Discussion
Biological psychology is the branch of psychology that deals with the study of genetic, psychological and developmental mechanisms in human behaviour. Behaviour is affected by various biological factors that arise from genetic makeup and physical environment. The biological approach to behaviour is a consequence of genetics as well as physiology. This approach in psychology examine the feelings, thoughts and behaviour from a biological perspective and hence, physical point of view (Gross, 2015). Various factors affect the body, feelings and thoughts like stress, psychological disorders, and memory and sleep patterns in turn influencing behaviour. These health conditions mediate the behavioural responses as the biological perspective focuses on the physical side of the human nature. Therefore, the following discussion involves the various determinants of behaviour, the effect of stress and psychological disorders on behaviour, reductionist approach through press articles and how knowledge of underpinning psychobiological factors lead to happier and more fulfilling lives.
From a psychological point of view, neurotransmitters process information through chemical messengers that flow to brain plays an important role in human behaviour, feeling, learning and sleep patterns. The physiology and working of nervous system and hormones, brain functioning, structure changes and function affect behaviour (Hnasko & Edwards, 2012). The neurotransmitters in the form of chemicals transmit messages from one nerve cell to another. The inhibitory and excitatory types that make nerve impulse travel from one nerve to another. Excitatory type neurotransmitters like glutamate stimulate the brain, and inhibitory types create balance and calm the brain-balancing mood. Among the neurotransmitters, epinephrine is reflective of stress excitatory that is elevated in long-term periods of stress making its level low or depleted. In today’s world, stress has become a normal part of human life that affect behaviour making people react and adjust to experienced stress (Butcher, Hooley & Mineka, 2015). When a person experiences stress, they feel nervous or frustrated, and stress hormones are released triggering the flight or fight response. The stress hormone, cortisol and adrenaline are released by adrenal glands that increase the heart rate and affect behaviour that can result in social withdrawal, drug or alcohol abuse or eating disorders. Stress also influences the cognitive processes related to the elevated cortisol levels, in turn, influencing brain functioning. There is interference with judgment skills that make people make wrong decisions. People also find difficulty in handling situations that make them feel threatened. Stress also makes people distracted, as they are unable to concentrate and leave them frustrated, anxious or angry. This result in social exclusion as they feel rejected, unable to interact with others and feel stressed. Stressed individuals may try to avoid difficult situations and withdraw from the outside world. Their confidence and self-esteem are affected, become fragile, and they are no longer able to deal with social situations that lead to withdrawal (Liu & Miller, 2014). To cope with stressful situations, such people get addicted to smoking, alcohol, drugs and unhealthy eating habits. They get highly addicted and fail in resolving stressful situations. There is sudden development of risk-taking behaviour that shows that individual is suffering from stress. Behaviours like reckless driving that are prone to accidents are manifested in individuals who suffer from stress. Suicidal behaviour or talks are also witnessed in people suffering from stress as they experience low self-worth and self-esteem and feel helpless. Therefore, the above discussion explains that stress affects behaviour that interferes with the daily life activities.
The Impact of Stress on Behaviour
Apart from stress, psychological disorders also affect behaviour. The disorders like mood disorders, PSTD, anxiety disorders affect behaviour where the individual experience an uncomfortable feeling of dread or fear. In this, the thinking pattern of a person is affected due to depressive thoughts. There is also low mood and feelings of worthlessness that are characterized by delusions, hallucinations, illogical thoughts and unusual behaviour. There is a major change in behaviour or personality that can result in disorganized behaviour or speech, mood extremities like depression, delirium or confusion (Turecki & Brent, 2016). There is a disorganized behaviour where a person behaves abnormally and experience trouble in performing the daily activities. The psychological disorders like depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or PSTD affect brain that induces self-harming or suicidal behaviour. They cannot make life decisions and have difficulty maintaining healthy relationships. For example, in bipolar disorder, people experience irritability or elation, talkativeness, racing of thought, difficulty in sleeping and lack of energy. There are episodes of abnormal behaviour that create confusion or staring affecting behaviour in people suffering from psychological disorders. In PSTD, there is delayed reaction to a traumatic event that is accompanied by intense emotions, nightmares or flashbacks. People experience anxious thoughts that make them restless, decreased sleep and stress. Similarly, depression affects behaviour where a person experiences feelings of hopelessness and abandonment. There is reduced appetite or weight gain, irritability or agitation, thoughts of suicide or death and difficulty in concentrating or making important decisions. This shows that psychological disorders also affect behaviour being a behavioural determinant and quality of life (Armour, M?llerová & Elhai, 2016).
In recent times, many articles published in press talk about the unusual behaviour that people exhibit due to stress and psychological disorders. In an article published in Business Insider (2017), it was reported that people exhibit compulsive hair pulling or trichotillomania when they are in stress (businessinsider.in, 2017). It is not an innate behaviour; however, it was developed in response to stress as a coping mechanism. People reported that they get the urge to pull their hair as a mechanism to manage stress or anxiety. They find it harmless and psychologists have to teach people about alternative behavioural mechanisms like habit reversal and to compete for a response so that they are relieved from stress and stop pulling the hair out. Hair pulling is a body-focused behaviour that helps them in stress management for some people. In another article published by News.com in Australia also reported trichotillomania is a coping mechanism for people under stressful situations (news.com.au, 2017). A girl named Imogen has this body-focused-repetitive behaviour (BFRB) (hair pulling) in response to stress. She reported that she finds it a useful behaviour that helps her to hack and control her stress. The article reported that people get an urge to pull their hair when they are under stressful situations and project anxiety. Psychologists reported that a combined approach in the behavioural therapy could be helpful in fixing this unusual behaviour. They recognize the moment when people get the urge to pull their hair and when they act on that urge. The third article published by The Stuff, New Zealand reported that high school teenagers exhibit self-harming behaviour due to stress and anxiety (Thomas, 2017). The author of the article reported that self-harming or self-punishment attitude are seen in teens due to stress or high anxiety levels according to a five-year-long study. In the article, a 17-year-old boy reported that he harmed himself when he felt stressed or worked up, as he believed that hurting oneself is the way to get something out of it. This study highlighted that self-harm in teens is highly prevalent in New Zealand. They are less equipped to manage their emotion and stress levels, so they cope through self-injury. It provides relief to the teens in managing their emotions from unwanted stress that are highly intolerable to them.
The Effect of Psychological Disorders on Behaviour
The fourth article published by The Medical Express reported the study carried out by Public Foundation for the Integration of People with Mental Illnesses (FAISEM) in collaboration with the department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Seville in determining the main factors that drive a person towards violent and criminal behaviour (medicalxpress.com, 2017). The article reported that psychological disorders prevalent among the Andalusian prison population have a strong association with the criminal behaviour. The mental illness prevalent among this particular prison population acts as a risk factor that increases the chances of their committing violent crimes. The psychologists involved in the study reported that marginalization and stigmatization, because of social failure explains their committing of violent crimes. The risk factors like psychological disorders and alcoholism are the best predictors of violent crimes in the prison population. The fifth article published by The Conversation (2017) reported that among the psychological and personality disorders, dissociative identity is the most intriguing mental illness for exhibiting criminal behaviour (theconversation.com, 2017). In this, people exhibit two or more personality traits that display identified differences in the behaviour. They exhibit gaps in memory or find difficulty in recalling the events dwelling in two or more personality states. This dissociative identity affects behaviour as they dwell in more than one personality. Finally, the article by The Cosmos Magazine in Canada reported that mentally ill people consume marijuana, which acts as a strong indicator in exhibiting violent behaviour (cosmosmagazine.com, 2017). The mentally ill people have habitual cannabis use that is strongly linked to violent behaviour. Psychological disorders are greatly linked with cannabis use that has a detrimental effect on their health driven towards violent behaviour. The authors of the article also reported that with persistent treatment, the violent behaviour fades with time and by consistent support from the family and friends.
These articles are somewhat reductionist, as they have tried explaining the main point of the discussion and are highly relevant to the topic. The authors conducted studies and explained that factors like stress and psychological disorders affect human behaviour; however, it did not explain the actual complex phenomenon. Articles over-simplified the concept of stress and psychological disorders influence associated with disruptive behaviour like violent behaviour; they neglected the complexities of body and mind-affecting behaviour (Kirmayer & Gold, 2012). To explain the complex phenomenon of human behaviour, the constituents need to be reduced into elements by explaining the complex parts into simplest forms (Zilio, 2016). These articles explained the biological approach where the stress and psychological problems require treatment like a disease and are treatable by drugs. On the contrary, the articles did not explain the source of the mental illness to be the result of chemical imbalances in the brain lacking reductionism. Reductionism can be explained at two levels: lowest level offering a physiological explanation of behaviour in regards to genes, neurochemical and brain structure (Ponterotto, 2014). However, the author explained the highest level of reductionism based on sociocultural factors that influence human behaviour. Mentally ill people are prone to stigmatization and marginalization due to their psychological condition, and so they exhibit violent behaviour like criminal or self-harm behaviour. This illustrates that the articles are reductionist to some extent as they explained that as the mentally ill people are subjected to discrimination, they exhibit violent or self-harming behaviour. For example, in two articles, it was explained that when people are under stress, they are subjected to hair pulling or trichotillomania (TTM) behaviour. Reductionism is a scientific approach that explains the complicated components of human behaviour broken down into small parts; however, the articles did not explain the scientific basis of human behaviour that lacks validity from the reductionist point of view. Therefore, the best explanation of reductionism that could be demonstrated is to understand the mental disorder from the cognitive, physiological and socio-cultural point of view. Such approaches would be helpful in explaining the effect of stress and psychological disorders on human behaviour.
Conclusion
The consumers of these articles would lead happy and fulfilling lives if they knew the psychobiological underpinnings of behaviour. When people know the underlying cause of their behaviour, they can manage the episodes of disruptive behaviour effectively. They can judge their behaviour and encourage themselves to seek support for quitting the behaviour. The underpinning knowledge also helps to create awareness among the consumers and helps others to seek support for their unusual behaviour. When people know the reason for their behaviour, they feel happy, contended, and find better link between the functional neuroautonomy of the behaviour and its contribution to happiness and well-being (Zipf, 2016). Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that biological determinants affect behaviour and factors like stress and psychological disorders influence behaviour in many ways. The articles were somewhat reductionist in explaining the social factors and biological factors underpinning human behaviour, however, lack basic scientific explanation.
References
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