As I was reading the article, I was wondering if psychologists (specifically behaviorists) would have anything helpful to add to the definition of a behavior. When we teach learning, behavior is part of the definition but we don't often define behavior (except when discussing latent learning we mention the idea of potential behaviors). Would behavioral psychologists respond to the question differently than the behavioral biologists? I don't think psychologists would probably consider the lack of a behavior to be a behavior (although the behaviors performed instead of the original behavior would be considered behaviors).
Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences John Brown University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 [email protected] ________________________________________ From: Jeffrey Nagelbush [[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 8:03 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] What is behavior? Behavioral biologists try to define behavior, with interesting results: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/science/21angier.html?ref=science >From the penultimate paragraph: Despite the overall lack of concordance, the researchers sought to extract from the results a trial definition for a word their peers bandy about with abandon. As they pitch it, a behavior is the internally coordinated response that an individual or a group makes to a stimulus. The response can be action or lack of action. The stimulus can come from inside or out. By this definition, masting oak trees, bacterial colonies creeping across a sugar gradient, zebra herds fissioning and fusing, are all displaying behaviors. Dogs that bark are behaving, dogs that obey a trainer’s signal and choose not to bark are most definitely behaving. Jeff Nagelbush [email protected] Social Sciences Department Ferris State University ________________________________ Windows Live™ Hotmail®: Search, add, and share the web’s latest sports videos. Check it out.<http://www.windowslive.com/Online/Hotmail/Campaign/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_QA_HM_sports_videos_072009&cat=sports> --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
