Behavioral Inquiry
Where modern topics meet behavioral research
Tag: psychology
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Let’s talk about evolution. Or better yet, let’s talk about human behavior, and how our understanding of it was influenced by evolutionary theory. For context, we will want to mention B.F Skinner, a researcher at Harvard in the 1950’s, who had far reaching impacts in the field of psychology, and an emerging practice of it…
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Let’s talk about a topic in behavioral science that is often overlooked called Motivating Operations. They happen all the time, and create a need for a behavior to occur which accesses or avoids something. In televised and internet media, organizations use these stimuli to get people to view these programs (and generate ad revenue for the…
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The world of Psychology has a vast appeal to public interest. We all want to know the inner workings of our minds, and the minds of others. We also like that information in a form that is easily accessible, and quick to understand. For better or worse, there is a great deal of psychological information…
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This is going to be a broader piece, and take in to account some of my personal experiences in the field of psychology, at this time. This topic was inspired from a few posts online, and various questions that interns and therapists I supervise have asked me based on their learning in undergraduate Psychology coursework.…
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Ready for some Pop Psych? Let’s take a look at Reinforcement and Ghostbusters, and by Ghostbusters, I mean the 1984 film written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. In the start of the film we are introduced to the character Dr. Peter Venkman (played by Bill Murray) in the process of a humorous experiment with…
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There a few interesting phenomena we study in behavioral psychology when it comes to the reduction of maladaptive (“bad”) behaviors by their consequences. The process by which a behavior is reduced or eliminated by removing the factors that maintain or reinforce it, is called extinction. That is the end goal. Sometimes it works quickly, and…
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Self Report Studies: Self-report studies; you see them all the time online: surveys, polls, and questionnaires. You even see them on your receipts after you order a coffee. Your opinion counts. People want your social data. Some of these are used for marketing, and others are just done for the fun of it. The reason…
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What is Stimulus Pairing? What why is it important? I would describe it this way. If you wanted to understand the foundation of how we learn (or any creature with a complex nervous system or brain), then stimulus pairing would be one of the first building blocks of the process you would come across. It…
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In behavioral science we like to look at things that are concrete and observable. Why do people respond to specific scenarios and stimuli in different ways? How do they differ from one another? How can we adapt what we present in ways that either increase or decrease a person’s responding? These are questions we can…
Behavioral Inquiry 