Discover Top Posts Tagged with #psycholigical

Book Review- “You” by Caroline Kepnes

This novel follows the point of view of a young stalker named Joe in his mid twenties. When he meets Guinevere Beck or “Beck” in the bookshop he works at, he begins stalking her to no end. Joe’s witty remarks and fascinating opinions on pop culture and things people do in their daily lives is hilarious and very entertaining. I find the narration unique and well crafted. This book definitely kept me on the edge of my seat every time I opened it. The only disappointing part was the ending, it was underwhelming and a little cliche. Overall, 4 out of 5 stars. Very good read.

#caroline kepnes #you #thriller #psycholigical #joegoldberg #beck #book review #book recommendations #scary #stalker

Operationally defining a process as 'behavioural'

I was brought into an exchange between cognitivedefusion and scienceofeds re: defining a process as 'behavioural' as opposed to 'psychological'. See below for a sample of the discussion. Original post is here and the article in question is here.

cognitivedefusion how is something a behavioral but not psychological issue?

I don’t know if I totally follow their logic. Maybe behaviouristatplay has some insight? I’m looking at the actual article and I’m getting lost when reading the results section focused on factor A:

"Participants defining Factor A endorsed the view that the path to bulimia might begin with individuals experimenting with binging and purging behaviors (12: +2), perhaps falsely believing that it will help them achieve their desired body shape, with the notion that this behavior works as a method to eat what you want and stay thin rejected."

That…sounds like there’s a psychological component?

Thanks for bring me in the loop. Not that I am any authority over what may be considered 'behavioural' versus not but I think the field of psychology has struggled in separating behavioural processes as something completely different from a traditional psychological process. The over-simplification of a behavioural approach/viewpoint as being just 'response leads to consequence' lends it to standing alone separate from the other more complex schools of thought. In trying to create a dichotomy between the two, the field of psychology continuously fails to recognize that we are often talking about similar effects, just with different terminology or sequencing of events.

The term 'psychological' conjurs up associations with the brain, the mind, emotions and cognition; often placing the cause for or dysfunction within one of these elements. The term 'behavioural' conjurs up associations with reward, punishment and environment, placing the cause or dysfunction as a function of the environment and the consequences experienced. What gets lost in the 'behavioural approach' label are the operational definitions for behaviour, reward and punishment. As a radical behaviourist, I see thoughts and emotions as behaviours; the consequences of which can be the antecedent for the overt behaviours associated with a disorder. The "reward" can come in the amelioration of physiological symptoms conditioned with social/environmental factors or associated with these thoughts/emotions. This is the effect of negative reinforcement (an often misunderstood maintaining variable in many dysfunctional behaviours).

Perhaps as this article was suggesting, people seeing something as a 'behavioural' process are concerning themselves with the actions of self or others; actions which can be attributed to the environment and their consequences. It suggests to people that patterns of behaviours (including where one's thoughts and emotions fit in) can be found and re-arranged. People aligning their disorder with a 'psychological' process may concern themselves with how their mind is doing and that the mind needs "fixing" or changing. If I could just change my thoughts or address underlying emotions I would not engage in dysfunctional behaviour [X]. Unfortunately, this is often done at the expense of acknowledging the effects the social and physical environment play on behaviour. You can convince yourself to "be happy with what you see" (an over-simplification, I know). That doesn't change that there are well established patterns of behaviour that come from social and physical cues and these need exploring as well.

So, can you separate the behavioural from the psychological? If the only defining factor is that one deals with thoughts and emotions and the other one does not then this radical behaviourist doesn't think so.

#psychology #behaviourism 202 #radical behaviourism #behavioral approach #psycholigical