Has Neuroscience Replaced Psychology in Explaining Behavior ?
In the following essay I will be looking at both sides of the debate of whether neuroscience replaced psychology in explaining behavior. To begin with we must firstly understand what exactly neuroscience is and what it entails. It is generally defined as the study of how the nervous system develops, its structure and the functions it carries out. Neuroscientists study the brain and how it impacts on human beings behavior and cognitive functions. The study also looks at what occurs when things don’t go right. It aims to understand neurological, psychiatric and neurodevelopment disorders. Only in recent decades has neuroscience become a recognized discipline. It has now joined other fields in becoming unified and integrating with biology, chemistry, and physics with studies of structure, physiology, and behavior, including human emotional and cognitive functions.
Psychology is the scientific study of behavior. It can range from the study of large crowds, through the dynamics of small groups interactions, to the study of an individual. In general terms, psychology emerged out of two traditions: philosophy and natural science. Philosophers have always been concerned with understanding the meaning of human experience, and many basic concepts in psychology trace their origin back to philosophy. Much behaviourist research involves studying learning in animals under laboratory conditions, using experimental methods. Animals are used because behaviourists assume they learn in the same way as people but are more convenient to study. Laboratory settings are favoured because they allow researchers to control very precisely the conditions under which learning occurs (e.g. the nature and availability of reinforcement and punishment).
Behaviourists use two processes to explain how people learn: classical conditioning and operant conditioning. In classical conditioning, people learn to associate two stimuli when they occur together, such that the response originally elicited
Psychology is the scientific study of behavior. It can range from the study of large crowds, through the dynamics of small groups interactions, to the study of an individual. In general terms, psychology emerged out of two traditions: philosophy and natural science. Philosophers have always been concerned with understanding the meaning of human experience, and many basic concepts in psychology trace their origin back to philosophy. Much behaviourist research involves studying learning in animals under laboratory conditions, using experimental methods. Animals are used because behaviourists assume they learn in the same way as people but are more convenient to study. Laboratory settings are favoured because they allow researchers to control very precisely the conditions under which learning occurs (e.g. the nature and availability of reinforcement and punishment).
Behaviourists use two processes to explain how people learn: classical conditioning and operant conditioning. In classical conditioning, people learn to associate two stimuli when they occur together, such that the response originally elicited