Physiological psychology covers the general area of ”brain and behavior”, and is a modular subject in many university courses, considered by most psychologists as a sector that has developed rapidly in recent years, so much so that the wide use of physiological ideas has also spread to many areas of psychology that were not common before.
In fact, physiological psychology relies on physiological science to determine the association between physical functions and behavior, taking advantage of the contribution of various disciplines and grouping them under the objective of understanding the relationships between mental activities, behavior, physiological processes and their anatomical substrates. In this Psychology-Online article, we will delve into What is physiological psychology, its history and its foundations, with some examples about.
What is physiological psychology
The physiological approach to psychology focuses on our biological makeup and the events that occur in our body that cause our behavior. Physiological psychology is, in fact, the branch of psychology that concerns the relationship between the nervous system and behavior, taking an empirical and practical approach to the study of the brain and human behavior. In this article you will find all of them.
The objective of this discipline, which can be considered a bridge between neuroscience and psychologyis to define the association between the physiological functions of the brain and observed behavior and mental processes.
Physiological psychologists believe that the mind is a function developed by the brain, and the study of its functions helps us better understand the nature of human consciousness, which appears to be related to the linguistic functions of the brain. Therefore, physiological psychology focuses on the human brainbut also includes the study of nervous system and of the hormones: In this area of research, the focus is on the functions of the brain and spinal cord, sense organs, muscles and glands, studying in particular brain cells, structures, components and interactions chemicals involved to produce actions.
History of physiological psychology
Let’s look at the historical background of physiological psychology. Theories of the relationship between body and mind date back at least to Aristotle, which assumed that the two existed as aspects of the same entity, the mind being simply one of the functions of the body. In the dualism of the French philosopher Rene DescartesHowever, both the mind and the soul are spiritual entities that exist separately from the mechanical operations of the human body. However, it is the theory of psychological parallelism of the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz which believes that yes, the mind and body were separate, but that their activities were directly parallel.
The branch of physiological psychology developed in psychology. In fact, the first psychology textbook, written by at the end of the 19th century, was titled Principles of physiological psychology (or psychophysiology). In recent years, with the large amount of information in experimental biology, scientists from other disciplines have made important contributions to the research of behavioral psychology: the result of the joint effort of psychophysiological, physiological and other neurological scientists have discovered that the function The last part of the nervous system is behavior.
The modern history of behavioral physiology research has been written by psychologists who have combined the experimental methods of psychology with those of physiology and applied them to issues of interest to all psychologists. Therefore, the processes of perception, movement control, sleep and wakefulness, reproductive, ingestion, emotional, learning and linguistic behaviors have been studied. In recent years, the physiology of human pathologies such as addictions and mental disorders has begun to be studied.
Fundamentals of physiological psychology
This field of psychology takes an empirical and practical approach when studying the brain and human behavior. Most physiological psychologists believe that the mind is a phenomenon derived from the nervous system: by studying and gaining knowledge about the mechanisms of the nervous system they can discover many truths about human behavior.
physiological psychology studies many topics related to the body’s response to a behavior or activity in an organism. These are the brain cells, structures, components and chemical interactions that go into producing actions. Psychologists in this field typically focus on topics such as:
- The dream
- The emotions
- Ingestion
- The senses
- reproductive behavior
- Learning/memory
- The communication
- Psychopharmacology
- neurological disorders
The foundations of these studies are surrounded by the idea of how the nervous system intertwines with other systems in the body to create specific behavior. In this article we explain.
The research methods used by physiological psychology are above all biological, and a typical example of application is the study of physical stimuli that can lead to the perception of emotions.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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Bibliography
- Carlson, N. R. (2008). Foundations of Physiological Psychology. 7th ed. Boston: Pearson Education.
- Pinel, JPJ (2004). Biopsychology. Allyn and Bacon.
- Stern, J. A. (1964). Toward a definition of psychophysiology. Psychophysiology, 1, 90-01.
- Williams, S., Karim, L.R. (2018). Physiological Psychology. Chetpet: Notion Press.