Behavioural sciences

Behavioural sciences explore the cognitive processes within organisms and the behavioral interactions between organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behavior through naturalistic observation, controlled scientific experimentation and mathematical modeling. It attempts to accomplish legitimate, objective conclusions through rigorous formulations and observation.[1] Examples of behavioral sciences include psychology, psychobiology, anthropology, and cognitive science. Generally, behavior science deals primarily with human action and often seeks to generalize about human behavior as it relates to society.[2]

For the field in economics, see Behavioral Economics.
For the movement within psychology from the 1910s to 1960s, see Behaviorism.
For the journal, see Systems Research and Behavioral Science.

Categories

Behavioural sciences include two broad categories: neural — Information sciences and social — Relational sciences.

Information processing sciences deal with information processing of stimuli from the social environment by cognitive entities in order to engage in decision making, social judgment and social perception for individual functioning and survival of organism in a social environment. These include psychology, cognitive science, behavior analysis, psychobiology, neural networks, social cognition, social psychology, semantic networks, ethology, and social neuroscience.[3]

On the other hand, Relational sciences deal with relationships, interaction, communication networks, associations and relational strategies or dynamics between organisms or cognitive entities in a social system. These include fields like sociological social psychology, social networks, dynamic network analysis, agent-based model, behavior analysis, and microsimulation.

Applications

Insights from several pure disciplines across behavioral sciences are explored by various applied disciplines and practiced in the context of everyday life and business. These applied disciplines of behavioral science include: organizational behavior, operations research, consumer behavior and media psychology.

Differentiation from social sciences

The terms behavioral sciences and social sciences are often used interchangeably.[4] Though these two broad areas are interrelated and study systematic processes of behavior, they differ on their level of scientific analysis of various dimensions of behavior.[5]

Behavioural sciences abstract empirical data to investigate the decision processes and communication strategies within and between organisms in a social system. This involves fields like psychology, social neuroscience, ethology, and cognitive science. In contrast, social sciences provide a perceptive framework to study the processes of a social system through impacts of social organization on structural adjustment of the individual and of groups. They typically include fields like sociology, economics, public health, anthropology, demography and political science.[1]

Many subfields of these disciplines cross the boundaries between behavioral and social sciences. For example, political psychology and behavioral economics use behavioral approaches, despite the predominant focus on systemic and institutional factors in the broader fields of political science and economics.

See also

References
  1. Klemke, E. D., Hollinger, R., and Kline, A. D., (1980), Introduction to the book in 'Introductory Readings in the Philosophy of Science': Buffalo, New York, Prometheus Books p 11-12
  2. "Definition of BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 19 March 2018.
  3. "What are behavioral sciences? definition and meaning". BusinessDictionary.com. Retrieved 23 December 2017.
  4. Dristi, Adhikari (2016). "Exploring the Differences Between Social and Behavioral Science". Behavioral Development Bulletin. 21 (2): 128–135. doi:10.1037/bdb0000029.
  5. "Definition of BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE". www.Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved 23 December 2017.

Selected bibliography
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.