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Transcript
This term Behavioral science originated from the United state in the 1950’s It is often used synonymously with Social Sciences although some writers distinguish between them. Social Sciences, sciences concerned with the origin and development of human society, and the institutions, relationships, and ideas involved in social life. Included in the social sciences are anthropology, sociology, political science, economics, law, psychology, criminology, and social psychology. Recently however, the term behavioral science suggests an approach that is more experimental/scientific than that connoted by the older term. They used it to encompass subjects as Psychology Psychiatry Sociology Social Anthropology History Economics Ethics etc. Strictly speaking the meaning of the concept Behavioral Science could be made more meaningful simply by turning the two words around “Science of behavior” in the face value means the scientific study of human and animal behavior and the mental processes that inform them. What makes a subject Scientific? In the Behavioral Sciences Dept. and for that matter this lecture; we use it to loosely to encompass several subject areas, namely Psychology Psychiatry (branch of medicine specializing in mental illnesses) Sociology (the scientific study of human social relations or group life). Family, Class, community n power =how do they influence society? Social Anthropology (the study of all aspects of human life and culture) the animal is not all to understanding it. You also need an understanding of its behavior in order to wholly understand it. The early years of medicine was dominated by the “dualist philosophy” which posited that the mind and the body were two separate entities. Thus, conceptualization and treatment of illnesses was strictly biomedical, whereby the organism’s psychological and socio - cultural factors were entirely ignored. Strict biomedical practice had to give way to a more encompassing one known as holistic/ (Biopsychosocial) approach, because it was realized that the psychological and social factors were after all important in the etiology of most illnesses. Just learning all the Anatomy and the Physiology was not enough to understand the human being. You really need to understand the behavior to be able to effectively deal with the numerous medical problems; most of which have behavioral/ psychological components in their etiology. Common malaria – behavioral components? Non contagious diseases Essential Hypertension, diabetes Stroke/ heart diseases etc MANAGEMENT OF ILLNESSES (MALARIA) Primary Education and Prophylaxes Secondary Actually medical treatment Tertiary level Rehabilitation. *** Lots of efforts / resources - research into treatment regimes/ effective drugs etc but with the recent adoption of “mosquito nets”, higher successes at controlling malaria is being reported. Maintenance of hygienic environment etc. That is the evidence that behavior is important in the etiology of malaria. Essential hypertension? / stroke? Diabetes? Do they have behavioral components? Common factors Stress Compromised lifestyles Smoking? Lack of exercises Lack of rest Bad nutrition but to mention a few. To be effective, you may have to consider the behavioral factors at the primary level. Education for instance would require knowledge of the behavior of the people under study. It will also require knowledge in Sociology/ anthropology, which deals with the cultural practices, and value systems etc, that inform the people’s attitude and subsequently their behavior. Many such sicknesses (contagious and non- contagious) have behavioral aspects whose understanding will enhance medical practice. There is the need to study behavior within its cultural perspectives. As a doctor, knowing about the peoples cultural practices will also enhance your care. Why? Doctors need to observe the people – good and bad behaviors, their practices that can help you to educate them. That way he/ she reduce the incidence of the problem behaviors contributing to the illnesses and therefore reducing the illnesses you deal, hence, reducing their own workload. Is it their environmental conditions Their nutritional – taboos; do they not avoid some nutritional foods that would otherwise boost their nutritional status? And so on ** Behavioral Sciences should help you to understand your patients very well. Subjects such as motivation, personality, communication, stress etc will enhance the patient – doctor relationship. Some doctors find it difficult to communicate with their patients about their own care. They are made passive recipients of medical care? No Explanation of procedures carried out on them No information about diagnosis/ prognosis No counseling skill How do we break news to the patients? OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE ALL HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE Long before Behavioral Sciences became distinctly established as scientific enterprises of their own, man asked questions in order to ascertain “TRUTHS” about human behavior. Our approach to the outline of the history of Behavioral Science is to focus on the theorists and investigators of human behavior. There are so many outstanding behavioral Scientists and a review of their approaches to understanding behavior will form the basis of our understanding of Behavioral Sciences, as we know it to be today. OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE Thus, a review of Historical development of Concepts of human behaviour from the first few models to the 1900 when Behavioral Science was established will enhance our knowledge of the past. …a review of some observers of man; through the time of the social philosophers and the period after 1900 when schools/ perspectives of contemporary psychology, namely; (behavioral, psychoanalytic, Humanistic, neurobiological, cognitive Psychology, etc sprang up) SOME OUTSTANDING BEHAVIOURAL SCIENTISTS SOME OBSERVERS EMIL DURKHEIM He was one of the founders of modern Sociology who published most of his work before 1900, yet enjoys frequent citation because of its relevance today. According to Nisbet, (1979, p.33), Durkheim is credited with producing the “ first clearcut scientific study of a single social problem in modern Sociology – Suicide. He demonstrated empirically and theoretically that this human behaviour was related to the organization – or more specifically the disorganization – of the group to which the individual belongs. Durkheim’s methodology and the theoretical implications of behaviour as a function of interaction in a social environment have endured. OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE GREEK PHILOSOPHER PLATO (427 – 347 B.C) Plato’s initially, speculation as to the nature/ behaviour of man became theories of the state and its functioning. He maintained two beliefs; that of ideal society and his belief that the individual behaviour should be controlled by the decisions of the ruling elite (Jowett, 1892). Plato argued that people behaved as they do because they have been taught to behave so. According to him, men are born with the capacity to learn and are trained by the society’s system of education. The way therefore to influence behaviour was to change the social system. He reached these by Armchair philosophising ARISTOTLE Aristotle’s, on the other hand, viewed the individual’s behaviour as a reflection of the individual’s nature. In his view, society is a function of the instinctive and unchanging nature of the human being. SOCRATES Socrates developed a third theory based on the observation of the Greek society. He argued that men naturally do things that please them and avoid the things that displease them. This was the early form of HEDONISM, which explains human behavior on the basis of pleasure and pain. In some ways hedonism is a variation of the Aristotelian belief that behavior is caused by innate natural forces, and thus is impossible to change. Let me mention that this observation constitute one important theme that runs through modern behavioral Science today and psychology for that matter. COULD BEHAVIOUR BE SCIENTIFICALLY STUDIED? McClelland (1951) assessed the history of man’s approach to human behaviour and he summarized as follows; …”The Hebrews felt that there were dark inscrutable forces within nature just as there were in the outside world and that even the wish to understand them was in itself bad, in fact a symptom of those evil forces themselves at work. The Greeks, on the other hand, at least in the time of Plato and Socrates, felt that man by reasoning could arrive at understanding and control himself…. With such an inheritance from opposing Greek and Hebrew traditions, it can hardly be wondered that beliefs about the feasibility of scientific approach to personality swung from one extreme to another at different periods in the history of western Civilization (Pp.6-7). McClelland’s assessment summarizes the attitude of application of Scientific method to the study of human behaviour/ nature. And as you will see later, the Hebrews taught that there was everything wrong with trying to investigate human nature. Thus, even the wish to understand human behaviour was itself evil. ANOTHER IMPORTANT ISSUE JOHN LOCKE AND HIS BRITISH ASSOCIATES Another important idea about human behaviour that affected contemporary Psychology was that of John Locke and his British Associations school??? Locke and his successors thought that since man was essentially a “blank tablet” at birth, society had the capacity to influence him in nearly any manner by the kind of education it gave him. This was an idea that influenced J.B Watson and the other behaviorists. Machiavelli, the Italian Political advisor of the Renaissance, argued that man should accept the fact that power was his main concern in life and act accordingly. OUTLINE OF THE HISTORY OF BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE A few other scholars such as Karl Marx’s believed that the profit motive was essentially instinctual and hence could not be understood or controlled. Instead, he felt it had to be accepted and curbed by social arrangements. As will be revealed later, Freud combined the two contradictory beliefs about human behaviour/ nature (thus, that of rationality and of irrationality) above. He had the Greek’s strong faith in the power of man’s ability to understand himself. Yet the aggressive, antisocial, apparently irrational, and even mystical aspects of man’s nature fascinated him. THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHERS The Social Philosophers included Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650), Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679), John Locke (1632 – 1704), Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) and David Hume (1731 – 1776). Their ideas have had considerable impact not only on their peers but also on subsequent generations. It must be mentioned that their ideas conflicted greatly. Descartes argues that the human beings and his behaviour were subject to the same mechanical laws of the universe as other organisms. The notion of the mind- body dualism is usually traced to Descartes, who also emphasized the innate source of man’s ideas. Yet Descartes laid the basis for later scientific approaches to man. This great man contributed to the origin of Biomedical practice. THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHERS Hobbes originated a number of important concepts. These included the believe that all human behaviour is subject to scientific law He also developed a view, which was later borrowed by John Locke to form his Associationist’s concept. that all other things being equal, man chooses his course of action based on what will give him pleasure ( a variant of hedonism), and that the state must control man’s natural passion (a view similar to Machiavelli’s). This was the view that every individual comes into the world with TABULA RASA or blank slate. This view was a counterview to the prevailing doctrine that the source of man’s behaviour was inborn. Locke’s believe (as opposed to that of Descartes) that man’s ideas and behavior resulted from experience or interaction with the external environment. THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHERS Another Scholar, Gall argued that the explanation of human behaviour would be found in the NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL makeup of the individual. He believed that fundamental innate attribute (such as pride, vanity, foresight, cunning, sense of property) existed in man and that each attribute was represented by an organ or a part of the brain. Another fact was that the development of particular characteristics would be evidenced by the size of that part of the brain. NB. For the first time somebody has attributed human behaviour to the brain/ physiological processes. THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHERS Auguste Comte (1798 – 1857) was influenced by Gall particularly in his belief that a physiological substrate was correlated with behaviour. Comte added another notion that human beings possessed INNATE POSITIVE SOCIAL INSTINCT, which interacted with environmental demands and on which human society was based. MARGARET MEAD (1901 – 1978) ANTHROPOLOGIST – Study of the existence of man, esp. of the beginning. Development, customs and beliefs of mankind. She found sex roles and temperament to be a function of each particular culture. Pioneered research methods that turned cultural anthropology into a major science. Her anthropological expedition include trips to SAMOA, New Guinea, Bali and other parts of South Pacific. Her first book, COMING OF AGE IN SAMOA, was a result of study of female adolescent in that society and found no such conflicts as characterizing American adolescent period. Males and females were aggressive or passive in terms of what the culture dictated. She attributed the differences in behaviour between the sexes to the kind of upbringing, particularly by the mother. Throughout her career, Mead promoted the importance of environmental influences, women’s rights and harmony. RUTH BENEDICT (1887 – 1948) Benedict (also Anthropologist) obtained her PHD in Anthropology under Franz Boas at Columbia. Most of her research dealt with the origin of American Indian cultures. She saw in each culture as assemblage of elements of several other cultures. *She saw the cultural personality as deriving from the influence of the cultures on the individual during his or her development, not from any sort of genetic determinism. This work is of particular importance to Psychology in that it suggests a cultural determined definition of normality. Benedict’s major publications include Psychological type in the Cultures of the Southwest, in which she compares two Indian tribes, and her very important “Pattern of Culture”. As part of her wartime work, she wrote The chrysanthemum and the sword; Pattern of Japanese Culture (1946) – a useful explanation of Japanese culture for Westerners. Also of interest are her early Tales of the Cochiti Indians, and her two – volume Zuni Mythology. THE SOCIAL PHILOSOPHERS SIGNIFICANCE OF OBSERVERS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOUR Observers of human behaviour helped set the stage for one of the more dramatic and influential investigators of personality. The social philosophers shared a general belief in the role of the environment in shaping man’s personality – even to the point of viewing man as potential perfectible.