Background to Biological Psychology

When we study biological psychology, we are interested in the biological processes that shape how our brains create our minds, thereby generating who we are and what we do – our sense of self and our behaviour. In this introductory section of the textbook, which consists of a single chapter, we will explore three distinct aspects of biological psychology.

We begin with a brief survey of the ways in which our understanding of the relationship between the mind and our physical body, especially the brain, has changed over time. Almost all biological psychologists now take a broadly materialistic view which assumes that the mind, once seen as a quite separate entity from the body, is simply another aspect of the physical functioning our brain.

We then explore the methods used to investigate the relationship between brain function and behaviour. Although contemporary neuroscientists have developed techniques that permit us to monitor, and potentially interfere with, brain function in ways that were unimaginable only twenty or thirty years ago, there are still fundamental limitations which it is important to understand.

All scientific study is subject to ethical constraints. Psychology as a discipline has developed a strong research ethics code and in the final section of the chapter we explore how this is reflected in studies that use either human or non-human animals.

There is also a brief postscript which introduces three key concepts from biology (cells , inheritance and evolution) that you may find helpful.