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Physiological Psychology
Physiological psychology focuses on the relationship between our biological makeup and our behaviour and experiences.
This area of psychology can be very convincing. For example we do know that the structure of our nervous system (including our brains) and the action of chemicals can have an effect on our behaviour. However, an important question is how much does our biology affect us?
Some physiological psychologists take a reductionist argument to answer the above question. That is, they argue that behaviour and experiences can be explained in terms of brain structure and chemicals. This reductionist argument has lead to such psychologists making great discoveries, for example, in the affect of drugs on mood and behaviour.
However, other psychologists (including many physiological psychologists) take the view that we cannot explain complex human behaviour and experience just in terms of brain structure and chemicals. There are other psychological variables which need to be considered, for example, such as how we act alone compared to how we behave in groups.
The study by Schachter and Singer (1962) investigates emotions and their two-factor theory argues that we experience emotions as an interaction between physiological and psychological variables.
Dement and Kleitman's (1957) study investigates what happens when we sleep and Sperry (1968) investigates the behaviour and experiences of people who have had their brains separated into two halves.
The study by Raine (1997) attempts to investigate the relationship between brain structure and function and violence.