This paper builds upon a critically clarified statement of the triune brain concept to set out the conflict systems neurobehavioral model. The model defines the reciprocal algorithms of behavior from evolved brain structure. The algorithms are driven by subjectively experienced behavioral tension as the self‐preservational programming, common to our ancestral vertebrates, frequently tugs and pulls against the affectional program‐ming of our mammalian legacy. The yoking of the dual algorithmic dynamic accounts for the emergence of moral and spiritual consciousness as (...) manifested in the universal norm of reciprocity and in the work of such thinkersas Martin Buber and Paul Tillich. (shrink)

Shors and Matzel's evaluation of approaches to the behavioural function of LTP is welcome, and should encourage a widening of conceptual approaches to this problem. In addition to their call for increased sophistication in thinking about LTP, there needs to be a parallel increase in sophistication in the study of behaviour. Changes in emotional state or tone may be a better function for LTP than attention mechanisms.

In order to maximize human performance, defence forces continue to explore, develop, and apply human performance enhancement (HPE) methods, ranging from pharmaceuticals to (bio)technological enhancement. This raises ethical, legal, and societal concerns and requires organizing a careful reflection and deliberation process, with relevant stakeholders. We discuss a range of ethical, legal, and societal aspects (ELSA), which people involved in the development and deployment of HPE can use for such reflection and deliberation. A realistic military scenario with proposed HPE application can (...) serve as a starting point for such an iterative and participatory process. Stakeholders can discuss this application, modify its features, and design appropriate processes around it – for instance, procedures for informed consent. We propose that organizing aspects into these three categories – ethical, legal, and societal – can help involve appropriate interlocutors at different moments: legal aspects with people in strategy or management roles, from the start of a project; ethical aspects with people in operations and medical roles, during development; and societal aspects with people in communication and personnel roles, during deployment. Notably, we developed and discussed this framework and the three aspects in close collaboration with personnel from the military. (shrink)

Every description contains within it a qualifier that allows us to avoid the problem of descriptive regress, and thus allows us to use the description for various purposes. Descriptive regress occurs because no one description can be understood without referring to further descriptions, which themselves require unpacking by reference to further descriptions ad infinitum. There are no fundamental descriptions no descriptions that attain and keep some privileged ontological status. The qualifier works by invoking the normal circumstances in which the description (...) obtains. It is impossible to foresee and describe in advance all the circumstances that would not be normal and that would reveal to us when the description could not obtain. It is our common sense the sense we develop as members of communities, and a sense sometimes narrowed and specialized in certain forms of life of what set of normal circumstances are implied into the description that allows us to use descriptions for various purposes (e.g. for describing circumstances in which some normative consequence should follow if the description obtains). This theory of descriptions is particularly relevant to the analysis of the role of descriptions of behavior and behavioral concepts in law. Law, in order to enable the regulation and evaluation of human behavior, cannot do without behavioral foundations criteria for evaluation of behavior are always based on certain descriptions of behavior and behavioral concepts. The theory of descriptions developed explains how descriptions of behavior function, namely, their utility relies on the legal community's common sense of the qualifiers attaching to descriptions of behavior. But that theory also has a reformative agenda: we should not think that any one description or any one behavioral concept such as that of intentionality can do all the work for us, in every area of the law, and in respect of every single social phenomenon. We need, in other words, to rethink the criteria for the evaluation of behavior on the basis of this theory of descriptions: i.e. on both the power and the limitations of descriptions of behavior. (shrink)

This book presents a thorough overview of a model of human functioning based on the idea that behavior is goal-directed and regulated by feedback control processes. It describes feedback processes and their application to behavior, considers goals and the idea that goals are organized hierarchically, examines affect as deriving from a different kind of feedback process, and analyzes how success expectancies influence whether people keep trying to attain goals or disengage. Later sections consider a series of emerging themes, (...) including dynamic systems as a model for shifting among goals, catastrophe theory as a model for persistence, and the question of whether behavior is controlled or instead 'emerges'. Three chapters consider the implications of these various ideas for understanding maladaptive behavior, and the closing chapter asks whether goals are a necessity of life. Throughout, theory is presented in the context of diverse issues that link the theory to other literatures. (shrink)

We investigate a system of two species exploiting a common resource. We consider both abiotic (i.e. with a constant resource supply rate) and biotic (i.e. with resource reproduction and self-limitation) resources. We are interested in the asymmetric competition where a given consumer is the locally superior resource exploiter (LSE) and the other is the locally inferior resource exploiter (LIE). They also interact directly via interference competition in the sense that LIE individuals can use two opposite strategies to compete with LSE (...) individuals: we assume, in the first case, that LIE uses an avoiding strategy, i.e. LIE individuals go to a non-competition patch to avoids competition with LSE individuals, and in the second one, LIE uses an aggressive strategy, i.e. being very aggressive so that LSE individuals have to go to a non-competition patch. We further assume that there is no resource in the non-competition patch so that individuals have to come back to the competition patch for their maintenance, and the migration process acts on a fast time scale in comparison with demography and competition processes. The models show that being aggressive is efficient for LIE’s survival and even provoke global extinction of the LSE and this result does not depend on the nature of resource. (shrink)

From its genesis in the 1960s, the focus of inquiry in neuroscience has been on the cellular and molecular processes underlying neural activity. In this pursuit neuroscience has been enormously successful. Like any successful scientific inquiry, initial successes have raised new questions that inspire ongoing research. While there is still much that is not known about the molecular processes in brains, a great deal of very important knowledge has been secured, especially in the last 50 years. It has also attracted (...) the attention of a number of philosophers, some of whom have viewed it as evidence for a ruthlessly reductionistic program that will eventually explain how mental processes are performed in the brain in purely molecular terms. As neuroscience developed, however, there emerged a smaller group of researchers who focused on systems, behavioral, and cognitive neuroscience. These investigators have also made impressive advances in the last 50 years and they have been the focus of an even larger group of philosophers, who have appealed to systems level understanding of the brain as providing the appropriate point of connection to the information processing accounts advanced in psychology. (shrink)

Causal explanations of behavior must distinguish two kinds of cause. There are triggering causes, the events or conditions that come before the effect and are followed regularly by the effect, and structuring causes, events that cause a triggering cause to produce its effect. Moving the mouse is the triggering cause of cursor movement; hardware and programming conditions are the structuring causes of cursor movement. I use this distinction to show how representational facts can be structuring causes of behavior (...) even though biological events trigger the behavior. (shrink)

Sciences able to identify appropriate analytical units for their domain, their natural kinds, have tended to be more progressive. In the biological sciences, evolutionary natural kinds are adaptations that can be identified by their common history of selection for some function. Human brains are the product of an evolutionary history of selection for component systems which produced behaviours that gave adaptive advantage to their hosts. These structures, behaviour production systems, are the natural kinds that psychology seeks. We argue these can (...) be identified deductively by classing behaviour first according to its level of behavioural control. Early animals in our lineage used only reactive production, Vertebrates evolved motivation, and later Primates developed executive control. Behaviour can also be classified by the type of evolutionary benefit it bestows: it can deliver either immediate benefits (food, gametes), improvements in the individual’s position with respect to the world (resource access, social status), or improvements in the ability to secure future benefits (knowledge, skill). Combining history and function implies the existence of seven types of behaviour production systems in human brains responsible for reflexive, instinctual, exploratory, driven, emotional, playful and planned behaviour. Discovering scientifically valid categories of behaviour can provide a fundamental taxonomy and common language for understanding, predicting and changing behaviour, and a way of discovering the organs in the brain––its natural kinds––that are responsible for behaviour. (shrink)

The author is primarily concerned with the explanation of behavior in regard to (1) the mecanical model, (2) the effects of physical-organic processes on behavior, (3) the lack of understanding between philosophers and psychologists as to sufficient conditions for predicting a behavioral event, (4) conditions leading to expalantions of behavior that could predict behavior exclusive of any antecedent psychological behavior, and (5) variations of the mechanical-model introducing differing sorts of explanation. (staff).

Little attention has been paid in academic dishonesty literature to empirically testing the effectiveness of different instructor communication strategies to minimize cheating. Using a quasi-experimental design, we compared the effectiveness of instructor fear appeals and moral appeals on student cheating-related attitudes and behavior. Cheating was most strongly associated with neutralizing attitudes in the moral appeal condition. Also, the relationship between observation of others cheating and self-reported cheating behaviors was stronger in both treatment conditions than in the control condition. Although (...) a trend toward less cheating in the treatment conditions was evident, it did not attain statistical significance. (shrink)

Although less observable than the overt actions of fighting and assault, covert antisocial behaviors such as stealing and property destruction comprise an important subclass of externalizing behavior patterns, displaying considerable predictive power toward delinquency in adolescence. I discuss a laboratory paradigm for objective observation of such behaviors in children that has shown impressive concurrent and predictive validity among samples of boys with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Addressed herein are crucial questions regarding the ethics of tempting children to (...) steal objects and small amounts of money and to deface property as well as the types of informed consent and debriefing procedures utilized in research with this paradigm. Weighing ethical considerations alongside the ability to predict delinquent behavior presents provocative issues for those interested in understanding the development of antisocial behavior. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to set forth a sense in which programs can and do explain behavior, and to distinguish from this a number of senses in which they do not. Once we are tolerably clear concerning the sort of explanatory strategy being employed, two rather interesting facts emerge; (1) though it is true that programs are "internally represented," this fact has no explanatory interest beyond the mere fact that the program is executed; (2) programs which are (...) couched in information processing terms may have an explanatory interest for a given range of behavior which is independent of physiological explanations of the same range of behavior. (shrink)

In light of the human genome project, establishing the genetic aetiology of complex human diseases has become a research priority within Western medicine. However, in addition to the identification of disease genes, numerous research projects are also being undertaken to identify genes contributing to the development of human behavioural characteristics, such as cognitive ability and criminal tendency. The permissibility of this research is obviously controversial: will society benefit from this research, or will it adversely affect our conceptions of ourselves and (...) each other? When assessing the permissibility of this research, it is important to consider the nature and deterministic significance of behavioural genetic information. Whilst todate there has been much discussion and debate about the properties of genetic information per se and genetic determinism, this has not been applied to behavioural genetic research and its ethical implications. Therefore, this paper elucidates how behavioural genetic information can be distinguished from other types of genetic and non-genetic information and also synthesises the determinative significance of genetic factors for the development of human behavioural traits. Undertaking this analysis enables the ethical issues raised by this research to be debated in an appropriate context and indicates that separate policy considerations are warranted. (shrink)

What is the role of consciousness in nature? The science of consciousness has largely neglected the question through its emphasis on human experience. In this précis of A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness, I outline how we can move from a top-down approach that begins with investigations in humans to an evolutionary bottom-up approach that targets the adaptive origins of even the most minimal forms of subjective experience. I will also offer an introduction to the central thesis of (...) the book, i.e. the pathological complexity thesis, according to which consciousness evolved in order to enable animals to adaptively respond to their life history challenges. (shrink)

What is needed today is a biologically grounded explanation of behavior, one that moves beyond the so?called mind?body problem. Yet no solution will be found by philosophers who refuse to learn about how brains and bodies work, or by neuroscientists pursuing experimental research based on outmoded or blatantly anti?biological theories. Churchland's book proposes a solution: to come by a unified theory of the mind?brain philosophers have to work together with neuroscientists. Yet Churchland's vision of a unified theory is based (...) on an assumption that, while widely held, may not adequately reflect brain functioning in the production of behavior, namely, the assumption that brain processes represent. The present paper proposes an alternative view, suggesting that patterns of neural activity do not ?represent? anything, that brains do not ?read? or ?transform? representations, and that brains do not require representations to produce goal?directed behavior. Representations are replaced by self?organizing neural processes that achieve a certain end?state of interaction between the organism and its environment in a flexible and adaptive manner. Some of the implications of this view for neuroscientific research and the philosophy of mind are outlined. (shrink)

Responses are strengthened by consequences having to do with the survival of individuals and species. With respect to the provenance of behavior, we know more about ontogenic than phylogenic contingencies. The contingencies responsible for unlearned behavior acted long ago. This remoteness affects our scientific methods, both experimental and conceptual. Until we have identified he variables responsible for an event, we tend to invent causes. Explanatory entities such as “instincts,” “drives,” and “traits” still survive. Unable to show how organisms (...) can behave effectively under complex circumstances, we endow them with special abilities permitting them to do so.Behavior exhibited by most members of a species is often accepted as inherited if all members were not likely to have been exposed to relevant ontogenic contingencies. When contingencies are not obvious, it is perhaps unwise to call any behavior either inherited or acquired, as the examples of churring in honey guides and following in imprinted ducklings show. Nor can the relative importance of phylogenic and ontogenic contingencies be argued from instances in which unlearned or learned behavior intrudes or dominates. Intrusions occur in both directions.Behavior influenced by its consequences seems directed toward the future, but only past effects are relevant. The mere fact that behavior is adaptive does not indicate whether phylogenic or ontogenic processes have been responsible for it. Examples include the several possible provenances of imitation, aggression, and communication. The generality of such concepts limits their usefulness. A more specific analysis is needed if we are to deal effectively with the two kinds of contingencies and their products. (shrink)

The article presents the main types of conflict behaviour with the author’s proposal of their classification. The suggested classification is based on the way in which an individual deals with a partner’s adverse influence on his/her self-interest and welfare in a conflict situation. Four possible ways of coping i.e. attack, amicable settlement, defence, and yielding have been distinguished. On the basis of this behaviour classification, the Conflict Behaviour Questionnaire was compiled and its reliability and validity was assessed.

Based on a framework that integrates job demands-resources theory, social cognitive theory Handbook of personality, Guilford Press, New York, pp 154–196, 1999) and regulatory focus theory, the purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics and subsequent moral disengagement and unethical behavior. We conducted a laboratory study and also collected data in two separate surveys 6 weeks apart from 206 individuals working full time to investigate the relationships presented in our model. In both (...) studies, we examined the direct relationship of politics perceptions on unethical behavior in organizations as well as the indirect relationship through the influence of moral disengagement. We investigated the moderating effect of regulatory focus on the relationship between moral disengagement and unethical behavior using the survey data. Results indicated that perceptions of politics were significantly related to our mediator, moral disengagement, which was significantly related to our dependent variable, unethical behavior. However, only prevention-focus moderated the relationships examined. Implications for future research and managerial practice are discussed. (shrink)

Background Hospital ethical climate has important implications for clinical nurses’ service behavior; however, the relationships are complicated by the fact that five types of ethical climate (caring, law and code, rules, instrumental, and independence) can be combined differently according to their level and shape differences. Recent developments in person-centered methods (e.g., latent profile analysis (LPA)) have helped to address these complexities. Aim From a person-centered perspective, this study explored the distinct profiles of hospital ethical climate and then examined the (...) relationships of the profiles with clinical nurses’ service behavior (both in-role and extra-role service behavior). Research design A quantitative study was conducted using cluster random sampling. Latent profile analysis and binary coded hexadecimal (BCH) analysis were conducted using Mplus 8.2. Participants and research context A total of 871 clinical nurses in China were surveyed using the Ethical Climate Scale and Nurses’ Service Behavior Questionnaire. Ethical considerations Ethical approval was obtained from the IRB of the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University (No. KY-2020-090). Results A four-profile hospital ethical climate model provided the best fit for the data. The four different profiles not only varied in level, but also in shape: high normative and low egoism (45.8%), high ethical climate (19.9%), low ethical climate (3.6%), and moderate ethical climate (30.8%). These profiles differentially predicted clinical nurses’ overall, in-role, and extra-role service behaviors. Conclusions The results reveal new insights into the nature of hospital ethical climate and how different clinical nurses in these profiles can be best managed to accomplish different forms of service behavior. (shrink)

The study aimed to find out the impact of fees imposed on escorts on the consumer behavior of expatriate families in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by studying purchase motives, sources of purchase decisions, economic factors and social factors when purchasing products. The study concluded that there was no effect of these factors on changing the consumption habits of expatriate families. Rather, factors intervened that led to the increasing control of most of these factors and their impact, especially with (...) the deterioration of the economic and security conditions in the countries of arrivals, and the preference of most families to stay in the Kingdom. (shrink)

This study is an analysis of 186 psychologists' attitudes on what constitutes ethical practice when counseling clients who present with a range of concerns related to their experience of same-sex attraction and behavior. Three different groups of psychologists were surveyed: generalists, specialists in gay and lesbian issues, and religiously affiliated psychologists. Participants also rated the effectiveness of several professional experiences in providing education, direction, sanctions, or support to regulate the practice of counseling nonheterosexual clients. Significant group differences were found (...) regarding what is considered best, acceptable, and unacceptable practice with clients presenting with same-sex attraction issues. Significant differences were also found among the three groups in what respondents rated as effective elements of their clinical experience. Keywords: gay, lesbian, religion, survey. (shrink)

No detailed description available for "Mind, Brain, Behavior".

_The Physiological Basis of Behaviour_ deals with the basic structures of the central nervous system, the techniques used in neuroscience and examnines how drugs affect the brain.

Knowledge of the backgrounds of students of behaviour working in the field of applied animal behavior science may help us to recognize their influence on conclusions reached in a particular study and on more general points of view. This recognition may result in a speed up of the progress in this science, to the benefit of science and animals. Some types are: (1) Eco-ethologists (ethologists of the hunters-type). They like to stalk healthy wild animals in their natural environment. They (...) are less interested in the abnormal behavior of domestic animals under husbandry circumstances. (2) Behaviorists. These are psychologists that still think in a man-animal dichotomy. They are not interested in animals for their own sake but as models for human behavior. (3) Behavior physiologists. These biologists are not primarily interested in behavior. Because of the type of experiments they perform they have an aversity against animal protectionists. (4) Ethologists of the farmers type. These ethologists want to posses animals, collect animal species, take care of them and breed them. They are able to speak on approximately the same wavelength as farmers as well as animal protectionists. (5) Zootechnicians of the farmers type. These scientists want to make a living out of animals and like to take care for them. They are also able to speak at approximately the same wavelength as farmers and animal protectionists. (shrink)

Nearly one million people take their own lives each year world-wide - however, contrary to popular belief, suicide can be prevented. While suicide is commonly thought to be an understandable reaction to severe stress, it is actually an abnormal reaction to regular situations. Something more than unbearable stress is needed to explain suicide, and neuroscience shows what this is, how it is caused and how it can be treated. Professor Kees van Heeringen describes findings from neuroscientific research on suicide, using (...) various approaches from population genetics to brain imaging. Compelling evidence is reviewed that shows how and why genetic characteristics or early traumatic experiences may lead to a specific predisposition that makes people vulnerable to triggering life events. Neuroscientific studies are yielding results that provide insight into how the risk of suicide may develop; ultimately demonstrating how suicide can be prevented. (shrink)

Within Luo’s (2001, J. Math. Econ. 36, 95–109) framework of a general system, I establish an equivalence theorem for the conservative stable standard of behavior (CSSB for short) developed by J. Greenberg (“The Theory of Social Situation: An Alternative Game-Theoretic Approach,” Cambridge University Press, 1990). It is shown that a standard of behavior for a situation is a CSSB if, and only if, its graph is a φ-stable set for the associated general system.

Against the background of the fact that speakers not seldom intend to convey imports which deviate from the linguistically expressed meanings of linguistic items, the present article addresses some consequences of this phenomenon which appear to still be neglected in textual studies. It is suggested that understanding behaviour is in some respect a primary objective of exegesis and that due attention must be attributed to the high diversity of behaviour-related criteria by which interpretations of linguistic items are to be evaluated. (...) Although we intimate in addition that individual (meaningful) sentences occurring either in oral conversations or in written documents generally exhibit a multiplicity of contents of diverse types and that the circumstance that sometimes only a content equalling the linguistic significance of a pertinent unit matters for purposes of interpretation is caused by a material coincidence of different varieties of content, the tenets advocated in the paper do not essentially depend on that view. On the other hand, the following assumptions are relevant in the present connection: (a) A number of deviances between imports conveyed by linguistic utterances and literal meanings of expressions occur due to maxims of linguistic behaviour that are quite independent of lexical and syntactic features of individual natural languages. (b) It is by no means an exceptional phenomenon that imports not derivable by grammatical rules of a particular language alone possess primary importance for interpretation and textual exegesis. In view of significant affinities between understanding of sentences and of texts it is argued that the consideration of diverse aspects of behaviour possesses relevance for textual exegesis at least in the following respects: (1) By delivering a heuristic device for discerning problems affecting adopted interpretations it encourages searches for alternatives. (2) It provides means for evaluating the degree of acceptability of particular textual exegeses and possibly rejecting them on a more rational basis than mere intuition. (3) It offers possibilities for critically assessing the validity of explicit arguments advanced in favour of or in opposition to some interpretation. (4) It furnishes a background for assessing certain disputes about translation. The dimension of linguistic behaviour also attains importance in connection with questions of exegesis which are not concerned with assessments of (propositional) contents intended to be communicated, such as the ascertainment of the function which some argument possesses in a context. For substantiating the thesis that omission of raising relevant questions concerning behaviour is not an isolated phenomenon two examples will be employed: (1) A discussion concerning the exegesis of a crucial passage of Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya and the Pramāṇasamuccayavṛtti, (2) a critical appraisal of a recent publication dealing with the interpretation of the second chapter of Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā-s. (shrink)

The analogy between sequences of behavior and sequences of words is examined in detail and found to be both logically and empirically defensible. Linguistic distinctions are shown to be applicable to other forms of behavior. A behavioral grammar framework is developed and applied to the study of conversational behavior. The framework is shown to be superior to simpler finite state, associative models and the formal limits of the latter are discussed.

While many philosophers agree that evolutionary theory has important implications for the study of ethics, there has been no consensus on what these implications are. I argue that we can better understand these implications by examining two related yet distinct issues in evolutionary theory: the evolution of our moral beliefs and the evolution of cooperative behavior. While the prevailing evolutionary account of morality poses a threat to moral realism, a plausible model of how altruism evolved in human beings provides (...) the grounding for a research program that focuses on achieving some of the more practical goals shared by ethicists. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy, College of Staten Island/City University of New York, 2800 Victory Blvd., Staten Island, NY 10314; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

With so many items and commercials bombarding customers in today's highly competitive market, the need of successful promotional methods has increased. Celebrity endorsement is one of the most well-liked and effective marketing strategies that businesses employ to draw attention, establish their legitimacy as a brand, and influence customer buying decisions. This pattern is also evident in the market for healthcare goods that contain nutraceuticals, which has grown significantly in recent years. The purpose of this study is to assess how customer (...) purchasing behaviour in this particular business is impacted by celebrity endorsements (Patel, K. et al. 2023). (shrink)

Self-medication behaviour is the use of natural materials or chemical substances to manipulate behaviour or alter the body’s response to parasites or pathogens. Self-medication can be preventive, performed before an individual becomes infected or diseased, and/or therapeutic, performed after an individual becomes infected or diseased. We summarized all available reports of self-medication in mammals and reconstructed its evolution. We found that reports of self-medication were restricted to eutherian mammals and evolved at least four times independently. Self-medication was most commonly reported (...) in primates. Detailed analyses of primates suggest that self-medication is a life-history trait associated with body size, absolute brain size and longevity, but we found no support for the hypothesis that self-medication evolved to reduce the costs of social living. Large, longer-lived species might thus benefit uniquely from self-medication. (shrink)