The Biological perspective focuses on the underpinnings of behaviour on a physical and biological level. This discipline studies the effects of the physical body, evolution and genetics on human and animal behaviour. The Biological perspective is sometimes referred to as biopsychology when regarded as a branch of neuroscience, or physiological psychology, the premise of which being that mental processes and behaviour can be explained by an understanding of physiology and anatomy, usually with a particular focus on the brain and the central nervous system. This perspective has grown with technological advancement and an increased ability to examine the functions of the brain and central nervous system as they operate. PET and MRI scans, for example, can facilitate research of the human brain in a wide variety of circumstances to a much greater degree than was ever possible before their invention (Gross, 1996).
A case study of note in which the biological perspective was espoused involved studying the effects of split-brain patients. Split-brain patients are people who have undergone surgery to sever the part of the brain responsible for joining the two hemispheres in order for them to exchange information, the corpus callosum. Participants were seated on one side of a screen with a series of objects on the other. The participants were able to handle the objects but the screen obscured their view. Words relating to the available objects were then individually flashed onto each side of the screen for one tenth of a second (ensuring that only the opposing hemisphere of the brain would pick up the word) whilst the participant fixes their gaze to a location in the centre of the screen. When asked to pick a particular object (after flashing the name of said object onto the right side of the screen) with the left hand, under the control of the right hemisphere, the participant is unable to ascertain why they picked up the object they chose. Similarly, when a word is flashed across the fixation point in the centre of the screen so as to place a portion of the word on the left and the remainder on the right, the subject only recognises the portion to the right (as this is the portion which is projected to the left hemisphere), but when asked to point to one of two cards (each containing the separate portions of the word) with the left hand the subject will point to the card containing the section of the word which was projected to the right hemisphere. This experiment was part of a study into ‘lateralisation of visual, tactual, lingual and associated functions in the surgically separated hemispheres’ (Sperry, 1968).
The Behavioural perspective emphasises the role of previous learning and experiences in the shaping of human and animal behaviour. Traditionally behaviourism tends to not focus on mental processes due to the difficulties posed when attempting to objectively observe them. It is considered that a powerful effect on human behaviour is that observational learning, the learned behaviours that are picked up through the observation of other’s actions. It is this implication, that behaviour is learned and reinforced from one’s exposure to environmental forces, which underpins the behaviourist perspective (Watson, 1913).
Two large concepts within the Behavioural perspective are classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning refers to the kind of study carried out by Ivan Pavlov involving his dogs. Pavlov went about investigating the association the dogs had with food and their resulting salivation. Each time a bell was rung the dogs would be fed. After a time the dogs had learned to associate the bell with the arrival of food and would salivate in the same manner when the bell was rung whether it was accompanied by food or not (Sammons, 2005). Operant or operative conditioning acknowledges the classical theory but adds that animals and humans are also subject to the consequences of their own previous actions. If the consequences resulting from a certain type of behaviour are positive for example, this behaviour is likely to be repeated, whereas should that behaviour cause a negative result it is more likely to not be repeated (Sammons, 2005).
Whilst both perspectives are distinct there are several points at which they intersect theoretically, particularly now with the advent of new technologies which can facilitate further investigation into areas of study (across both perspectives) which in the past were not accessible. Across the many avenues of potential psychological study in employ the Behaviourist and the Biological perspectives are arguably two of the most prolific, providing a foundation for the majority of combined metatheoretical studies and therefore holding great potential as platforms of future investigation.
Bibliography
Gross, R.D. (1996) Psychology : the science of mind and behaviour. Frome & London. Hodder & Stoughton.
Sammons, A. (2005) The Behaviourist Perspective 1 – 3. [online] Available at: <http://www.psychlotron.org.uk/newResources/perspLearning.html > [Accessed 26 November 2012].
Sperry, R.W. (1968) Hemisphere deconnection and unity in conscious awareness. American Psychologist, 23, 723-33.
Watson, J.B. (1913) Psychology as the behaviourist views it. Psychology Review, 20, 158-77.