1. What is biological psychology?
Biological psychology is the study of psychology of psychology is three different ways. The first way is the comparative method. The comparative method is when a variety of animal species are studied and compared to each other. The second way is physiology. Physiology is how the nervous system and hormones work, how changes in structure affect behavior, and how the brain functions. The third way is investigation of inheritance. Investigation of inheritance is what an animal is going to inherit from their parents.
2. What is the historical development of biological psychology?
Between 1805 and 1836, Darwin came up with his theory of natural selection while he was observing a variety of different animals from around the world. In 1848, Phineas Gage did a brain injury case study that was able to provide neuroscience with a lot of good information about how the brain works. In 1957, Jane Goodall began the study of primates in Africa. This is when she discovered that chimps have similar behaviors to human beings. In 1975, Edward Wilson published a book that brought together the evolutionary perspective to psychology. Evolutionary psychology was born in 1992 by Tooby and Cosmides (McLeod, 2007).
3. Name one to three important theorists associated with biological psychology.
- Charles Darwin
- Rene’ Descartes
4. Describe the relationship between biological psychology and other fields in psychology and neuroscience.
With any subject of research most will not stand on their own, but will need other fields of study to support them or push them further into their research. Biopsychology is no different; it will draw on other principles from other fields. Many of the fields that can go hand in hand with biopsychology would be neurophysiology, neurochemistry and neuropathology among many others. All of these subjects focus on interactions and understanding between the nervous systems disorders and possible chemical interactions with a person when taking drugs or excreting different natural chemicals.
5. Describe the major underlying assumptions of a biopsychological approach.
Two main underlying assumptions of a biopsychological approach would be that organisms share biological and behavioral similarities, enough to permit extrapolations across species (Pinel, 2009). The second would be the basic assumption that behavior and mental processes are represented in the nervous system guides most research in the field today.
McLeod, S. A. (2007). Biological Psychology - Simply Psychology. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/biological-psychology.html.
Pinel, J. (2009). Biopsychology (7th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.