BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES - Universitatea de Medicină şi Farmacie

attempt has been made to deal with both in the same terms, it would be
equally rash to assert that there is.
A discussion of human embryology makes considerable use of
research on the embryos of chicks, pigs, and other animals. Treatises on
digestion, respiration, circulation, endocrine secretion, and other
physiological processes deal with rats, hamsters, rabbits, and so on, even
though the interest is primarily in human beings. The study of behavior
has much to gain from the same practice.
1.2. Factors Influencing Human Behavior
Human behavior as the population of behaviors exhibited by
humans is determined by many factors. It is influenced by biology,
through genes, neurotransmitters and other biological mechanisms; by
environment, through social factors; and psychology, through the structure
of the human brain and its many, varied functions. No one mentioned area
can entirely determine human behavior. It is influenced through all of
them. That mean it is influenced through the interaction of biological,
sociological and psychological factors. In what is follow we will focus on
these three factors and on the way these work together.
Biological basis of behavior
The nervous system
Behavior, which can vary from driving a car to making a difficult
mathematical exercise, depends on various processes in the human body.
The relation between these processes is regulated by the nervous system.
Here is an example of what your body has to do in order to make you stop
for a red traffic light. First you have to perceive the light, which means
that the light has to be caught by the eye. The eye sends signals to the
brain. The brain compares the signals with those received from the other
eye and stores the signals temporarily in your memory. (You know you
have to stop for the red light.) After that you have to push the brake pedal.
To make this happen, your brains have to send a signal to the leg muscles
to push the feet on the brake pedal. All these signals from and to your
brains are transported through nerve cells.
The nervous system is the most complex system of the human
body. The human brain itself consists of at least 10 billion neurons. Every
moment of the day your nervous system is active. It exchanges millions of
signals corresponding with feeling, thoughts and actions. A simple
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