Behavior:
Behavior is observable, quantifiable process, action, or activity. These acts, activities, and processes frequently begin in reaction to either internal or external stimuli. But in order for the results of these investigations to be trustworthy and acceptable for scientific reasons, they must be objective.
Behavior in psychology refers to an organism’s outward responses to its environment. Behavior does not typically include other dimensions of psychology including feelings, ideas, and other internal mental processes. Behavior may change in response to self-initiated intents, as well as to positive or negative reinforcements from the environment of the organism.
Different Definitions of Behavior:
John Watson (1878–1958) is generally referred to as the founder of behaviorism, which places an emphasis on external, observable data such as people’s behaviors and reactions rather than interior processes like mental states or thought processes that cannot be seen.
The definition of behavior according to the psychology dictionary is “the activity of an organism interacting with its environment” (Doron and Parot, 1999).
Neveanu, 1978 describes the behavior as an “adaptive reactions assembly that a body with a nervous system engages in response to environmental stimuli that are also objectively detectable”
According to Skinner, “behavior shaped and produced by mediated consequences” is how behavior is generally defined. Of course, he meant consequences under the control of another person when he said “mediated consequences.”
Behavior is always observable. Pavlov accomplished that learning because he observed the dogs salivating in response to the sound of a tone. All behaviors are products of the stimulus-response formula.
At least initially, states of consciousness, ideas, feelings, representations, and other internal activities are not included in the narrow definition of behavior, which is restricted to directly observable bodily activity. As a result, “the most obvious aspect of the personality, the most readily observable and, at the same time, the most likely to be subject to interpretation” (Popa-Velea, Ovidiu, 2010).
According to Andrei Cosmovici’s unified perspective (Cosmovici, 1996), it is important to understand the behavior of references to the body, particularly those to the social environment and psychic structure. The fundamental source of the psychic structure is experience; the psychic system is made up of particular ideas, temperamental and character qualities, individual emotions, memories, etc. Thus the understanding of human behavior implies a reference to three factors, the man being a biopsychosocial individual.
According to Birch Ann (Birch & Hayward, 1999), behavior is influenced by both inheritance and environment. Various sorts of environments can result in different behavior by impacting the same genetic components. Additionally, behaviors can change amongst genetically distinct individuals when they are exposed to the same environmental factors. Therefore, heredity and environment interact, and what matters is how each factor’s differences affect the other in the interaction.
All behaviors are learned by conditioning, and conditioning takes place through interaction with the environment, according to the behaviorist theory of learning. Behaviorists contend that environmental cues influence our behavior.
This school of thinking, often known as behavioral psychology, essentially holds that behavior can be studied methodically and observably regardless of underlying mental conditions.
The behavioral theory also contends that because intellect, emotions, and mood are so subjective, only observable behavior should be investigated. Strict behaviorists hold that everyone can be taught to accomplish any task, within the bounds of their physical ability, regardless of their genetic background, personality qualities, or inner thoughts. It only needs the proper conditioning.
REFERENCES
- Doron, R. & Parot, F. (1999). DicĠionar de psihologie, Bucureúti, Humanitas, 155.
- Neveanu, Paul- Popescu.(1978). DicĠionar de psihologie, Bucureúti, Albatros, 123.
- Popa-Velea, Ovidiu. (2010). ùtiinĠele comportamentului uman, Bucureúti, Trei, 14.
- Cosmovici, Andrei. (1996). Psihologie Generală, Iaúi, Polirom, 12.
- Birch, Ann & Hayward, Sheila. (1999). Diferente interdindividuale, Bucuresti, Tehnica, 50.
- N., Sam M.S., “BEHAVIOR,” in PsychologyDictionary.org, April 7, 2013, https://psychologydictionary.org/behavior/ (accessed December 14, 2022).
