Study of Human Behavior and Performance Facinated by With My Own Personal Experiences in Art

Many people are fascinated by human beliefs. Why do nosotros act the mode nosotros do? How is our behavior influenced, or measured? And why is behavioral change so difficult?

In this weblog post, we describe several behavioral theories, as well as dissimilar ways to mensurate human beliefs. Lastly, we hash out research fields in which man behavior plays a central role, like psychology, health intendance, teaching, and consumer research.

How to written report human behavior

Perspectives on behavior
Qualitative versus quantitative research
Observation
Physiological measures
Implicit measures
Developmental psychology research
Mental disorders
Health care research
Education & training
User experience and human factors inquiry
Consumer behavior research

Perspectives on behavior

Behaviorism: it's the surround

Influenced by prominent thinkers like John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner, behavioral psychology gained popularity between 1920 and 1950. With its focus on observable behavior instead of mental states, behaviorism provided a systematic way to study man behavior.

Behaviorists fence that beliefs is learned in interaction with our environment, and that all behaviors are learned through experience. Ii key principles that are involved in new behavior are classical and operant conditioning.

In classical conditioning, something new is paired with something that occurs naturally. Subsequently a while, this new stimulus triggers the same reaction equally the original stimulus, resulting in a new association. A famous example of this principle is establish in Ivan Pavlov's research.

What is classical conditioning?

In his experiments with dogs, Pavlov paired the sound of a bell (new stimulus) with the presentation of nutrient (naturally occurring stimulus). Eventually, the dogs started salivating when hearing the bell, fifty-fifty when no food was presented (new association). And voilà, new beliefs is learned.

What is operant conditioning?

The second learning principle, operant conditioning, describes the fashion our behavior is shaped by consequences. Specifically, it states that reward and penalty can influence the likelihood that behaviors occur over again.

Retrieve nearly how you praise a child when she eats her vegetables, or how you might take away a favorite toy when she's mean to her blood brother. In both cases, y'all provide her with a consequence for her behavior. Chances are, she'll consume her vegetables next time as well, and will think twice well-nigh teasing her brother.

These methods explain much of how human being behavior is shaped. However, critics argue that behaviorism fails to accept into account important factors like free volition, internal influences, and other types of learning. In the next paragraphs, we will explore two other behavioral theories.

Social learning theory: it's other people

Social learning theory was proposed in the 1970's by Albert Bandura, who believed that conditioning alone could not account for all behaviors. At its core, social learning theory proposes that people learn from observing others.

This observational learning does not only occur when observing another person, just also when listening to descriptions of behavior or viewing symbolic models. From very early on on, this provides usa with many learning opportunities.

Importantly, social learning theory emphasizes that behavior is too influenced by mental states, like motivation or thoughts.

Another difference with behaviorism is that observational learning does non necessarily lead to permanent behavioral changes. In other words, people might learn new information without actually showing new behaviors.

So far, we've established that human being behavior tin can be shaped through experience and observation. A third method of learning behavior is described past Relational Frame Theory.

Relational Frame Theory: information technology'south our language

Relational Frame Theory (RFT) was adult in the 2000's by Steven Hayes, Dermot Barnes-Holmes and Brian Roche, and builds upon classic behaviorism. What'southward new in this theory is the role of human linguistic communication in learning new behavior.

Specifically, RFT researchers argue that language enables us to learn new information indirectly. The cardinal learning processes of this theory are centered on relations betwixt stimuli, or relational frames.

Every bit an example, imagine you meet three new people: Aaron, Bianca and Chris. Aaron introduces himself to you, and explains that Bianca is his sister and Chris is his begetter. Importantly, with these relations learned directly (B-A, C-A), y'all at present know several other relations indirectly.

First, you can derive that Aaron is Bianca's brother (A-B) and Chris' son (A-C). This is called 'mutual entailment' in RFT. Just you can also understand that Bianca is Chris' daughter (B-C) and that Chris is Bianca's father (C-B), which is referred to every bit 'combinatorial mutual entailment'.

Fifty-fifty though these relations may seem obvious, the example shows that we can learn indirectly, through relations or frames nosotros already know. The more relations nosotros know, the more relations we can derive. And, like social learning theory, it shows that we don't need actual experience to learn new information.

Why is irresolute beliefs hard?

As you might know from personal experience, changing behavior can be difficult. Maybe you have tried to exercise more or to eat more healthy foods, only to find yourself back to your erstwhile habits one calendar week later.

Why is behavioral change and so difficult? And what can you do to succeed anyway?

Showtime, it is of import to know that well-nigh 95% of our behavior is driven by unconscious processes. It would simply take too much mental energy to exist aware of all our behaviors. So instead, most of information technology becomes automatic, part of our habits.

2d, behaviorism has taught us that the surround, through associations and consequences, shapes our behaviors. Then let'southward examine the consequences of a behavior we want to change.

To return to our previous instance, imagine that you desire to exercise more often. What are the consequences of that behavior? More energy, better wellness, slimmer body. Sounds good, right? But to go there, you take to work out, sweat, and skip comfortable hours on the couch.

Do you notice the departure between these consequences, specifically in their timing? The unpleasant consequences come immediately, while you have to persevere for weeks or even months until y'all can experience the pleasant consequences of your behavior.

If consequences drive our behavior, it'southward not surprising that the firsthand, visible rewards win over the long-term, abstract ones. And if we're not aware of 95% of our behaviors, how can we expect to change them? Luckily, we can also use these principles to our advantage.

Behavioral change

A powerful style to make use of our automatic behaviors is through habit stacking. Basically, this means that y'all take an existing habit, and then add a new behavior to information technology. For example, when you lot regularly forget to take your medicine, you 'stack' this behavior on tiptop of a habit yous have already mastered, like brushing your teeth in the morning.

By making a new behavior part of an automated routine, you are more likely to stick with information technology. The beauty of information technology is that you can keep stacking on new behaviors, once a new beliefs has become a habit of itself.

The power of consequences

You can besides harness the power of consequences, by creating ways to make the short-term consequences of your desired behavior more positive, while making the brusque-term consequences of procrastination more costly.

For instance, you can reward yourself each time you eat a healthy meal. Just praising yourself for each step in the right direction can make a difference, every bit tin can actively imagining the long-term benefits of your behavior. And if you desire to make the consequences of procrastination more costly, you can try teaming up with a buddy, making your intentions public, or putting an expensive bet on your behavior.

Alter your environment

Some other of import step yous tin can have is changing your environment. If your Tv set is on and your sports clothes are in the attic, it's much easier to lounge on the couch than information technology is to start your conditioning. Instead, unplug the TV and keep everything you demand to starting time exercising in sight.

Principles like these are also used in (cognitive) behavioral therapy. With the help of a therapist, behaviors involved in anxiety, depression, addictions or other mental disorders are examined and inverse gradually. To provide people with the best care possible, authentic measurements and continued research of behavior are essential.

Qualitative versus quantitative research

To mensurate homo behavior, all kinds of research instruments are at our disposal. These instruments tin be divided into qualitative measurements and quantitative measurements.

What is qualitative research?

Qualitative measurements help researchers to understand human behavior on a deeper level past studying underlying reasons, opinions, and motivations. They are particularly helpful in agreement the context of phenomena, and how they touch on individuals and groups. It is all about the details. It seeks to explicate 'how' and 'why' people behave equally they do.

Methods to measure qualitative data

The sample size in this type of research is typically small since it's hugely labor intensive. Methods to mensurate qualitative data are for example in-depth interviews, focus grouping interviews, observations, and unstructured questionnaires using open-ended questions. Preferably, qualitative research is conducted in a natural setting.

What is quantitative research?

On the other mitt, quantitative measurements are used to quantify preferences, opinions, facts, behaviors, and other divers variables – and generalize results from a larger sample population. It is used to answer questions such as "How many?", "How ofttimes?", "How much?" of which the answers are expressed with numbers. You can statistically analyze the collected data. Methods to collect this data are eastward.yard. surveys, structured questionnaires, and online polls, using close-ended questions.

Combining qualitative and quantitative data

The overall purpose of research is discovering the truth. However, "without proficient data, you're just guessing." Combining qualitative information with quantitative data will provide researchers in-depth data virtually a certain behavior, and diverse aspects of that beliefs. The two different approaches complement each other, while the shortfalls of each volition be balanced.

Noldus Consulting can help you perform your research in the best possible way, getting yous objective and loftier-quality results, which gives you the power to move forrad.

Observation

A very important function of studying human behavior is performing observations. What better way to explain someone's behavior than past observing that person? How is your test participant interacting with a kid, a patient, or computer?

Observational enquiry

Observational inquiry is typically performed in ane's habitation, workplace, or a particularly designed observation lab. The best mode to observe one'southward true behavior is unobtrusively. With a 1-way-mirror, it is possible to spotter every motility of your field of study, without existence physically present in the room. By using The Observer XT, you lot can annotate all of the behaviors of interest and perform analysis, turning qualitative information into quantitative information.

Video observations are also a slap-up way to report man behavior. The employ of video greatly expands the telescopic of any research project. Annotating from video allows y'all to make frame-authentic descriptions of behavior. Viso is an ideal solution for high quality recording of video and sound in multiple rooms, and provides the video material needed to gain insights into processes, human functioning, and communication.

Observing behavior in the brain

Another way of observing one'south beliefs is by looking at the inside, more specifically: by looking at their brain. As we are non conscious of most of the processes that happen on the inside, looking into brain activities can give new insights into the behavior of people.

Nosotros can observe correlations between behavior and brain activity, for case when studying an injured encephalon and the influence this has on a patient. In some cases, brain evidence helps to resolve puzzles that psychologists have wrestled with for decades.

Learn more about observing behavior past looking at the brain in the weblog post: Cerebral neuroscience: Behavior.

Physiological measures

Although your test participant may appear to be calm, he or she may be concealing a substantial amount of stress. To reveal this level of stress, y'all can combine behavioral coding with physiological measurements caused with a data conquering system.

This allows you to simultaneously larn physiological data, such every bit EEG, ECG, EMG, blood pressure, skin conductance, and facial expressions, while you are collecting observational data. For case, skin conductance is a method of measuring the electrical conductance of the skin, used as an indication of psychological or physiological arousal. EEG makes it possible to include neuronal activity during a test, while FaceReader captures the facial expressions. These measurements make it possible to study the interplay of physiology and behavior, caused by an external upshot.

The Observer XT is designed to synchronize all these kinds of information streams. With one button, you lot tin can synchronously record video, screen captures, location data, physiological signals, eye tracking data, FaceReader data, and of form, behavioral information. Advanced analysis supports you in your research, delivering faster written report results and publications.

Implicit measures

While questionnaires tin can be useful in capturing opinions, personality traits, or (mental) health bug, they likewise take some limitations.

One important effect is that people can be biased in their responses. Nosotros tend to give answers that are socially desirable, we are influenced by an experimental setting, or we respond all questions a sure way (mostly extreme or neutral, more often than not 'yes' or 'no').

Also, we're not always aware of what we think, experience or do. As we mentioned earlier in this blog, about 95% of our behavior is unconscious and automatic. Some data about ourselves might escape our attention.

With these limitations in listen, researchers developed measures to capture our unconscious opinions, emotions and behaviors. These implicit tests crave people to respond very apace to different stimuli. Differences in response times reflect how you lot really feel about something.

Basically you answer faster when you agree.

For example, a examination might involve asking participants to sort words into categories that are on either side of a figurer screen.

Y'all'd accept to cull left when encountering a positive word ('good', 'happy') or a picture of a cat. You lot'd choose the right side when seeing a negative word ('bad', 'ugly') or a moving picture of a dog. In another phase of the exam, these pairings are reversed.

If y'all were to reply more quickly when 'positive' and 'dogs' are associated, compared to when 'positive' and 'cats' are, this suggests you accept an implicit preference for dogs. Other implicit tests assess approach and abstention behavior, attention biases, or relational frames.

Developmental psychology inquiry

Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans change over the course of their life. Developmental psychologists aim to explain how thinking, feeling, and behaviors change throughout life.

Although developmental psychology involves the entire lifespan, researchers generally focus on the period in which changes follow each other fast, from nascency to early adulthood. They explore topics such equally children's basic understanding of the concrete world, how children acquire language, how learning behaviors develop, and how they collaborate socially with other people, for example in parent-child interaction studies.

Ways to report development

The use of video greatly expands the telescopic of such a inquiry project. It enables researchers to capture infants' behaviors and reactions while they perform a chore, are exposed to a novel object, are playing with a sibling or peer, or are having a repast. Coding the videos, whether they are made at abode or in a lab, enables you to review, visualize and analyze the behaviors rapidly.

Infant FaceReader has been developed as a state of the fine art arrangement to automatically detect infant facial expressions in lodge to assist accost questions in developmental psychology related to affect and developmental disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

Research helps united states of america to understand what infants learn, what they are processing, and what factors are influencing the evolution. In another weblog post, 5 examples of babe studies are highlighted.

Mental disorders

Understanding human behavior is essential in the prevention and treatment of mental disorders.

Mental disorders are defined every bit a combination of abnormal thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Worldwide, millions of people endure from disorders like depression, habit, anxiety, and dementia.

Bated from a range of psychological and cerebral symptoms, people with mental disorders often feel bug in school, work, or family life as well.

Understanding mental disorders

With this variety in symptoms and contributing factors, research plays an important office in the further understanding of these disorders.

For example, recent studies examined the effectiveness of a game-based intervention in social anxiety, the best ways to observe pain expressions in dementia, doctors' emotions during the handling of depression, and the function of social noesis in the development of social feet.

Studies similar these assistance to improve the prevention and treatment of mental disorders, and contribute to overall mental health.

Health care research

In the field of health care inquiry, information technology is all nearly quality of life and consequently about quality of care. Wikipedia describes health-related quality of life as an cess of how the individual'southward well-being may be afflicted over time by a disease, inability, or disorder. Health intendance professionals' highest aim is to amend quality of life for their patients, by providing the all-time possible quality of care.

Diverse topics tin be of interest for health care research, such every bit medico-patient interaction, operating room layout, simulation training, team functioning and advice, or dealing with emotions. All have an touch on on the quality of care and thus life.

Using video technology

With aid of Noldus solutions, researchers will gain the insight they demand in processes, human operation, and communication. For example, the use of video technology offers important advantages to scientists in unraveling complex beliefs patterns and finding relationships between behaviors, effectiveness of interventions, and more.

Didactics & training

Educational activity is all nigh gaining knowledge about facts, events, values, behavior, general concepts, principles, etc. to students. On the other hand, training is a mode to develop skills, rather than just know about something. Training is based on practical awarding, it involves hands-on experience and helps people to implement a new system, improve a specific ability or further their ability in something.

Education and training can take place in a wide variety of fields, and in many different settings such every bit classrooms or skills labs. Theory can be put into practise in a prophylactic and controlled environment.

Video feedback tool

More and more video feedback is used in teaching and training facilities. It continues to prove its effectiveness for both educators and students. By using video and sound recordings in pedagogy and grooming, students and educators can receive, and benefit from, direct feedback.

Classroom observations

To examine, for example, effective teaching and teacher-educatee interaction, classroom observations can be used as a technique to gain the desired insights. Using a software tool to discover the questions students ask, how the instructor reacts, and whether the teacher checks if the students sympathize his explanation, will brand the inquiry much easier. Information technology enables to code behaviors accurately, record ane or multiple videos, integrate data modalities, and explore the results.

User experience and human factors research

What happens with a person's emotions and attitudes when using a particular product, website, application, or system? What does the user experience, and how does the user interact? Is it used in the manner that it is meant to be used? Finding answers to these questions enables to optimize that particular production, website application, or organization. To see the needs of its users, to improve the user feel.

Tools to mensurate ease-of-employ and efficiency

Feedback methodologies such as observation and task analysis will reveal the ease-of-utilize and efficiency of a product or service. While y'all observe the user of your product, you tin receive straight feedback about your product.

To facilitate UX tests, you tin can tape audio and video streams from digital cameras, capture the middle tracking gaze-overlay and emotions, and add notes or markers on the fly for quick lookback.

How to build a usability lab?

UX tests can be carried out in a usability lab, or on-site with a portable lab. It provides controlled conditions, and fully integrated equipment and software to brand the tests as realistic as possible. A few examples are the Social Media Lab in Mons, Belgium, which connects with business and academics in gild to better understand social media use and the digital world in general.

In the Human Factors and Ergonomics Laboratory of Zodiac Seats, participants were asked to evaluate six different travel pillows on head and cervix support while sitting in an airplane seat and trying to residual or slumber.

In a study with bicyclists, researchers at VTI, the Swedish National Route and Ship Research Institute, observed cyclist beliefs using eye tracking engineering science, video recordings, and behavioral coding. All information combined enabled them to assess whether the cyclists met the demands in specific situations.

Find more examples of several labs in this interactive pdf.

Consumer behavior inquiry

Getting to know your target audition is the best fashion to understand consumer choice behavior and preferences. How exercise consumers utilize a product? Why did they choose to buy that product in the commencement place? Did packaging or store layout have annihilation to practise with that? Or did unconscious emotions play a office?

Contempo studies aimed to respond several of these questions. Here, nosotros list a few:

The report of Eliza Kostyra and colleagues used face-reading engineering in lodge to determine the upshot of smoked ham samples on consumer emotion, which may lead to deeper insight on whether or not a consumer chooses to buy the sampled product.
In France, a team of researchers designed a test kitchen including four dome cameras and ane portable GoPro camera to investigate food storage processes.
Researchers Torrico and Fuentes tried different implicit measurement techniques in lodge to go closer to measuring liking and preference using images and chocolates!

A more than in-depth blog post about consumer behavior enquiry tin can be constitute here: Understanding consumer buying behavior.

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References

https://world wide web.verywellmind.com/behavioral-psychology-4157183

https://www.verywellmind.com/social-learning-theory-2795074

https://contextualscience.org/what_is_rft

https://jamesclear.com/habit-stacking

https://jamesclear.com/time-inconsistency

https://www.simplypsychology.org/qualitative-quantitative.html

http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/qual.php

https://www.theclassroom.com/qualitative-measurements-8473589.html

https://keydifferences.com/difference-betwixt-preparation-and-education.html

https://www.nextiva.com/web log/response-bias.html

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/iatdetails.html

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-disorders

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