Behavioural Psychology

Some of Law and Economics’ basic claims have come to be criticized as a result of empirical findings that question their viability. Particularly, the premise that agents consistently act rationally and with their self-interest in mind seems problematic. What the consequences of the criticism mean for Law and Economics’ tenability depends largely on the questions whether (1) some elements are unassailable to the alternative’s objections and (2) the alternative is a systematic whole. It is argued that Law and Economics may be salvaged, if it is minimized and its ambitions are tempered. This means focusing on the stable, a priori, elements inherent to it.

One image dominates our contemporary world above all others: the human body. How Art Made the World travels from the modern world of advertising to the temples of classical Greece and the tombs of ancient Egypt to solve the mystery of why humans surround themselves with images of the body that are so unrealistic.

The main theme of this episode is how people rarely created images of the body that are realistic. By understanding this we  also understand something about our bodies, and human nature in general.

The Venus of Willendorf, in the Natural History Museum in Vienna, is a small Venus figure with exaggerated breasts, hips and sexual organs. These exaggerations are symbolic of fertility,  what is significant is that the artist ignored other parts of the body, such as her face and arms. Similar Venus figures with similar exaggerations and omissions have been found all over Europe and Russia. Professor Ramachandran explains why features were exaggerated. By making comparisons to research with Herring Gulls showing how their chicks, which are stimulated by the red stripe on their parents beaks, can be over stimulated by simulating a beak with additional stripes. He suggests that the same neurological process stimulated early man, explaining why they exaggerated these features of fertility over others.

Moving forward several thousand years. The Egyptians, who valued consistency and order in their society, abandoned the exaggerations of their ancestors and chose to use a mathematical approach to creating images of the body. They chose to show each part of the body from it’s clearest angle, developing their recognisable style and then preserving this style for thousands of years. When the Ancient Greek’s culture came into contact with the Egyptians, this ignited an artistic revolution across the Greek city states. The Greek culture wanted a more realistic representation of the figure for their temples, and as with the Kritios Boy, they measured and reproduced the body to exact dimensions in their sculptures. A generation later, however, the Greeks abandoned this ultra realism preferring exaggerated representations of the body based on the aestetic theories created by Polykleitos, such as the Riace Bronzes. Prof Ramachandran explains that art needs this exaggeration to be interesting.

The programme concludes with what we choose to exaggerate, saying this  “is where the magic comes in”. The choice of what to exaggerate has changed over the centuries to match changing human values.

In this study, a thematic approach is utilised in order to provide a holistic, experientially driven analysis of social networking use and how seven student participants define addiction to these platforms. The data compiled here has been analysed to provide us with an understanding of the bond between humans and social networks as a therapeutic tool, a habitual routine, as a consequence of the increased closeness between humans and machines, and as an ambivalent, addictive activity that student participants find difficult to disconnect from.

This paper seeks to take the established behavioural models relating to comfort zones, group and individual development, and managing change, and use them to create a methodology for understanding and managing performance. It seeks to provide a reliable approach to getting the best out of people that is firmly based on sound behavioural and psychological principles backed up by observational data and practical field research. It is not, however, a ‘scientific’ paper full of detailed research data, complex theories and high-flown rhetoric, but rather it is a practical guide based on twenty years of consultancy in the field and eight years of teaching university students in a business school.

In understanding and managing performance, the key is the management of the stress. Both motivation and anxiety are, behaviourally, sub-sets of stress and, consequently, they are tools to assist in performance management – there will be times when motivation will be the most useful tool, while at others the introduction of anxiety will be more appropriate. However, too much motivation or anxiety will result in too much stress and this will result in performance being disabled.

The correct management style needs to be applied in each phase if performance is to be maximized. Applying the incorrect style has a negative impact on performance. In situations in which a series of performance-enhancing steps need to be taken, it is imperative to start the new performance cycle at the point at which the old performance cycle develops a slowing performance trend.

A State of Fear by Laura Dodsworth is an essential read for a variety of different audiences: for the psychotherapeutic practitioner who positions their ethical framework as essential to practice, the psychological governing bodies who view their role to include the protection of the public from unethical psychological practice and, perhaps most importantly, for the general public, illuminating how their thoughts and actions have potentially been manipulated by behavioural scientists over the past 18 months. This book has the ability to shake many people’s beliefs surrounding Covid-19, encouraging them to look at the state of the world not through the lens of fear but through one of rationality and reflection.

The study attempts to trace the emergence and development of the discipline viz. “Psychology” in the European countries and also briefly discuss the divergent views of the world famous Psychologists.  Subsequently, aiming at analyzing some of the excellent poems of Saṅgam classics from the psychological perspective, especially in the frame work of “Behavioural Psychology”, the present research work intends to interpret the appropriate feelings and behaviour patterns of the heroines and the heroes evoked in akam and puṟam poems.  As there is a space for new understanding of the traditional concepts, the book earnestly throws the light on, how and why, the heroes and heroines, tōḻis (girlfriends) and pāṅgars (companions)/poets, naṟṟāys (biological mothers), cevili-t-tāys (foster mothers), concubines and harlots, chieftains and kings, et al. behave either with adoptive, or assertive or aggressive attributes in certain situations.  The book has tried to bring out certain fascinating facts of behavioural patterns of the abovementioned dramatic personae in detail.

When irrationality in individual decision making influences markets on a macroeconomic scale, the inherent efficiency of markets is challenged. The decision of the UK populous to leave the European Union is one such example.1 This essay compares the individual biases in investors' and voters' decision making during the Brexit referendum, and reveals how these biases became systematic enough to result in market inefficiency. Overall, the essay claims that it is the social world that creates systematic irrationality, because the choice architecture (Balz, Thaler, & Sunstein, 2014) of decisions is socially mediated and frames the decision in a certain contextual light. Therefore, investors' and voters' rationality during the referendum was bound by a socially mediated choice architecture. Thus, although the information about voter behaviour was freely available to investors and other voters, the information shaping these decisions was not randomly distributed in these populations. This created systematic biases, resulting in inefficient investment decisions (both before and after the referendum) and the inefficient macroeconomic decision of leaving the EU. Overall, this suggests that the traditional understanding of markets as inherently rational is flawed. Brexit and the Efficient Market Hypothesis. Although the voters in Brexit cannot be considered as traditional players in a market place, they were players in the world economy. According to the Efficient Market Hypothesis (Fama, 1970), these voters should have been expected to behave rationally to maintain the most efficient outcome for the UK and the world economy. Rational behaviour is defined as the maximisation of expected utility and minimisation of losses based on all available information (Kattsoff, L, 1945). The lack of knowledge about what would happen to financial markets if the UK chose to leave the EU suggests that in this case, it would be rational to vote to remain part of the EU. In other words, the voters' informational (Haselton 14 1 Qvortrup (2016) likens the voting options to leave or remain in the EU to " inelastic and elastic goods ". This argument helps to elucidate how the decisions of voters were an economic decision for the UK.

Religion: An analysis through the lens of neuroscience and philosophical Taoism.

This is an open ended paper as I would like your conclusions. I ask this as you are my fellow researchers and scientist and I would appreciate your feedback/review so that I can extend this research to include aspects I may not have thought of. Either use the email at the end of the document or send a message with your thoughts. Thank you my fellow academics.

Purpose –This study focus on understanding people’s behaviour in a ‘green’ office where occupants’ thermoregulatory patterns in a multifunctional changeover mixed-mode space become an indicator of a new way in which corporate management allow design and technology to unfold in the workplace. How office design reflects the need for a new leadership in office management that enables a more conscious way of working and living?
Background (State of the Art) – Traditionally offices are designed with few multifunctional spaces that include basic kitchen facilities and photocopies machines around the central core of the building. However, the new corporate office management is now allowing relaxing spaces to emerge in workplace design. People’s thermoregulatory patterns in these spaces are fundamental to understand the new people-centric management philosophy.
Approach (Theory/Methodology) - The case study for this research was the National Australia Bank (NAB), Melbourne Docklands, with a changeover mixed-mode north façade designed with multifunctional spaces as kitchen-lounges in which people could exercise thermoregulatory behaviours such as choosing between air-conditioning and natural ventilation, raising or lowering blinds and various other activities. Occupants’ patterns were studied following the adaptive thermal comfort theory (positioning instruments in the study space) and perceptual (two surveys in spring and autumn) and behavioral investigations (one week of observations for each season).
Results - The results showed that the multifunctional mixed-mode space was fundamental for NAB occupants for their satisfaction both in terms of their thermal comfort but also in relation to a new corporate management strategy that allows flexibility, social interaction and relaxation in workplaces. Despite being site specific, the research highlighted the benefits of having multifunctional spaces that allow users’ control over the environment and their work.
Practical implications – There is a close relationship between office layout and how people behave in it. The office space has become multifunctional and flexible, and people’s behaviour have evolved, adjusted and often determined the change. The most important difference from early offices to those today is the idea around relaxing and socializing that was absent before and nowadays has assumed very important connotations. Therefore such spaces should be included in the design of office buildings as a reflection of a new management strategy.
Originality - At present this is the only study conducted in a changeover multifunctional mixed-mode space within an air-conditioning office. It demonstrated that a well-designed multifunctional mixed-mode space provides a high level of occupants’ satisfaction that reflects the new people-centric management strategy in workplaces.

Background : Living snakes are found on every continent except Antarctica, and on smaller land masses, while sea snakes are widespread through the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Most species are nonvenomous, and the venomous types use it primarily to kill and subdue prey rather than for self-defence. Some possess venom potent enough to cause painful injuries or death to humans. Nonvenomous snakes either swallow their prey while it's alive or kill by constriction. Venomous snakes occur throughout many regions of the world and are a threat to public health, especially in the rural tropics where they are most abundant. Out of more than 3000 species of snakes in the world, some 600 are venomous and over 200 are considered to be medically important. In India, the snakes considered as the most common venomous snakes are the Spectacled Cobra (Naja naja), Common Krait (Bungarus caeruleus), Russell's Viper (Daboia russelii) and Saw-scaled Viper (Echis carinatus). They are often referred to as the 'Big Four'. Aim : Captive study is the easiest way to get some baseline information on this cryptic species behavioural ecology as well as to increase life history data such as mating time and behaviour, nesting details, clutch size, incubation time. Observation study on different animals draws out the important and characteristic of that species in both captive and wild so these kind of behavioural studies are important in terms of conservation and protection of all species. The main aim of this study is to observe and draw an ethogram of the ex-situ behavioural pattern of the big four Indian snakes over a course of three months (Oct 2015 to Dec 2015). This study was conducted to contribute to the existing literature on behaviour of Big Four Indian Snakes. Result : Based on the direct observation method a behavioural ethogram comprising six parameters and sixteen behavioural events were studied. Diet analysis was also done to investigate healthy digestion and growth rate of the species.

Special Issue, The Origins of the Welfare State: Global and Comparative Approaches Co-edited by Agnoletto, S. and Palmieri, C. http://zapruderworld.org/journal/archive/volume-3/overcoming-barriers-to-voluntary-servitude-positive-thinking-and-self-help-the-post-political-ideology-of-workfare/

El ensayo pretende explicitar, desde una perspectiva ecléctica, la hipótesis de que los seres humanos somos animales motivados históricamente, es decir, dispuestos para la acción en función de un tipo de interés «histórico conductual». La historia de la cultura occidental proporcionaría un interés o impulso para realizar determinadas acciones que: (1) tratarían de reproducir modelos de conducta activa del pasado; (2) tratarían de conformarse con el presente en función del pasado; y, (3) tratarían de cambiar el pasado para crear algo nuevo. En relación con esto se postula la realidad de una nueva dimensión reguladora del proceso motivacional: «histórico-reproductiva»–«histórico-constructiva». Los intereses «histórico-conductuales» se justifican, en el marco de la teoría dinámica de la acción, y dentro del modelo ampliado de expectativa-valor, del modelo de Control de la Acción y del modelo Rubicón de fases de acción. Además, se justifica su viabilidad tanto desde el enfoque conductual (conductismo psicológico e interconductismo) como desde el enfoque sociocultural (ley de doble formación). Para terminar, se proponen una serie de hipótesis falsables sobre la «motivación histórica» en el ser humano.

Behavioural-change-related health education programmes represent a mainstay of health care activity. Where adopted, however, the theoretical and practical constructs and constraints are not always considered. The failure of many health education programmes to achieve their intended life-style-related behavioural-change outcomes is often directly related to the complexity of the task itself. Changing a client's health behaviour is notoriously difficult and requires concerted and systematic activities to ensure any measure of success. This article draws upon existing literature to develop a critical theoretical and practical perspective for health education practice in nursing. It aims to explore the underpinning theoretical considerations for undertaking behavioural-change health education programmes. This article also proposes specific recommendations for nurse's current and future health education practice, as a means for facilitating a more structured approach to health education programme planning and evaluation.

In the information age, the media consumer may find themselves increasingly demoralised and confused due to the overload of discourse available from a variety of sources. 

We are the species which has grown to love the narrative in its myriad of forms, it is one of the main ways in which we rationalise our existence.

In the West, the presence of a prescribed narrative could be viewed as a reflection of the reductionist heart of our culture. The post-enlightenment world, it seems, has turned away from a large scale belief system, and now favours one of materialism and the dominance of personality. 

Our narcissistic obsessions and the bizarre belief in the validity of opinions over truth, can be seen from even a cursory glance at mediums such as 'social media.' 

The reflection is rapidly becoming the reality.

As I have previously observed, the internet is a vast database of potential speculation from multiple angles on a variety of topics, many of which can tend to bypass the minds rational faculties. In many cases this can lead to dead ends of faulty thinking and incorrect assumptions concerning the world at large. These are easy roads to go down in the virtual landscape, and it is easy to find biased information to validate and confirm one's own cognitive biases on a topic. 

The "norm" for mainstream thinking is to align one's thinking with the consensus of what is being subjectively prescribed from the top down.  ...

http://www.whenthenewsstops.org/2015/06/behaviourism-narratives-and-social.html

Debts and Emotions are essentially related to each other. In this paper, the authors have studied the variation of emotional behaviour among different groups of debt holders, who were classified based on the type of debts they owe, namely education, business, auto, home & personal and the correlation between various emotions experienced by the debt holders are also studied to help explain their emotional responses using a suitable statistical tool (SPSS). The authors have explored the need for financial education among debt holders and studied its dependency on factors of demographic segmentation such as age, gender and income of the respondents. The authors observe a trend of significant difference in the intensity of emotional behaviour between the debt holder groups and also there is an overall positive correlation between the emotions. The necessity of financial education has a significant association with gender and income of the debt holders but has no dependency on their respective ages.

An online survey was conducted to identify factors associated with financial insecurity, food insecurity and poor quality of daily lives of adults in Nigeria during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The associations between the outcome (experience of financial loss, changes in food intake and impact of the pandemic on daily lives) and the explanatory (age, sex, education level, anxiety, depression, HIV status) variables were determined using logistic regression analysis. Of the 4439 respondents, 2487 (56.0%) were financially insecure, 907 (20.4%) decreased food intake and 4029 (90.8%) had their daily life negatively impacted. Males (AOR:0.84), people who felt depressed (AOR:0.62) and people living with HIV -PLHIV- (AOR:0.70) had significantly lower odds of financial insecurity. Older respondents (AOR:1.01) had significantly higher odds of financial insecurity. Those depressed (AOR:0.62) and PLHIV (AOR:0.55) had significantly lower odds of reporting decreased food intake. Resp...

The target behaviour of this program is to develop and maintain good eye care habit. Specifically, I aim to take a 20 seconds break by looking at an object at least 20 feet away after every 20 minutes of computer usage, also known as the 20-20-20 rule. The program will be monitored by my mother and a program by www.protectyourvision.org which sounds an alarm every 20 minutes and blacks out my computer screen for 20 seconds will be used. Baseline data will be recorded with a functional analysis with time-sampling data sheet (see Appendix B) while implementation data will be recorded with a functional analysis data sheet (see Appendix C).

An online survey was conducted to identify factors associated with financial insecurity, food insecurity and poor quality of daily lives of adults in Nigeria during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The associations between the outcome (experience of financial loss, changes in food intake and impact of the pandemic on daily lives) and the explanatory (age, sex, education level, anxiety, depression, HIV status) variables were determined using logistic regression analysis. Of the 4439 respondents, 2487 (56.0%) were financially insecure, 907 (20.4%) decreased food intake and 4029 (90.8%) had their daily life negatively impacted. Males (AOR:0.84), people who felt depressed (AOR:0.62) and people living with HIV -PLHIV- (AOR:0.70) had significantly lower odds of financial insecurity. Older respondents (AOR:1.01) had significantly higher odds of financial insecurity. Those depressed (AOR:0.62) and PLHIV (AOR:0.55) had significantly lower odds of reporting decreased food intake. Resp...

This article explores the notions of a good life as understood in religion and psychology. The markers of altruism and empathy are identified. The effect the use of social media has on brain chemistry is then explored and used in trying to answer the question as to whether technology (social media in particular) is hampering our ability to live a good life. The notions of the rise of narcissism and the decline in empathy are also discussed

In 1968 architect Hans Hollein built the Austrian pavilion at the XIV Triennale di Milano. Curated by Giancarlo de Carlo, the mostra was dedicated to " Il grande numero " (the 'big number'). In this edition, the transformation of cities' atmospheres under the new demographic explosion and mass consumption were openly put on the table of the architectural debate. After the proliferation of pneumatic paradises in the first years of this decade, this was a moment of inflection for architects pursuing social utopias immersed in atmospheric architectures. The dream was over. An ecological crisis was driving the new social concerns. Also, the biopolitical as studied by authors like Michel Foucault (the impact of power over all aspects of human life) is increasingly present. This was the time when the psychological impact of the environment over human behavior was intensely studied: radical conductism, sensory deprivation or behavior control were key topics influencing art production. The hypothesis of this paper consists that not only the triennale's main topic, but specially such research fields heavily influenced this project. The project embraced the times of crisis in an ironic and playful way, turning them into a space social criticism. Frequently found in graphic and theatrical formats, satire aims to draw attention to specific issues in society. This time satire is architectural. The paper aims to analyze Hollein's project in terms of a biopolitical machine. Simultaneously Kafkian and Freudian, its organization of movement, crowd control, stimulus-reward protocols and specialized performative atmospheres are organized in an architectural work.

Discourse on the issue of “simulation” or “diving” among soccer’s public exploded in the 1990s and has remained a perennial talking­ point. What little academic work does exist on the phenomenon, such as that produced by Paul H. Morris and David Lewis, is inscribed in the field of behavioural psychology and seeks to assist referees in spotting deceptive behaviour. This paper breaks new ground by considering the issue outside of such instrumental frameworks, focusing instead on the aesthetic issues that diving brings into play.

Art historian Lynda Nead has demonstrated that sports photographs ­ which function as “delays” or “extractions” from the “ceaseless motion” of the contest, allowing for ‘a contemplative and perhaps critical spectatorship’ ­ can accrue into genres. Her example is the boxing “head­punch” photograph, which Nead asserts as an independent sub­set of ‘a long tradition of the visual depiction of pain’. I make the claim that much the same can be said of the material investigated in my paper: the “dive” photograph constitutes a distinctive genre within the larger set of soccer photography, and is plugged into a visual tradition of hyperbolic anguish which also encompasses artefacts as diverse as Laocoön and his Sons, Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Teresa and Charcot’s photographic studies of female hysterics.

What makes the “dive” photograph distinct from Nead’s focus is the extent to which the subjects themselves are responsible for theatrically opening up the “delay” that Nead describes. This paper draws connections between the scandalising and scurrilous treatment to which divers are subjected in the British media and the broader disavowal of on­ pitch theatricality implicit in FIFA's long­standing directive against what their Technical Committee once decried as “excessive demonstrative attitudes”. Working through theories of performative visuality advanced by Aby Warburg and G.E. Lessing, the paper ultimately argues that the diver's transgression, as perceived from the ethical standpoint of the mainstream British press, is one of acknowledging their own status as a viewed entity, with all the gendered implications that carries.

An online survey was conducted to identify factors associated with financial insecurity, food insecurity and poor quality of daily lives of adults in Nigeria during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The associations between the outcome (experience of financial loss, changes in food intake and impact of the pandemic on daily lives) and the explanatory (age, sex, education level, anxiety, depression, HIV status) variables were determined using logistic regression analysis. Of the 4439 respondents, 2487 (56.0%) were financially insecure, 907 (20.4%) decreased food intake and 4029 (90.8%) had their daily life negatively impacted. Males (AOR:0.84), people who felt depressed (AOR:0.62) and people living with HIV -PLHIV- (AOR:0.70) had significantly lower odds of financial insecurity. Older respondents (AOR:1.01) had significantly higher odds of financial insecurity. Those depressed (AOR:0.62) and PLHIV (AOR:0.55) had significantly lower odds of reporting decreased food intake. Resp...

Attribution: © Alasdair White 2008 Short extracts, if properly cited and referenced, may be used for the purposes of criticism, review or academic research, under fair usage rules. The document in part or as a whole may be freely copied and distributed provided all such usage is ...