalatable prey through trial and
error.
• The well – developed brain of humans
and other animals such as elephants,
allow them to learn a wide range of
complex behavioural patterns.
BEHAVIOUR
• These include complex social,
manipulative, and mental skills, and in
humans, speech.
• Occasionally, learned behaviour patterns
may be transmitted culturally from
generations to generations.
BEHAVIOUR
• The conclusion on these two types of
behaviours is that the debate
• (Nature – nurture debate) is still
ongoing.
CONCLUSION - BEHAVIOUR
• It could however be safe to say that whiles
some behaviour are inherited, others are
learned and even those that are inherited
are acted upon by experience to make it
more adaptable.
• So there is no clear cut distinction
between the two, thus, it’s a daunting –
almost impossible task to determine how
much of each; NATURE AND NURTURE
contributes to given behaviour
MOTIVATION OF BEHAVIOUR FROM VARIOUS
PSYCHOLOGY, PERSPECTIVES/ THEORISTS.
• We are concerned not so much with what the
organism does, nor with how it accomplishes
what it does, as we are with why it acts as it
does.
• Psychologists do not agree on the motivation
of the behaviour. Depending on the theoretical
leaning, for school of thought they come from,
they may explain motivation differently.
• Schools of thoughts used here refer to
psychologists who held similar views and had
similar approaches to the study of psychology.
MOTIVATION OF BEHAVIOUR
• Each school developed around one eminent
thinker and in most cases, in and around a
geographical area.
• In founding stages of psychology many
schools sprang up, namely the structuralism,
functionalism, behaviorism and cognitive
psychology.
• Some died with the death of their leaders, but
those that exist today do explain motivated
behavior differently.
PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORY
• Psychodynamic theory was born out of the
clinical practice of a medical doctor (neurologist
by training) who was called Sigmund Freud
(under 1856 –1939). It was concerned with
neurotic patients.
• Basic tenet
• Contrary to our view that we are rational and
exercise free will, behavior is motivated by
unconscious psychological forces (sexual
instincts and urges) that are not available to the
rational, conscious part of our mind.
PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORY
• MOTIVATION: That is to say that the
unconscious conflict within the individual
influences much of human thought and
actions.
BEHAVIOURISM
• The name speaks for itself, Behaviour.
• They argued that the whole idea of mental life
(perception, sensation unconscious etc) if could
not be measured physically were all
superstitious.
• One assumption is that all behavior occur in
response to stimulation and that all actions and
feelings are elicited by unconditioned or
conditioned stimuli.
• SCHOLARS
• John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, B. F. Skinner,
Edward lee Thorndike, etc
BEHAVIOURISM
• BASIC TENET
– Psychology should study only observable
measurable behavior - Nothing more. Anything that
cannot be defined located measured cannot be an
object of scientific study.
• VIEW ON MOTIVATED BEHAVIOURAL
– Behavior is motivated by reward and punishment
that usually precede, and come after the behavior
HUMANISTIC/ EXISTENTIAL
• (PHENOMENOLOGICAL) - HUMANISTIC
• Humanists were referred to as the “third
forced”.
• Humanistic the psychology is closely related to
the existential psychology because both
schools are concerned with subjective
experiences
• insist that people must learn how to realize their
human potential.
HUMANISTIC PERSPECTIVES
• They insist that human beings with
intrinsically good as opposed to psych
dynamic view and that behavior to them is
motivated by the urge to achieve one’s
potential and self actualize.
• Some scholars include Carl Rogers and
Abraham Maslow.
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
• Is one of the newest fields of psychology.
• It began in the 60’s. While behaviours
believe that mental processes could not be
studied scientifically, cognitive psychologists
believed otherwise.
• That is to say that mental process should be
studied scientifically.
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
• Tenet
• They argue, although we cannot observe
cognitive processes directly we can observe
behavior and make inferences about the
kind of cognitive processes that underlie the
behavior.
• Behaviour is motivated by cognitive/ mental
processes.
SUMMARY
 Behaviour – reaction to stimuli that impinge on our
senses
– Everything we do
– Define to include mental (covert processes)
 Aspects (Cognitive; Affective; Conative)
– Harmony/ cognitive dissonance & Beh. Change
 TYPES – Learned & Inherited (Genetic)
 Motivation
– Psychodynamic
– Behaviorists
– Humanistic
– cognitive