PS263 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Prenatal Hormones And Sexual Orientation, Genetic Drift, Neuroglia
Document Summary
Biological psychology: the study of the physiological, evolutionary, and developmental mechanisms of behaviour and experience. Emphasizes that the goal is to relate biology to issues of psychology. Common-sense explanations of behaviour refer to intentional goals. Ex: he did this because he was trying to : we have no reason to assume intentions, they are a weak form of explanation. Biological explanations of behaviour fall into 4 categories: physiological: relates a behaviour to the activity of the brain and other organs, deals with the machinery of the body. Ex: many species have an appearance that matches their background. A functional explanation is that camou aged appearance makes the animal inconspicuous to predators. In some cases, researchers simply observe how animal behaviour in nature varies as a function of times of day, seasons of the year, changes in diet, etc: these procedures raise no ethical problems.
