Biological psychology as a scientific discipline later emerged from a variety of scientific and philosophical traditions in the 18th and 19th centuries. In philosophy, men like Rene Descartes proposed physical models to explain animal and human behavior. Descartes, for example, suggested that the pineal gland, a midline unpaired structure in the brain of many organisms, was the point of contact between mind and body. Descartes also elaborated on a theory in which the pneumatics of bodily fluids could explain reflexes and other motor behavior. This theory was inspired by moving statues in a garden in Paris.
Other philosophers also helped give birth to psychology. One of the earliest textbooks in the new field, The Principles of Psychology by William James (1890), argues that the scientific study of psychology should be grounded in an understanding of biology:
Bodily experiences, therefore, and more particularly brain-experiences, must take a place amongst those conditions of the mental life of which Psychology need take account. The spiritualist and the associationist must both be 'cerebralists,' to the extent at least of admitting that certain peculiarities in the way of working of their own favorite principles are explicable only by the fact that the brain laws are a codeterminant of their result.Our first conclusion, then, is that a certain amount of brain-physiology must be presupposed or included in Psychology.
James, like many early psychologists, had considerable training in physiology. The emergence of both psychology and biological psychology as legitimate sciences can be traced from the emergence of physiology from anatomy, particularly neuroanatomy. Physiologists conducted experiments on living organisms, a practice that was distrusted by the dominant anatomists of the 18th and 19th centuries. The influential work of Claude Bernard, Charles Bell, and William Harvey helped to convince the scientific community that reliable data could be obtained from living subjects.
The term "psychobiology" has been used in a variety of contexts, but was likely first used in its modern sense by Knight Dunlap in his book An Outline of Psychobiology (1914). Dunlap also founded the journal Psychobiology. In the announcement of that journal, Dunlap writes that the journal will publish research "...bearing on the interconnection of mental and physiological functions", which describes the field of biological psychology even in its modern sense.
Synonyms for biological psychology include biopsychology, behavioral neuroscience, and psychobiology . Physiological psychology is another term often used synonymously with biological psychology, though some authors would make physiological psychology a subfield of biological psychology, with an appropriately more narrow definition.
The distinguishing characteristic of a biological psychology experiment is that either the independent variable of the experiment is biological, or some dependent variable is biological. In other words, the nervous system of the organism under study is permanently or temporarily altered, or some aspect of the nervous system is measured (usually to be related to a behavioral variable).
In general, biological psychologists study the same issues as academic psychologists, though limited by the need to use nonhuman species. As a result, the bulk of literature in biological psychology deals with mental processes and behaviors that are shared across mammalian species, such as:
However, with increasing technical sophistication and with the development of more precise noninvasive methods that can be applied to human subjects, biological psychologists are beginning to contribute to other classical topic areas of psychology, such as:
Biological psychology has also had a strong history of contributing to the understanding of medical disorders, including those that fall under the purview of clinical psychology and psychopathology (also known as abnormal psychology). Although animal models for all mental illnesses do not exist, the field has contributed important therapeutic data on a variety of conditions, including:
The following Nobel Prize winners could reasonably be considered biological psychologists. (This list omits winners who were almost exclusively neuroanatomists or neurophysiologists; i.e., those that did not measure behavioral or psychological variables.)
Biological psychology as a scientific discipline later emerged from a variety of scientific and philosophical traditions in the 18th and 19th centuries. In philosophy, men like Rene Descartes proposed physical models to explain animal and human behavior. Descartes, for example, suggested that the pineal gland, a midline unpaired structure in the brain of many organisms, was the point of contact between mind and body. Descartes also elaborated on a theory in which the pneumatics of bodily fluids could explain reflexes and other motor behavior. This theory was inspired by moving statues in a garden in Paris.
Other philosophers also helped give birth to psychology. One of the earliest textbooks in the new field, The Principles of Psychology by William James (1890), argues that the scientific study of psychology should be grounded in an understanding of biology:
Bodily experiences, therefore, and more particularly brain-experiences, must take a place amongst those conditions of the mental life of which Psychology need take account. The spiritualist and the associationist must both be 'cerebralists,' to the extent at least of admitting that certain peculiarities in the way of working of their own favorite principles are explicable only by the fact that the brain laws are a codeterminant of their result.Our first conclusion, then, is that a certain amount of brain-physiology must be presupposed or included in Psychology.
James, like many early psychologists, had considerable training in physiology. The emergence of both psychology and biological psychology as legitimate sciences can be traced from the emergence of physiology from anatomy, particularly neuroanatomy. Physiologists conducted experiments on living organisms, a practice that was distrusted by the dominant anatomists of the 18th and 19th centuries. The influential work of Claude Bernard, Charles Bell, and William Harvey helped to convince the scientific community that reliable data could be obtained from living subjects.
The term "psychobiology" has been used in a variety of contexts, but was likely first used in its modern sense by Knight Dunlap in his book An Outline of Psychobiology (1914). Dunlap also founded the journal Psychobiology. In the announcement of that journal, Dunlap writes that the journal will publish research "...bearing on the interconnection of mental and physiological functions", which describes the field of biological psychology even in its modern sense.
Synonyms for biological psychology include biopsychology, behavioral neuroscience, and psychobiology . Physiological psychology is another term often used synonymously with biological psychology, though some authors would make physiological psychology a subfield of biological psychology, with an appropriately more narrow definition.
The distinguishing characteristic of a biological psychology experiment is that either the independent variable of the experiment is biological, or some dependent variable is biological. In other words, the nervous system of the organism under study is permanently or temporarily altered, or some aspect of the nervous system is measured (usually to be related to a behavioral variable).
In general, biological psychologists study the same issues as academic psychologists, though limited by the need to use nonhuman species. As a result, the bulk of literature in biological psychology deals with mental processes and behaviors that are shared across mammalian species, such as:
However, with increasing technical sophistication and with the development of more precise noninvasive methods that can be applied to human subjects, biological psychologists are beginning to contribute to other classical topic areas of psychology, such as:
Biological psychology has also had a strong history of contributing to the understanding of medical disorders, including those that fall under the purview of clinical psychology and psychopathology (also known as abnormal psychology). Although animal models for all mental illnesses do not exist, the field has contributed important therapeutic data on a variety of conditions, including:
The following Nobel Prize winners could reasonably be considered biological psychologists. (This list omits winners who were almost exclusively neuroanatomists or neurophysiologists; i.e., those that did not measure behavioral or psychological variables.)
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