The Philosophy of Biobehavioural Theory - Essay Example

The Philosophy of Biobehavioural Theory Theoreticians have for several years tried to explain the reasons and implementations behind our actions as people. Depending on the perspective from which a particular theoretician looks at an issue, different categorisation is given to the name of the theory. Biobehavioural theory is one theory that is commonly referred to when discussing issues pertaining to criminal conduct and behaviour of people. Biobehavioural theory is an embodiment of several perspectives of human behaviour including psychological and biological. To this end, Farlex (2011) explains that biobehavioural theory pertains to issues “relating to the interrelationships among psychosocial, behavioural, and biological processes.” This means that biobehavioural theory builds a relationship between other components of human behaviour with reference to out biological makeup. It is for this reason that the biobehavioural theory is said to be an integrated theory. Because of its integrated nature, biobehavioural theory is considered appropriate in several spheres of human institutions. For example in healthcare, biobehavioural health is considered to be “an innovative interdisciplinary program that enables students to explore all factors—biological, behavioural, social/cultural, and environmental—that influence the health of individuals and groups through the life span” (Pennsylvania State University, 2011). Apart from health, biobehavioural theory also allows for human behaviour to be judged from sociological and psychological perspectives. With reference to this essay therefore, the psychological perspective will be considered rather than sociological perspective. As seen by the Pennsylvania State University, biobehavioural theory has several features. These features are discussed in the following sections in accordance with their psychological perspective. Physiological Aspects From psychological perspective, the physiological aspect of biobehavioural theory could be said to be the “basis of how we think, connecting the physical operation of the brain with what we actually say and do (Changing Mind, 2011). In other words, the physiological aspect of biobehavioural theory deals with our actions that pertain to our anatomical makeup. Considered as the mother of all psychological reasoning, physiological aspect of the biobehavioural theory is explained in much contest to the brain and its function than to the functioning of other parts of the body (Changing Minds, 2011). This is quite simple to understand and agree with because the brain controls all physical actions and behaviour (Akakpo, 2002). Physiologically, human behaviours are affected by several secondary factors that have the brain as their primary cause. For instance people behave the way they do when they are hungry because of the ideas that the brain gives to them. It is for the sake of how important the brain is in discussing physiological aspects of the biobehavioural theory that psychologists always used manipulations on the brain in their experiments. For example it is noted by Changing Minds (2011) that “animal experiments, always controversial, have also been used, for example by removing or cutting various parts of the brain and observing differences in behaviour.” This sums it all that the physiological aspect of biobehavioural theory encompasses how and why we behave as a result of the manipulation of the brain. Biochemical Features Biobehavioural theory also embraces biochemical features of a person greatly. As discussed above, the physiological features deal with the physical changes and in relation to Mary, physical changes that are seen in puberty. Behind these physical changes however lie the activities of both biological and chemical reactions and adaptations in the body. The combination of these biological and chemical reactions is what is referred to as biochemical features as far as the biobehavioural theory is concerned (Aguen, 2003). Generally, biochemical changes that take place in an adolescent such as Mary at puberty involves three major steps in the development of the hypothalamo-hypophysogonadal axis (Porquet, 1997). First of these stages as identified by Porquet is the increase in nocturnal hypothalamic GnRH secretion, making the nocturnal hypothalamic level pulsatile, reaching a peak every 60 to 90 minutes. The second step involves a similar rise in levels of the pituitary gonadotrophins FSH and LH. Generally, the increase in secretion of GnRH and FSH/LH happens because of a decrease in hypothalamo-hypophysal sensitivity. The final step is a biochemical increase in the secretion of estradiol in females and testosterone in males. This increase is as a result of pituitary stimulation experienced in the second step. The biochemical features are there inevitable but for medical abnormalities that may be experienced. Neurological Features The neurological features of biobehavioural theory are directly related to the meaning and explanation of neurology as a science. The medical web journal, Super Pages (2011) explain that “Neurology is the medical specialty that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of nervous system disorders, specifically, the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous system.” This means that the neurological features of biobehavioural theory deals with the functions of the central, peripheral and autonomic nervous system and the influence it has on a person’s behaviour. The effect of on a person’s behaviour is mentioned in order to give the subject of discussion a psychological perspective. Basically, a neurologist will deal with the medical aspects of neurology as a subject as the Health Communities (2011) explain that “a neurologist is a medical doctor or osteopath who has trained in the diagnosis and treatment of nervous system disorders, including diseases of the brain, spinal cord, nerves and muscles.” But in psychological perspective, the commonest relation given between psychology and neurology is the state of consciousness and unconsciousness of the mind. Environmental Aspects Environmental aspects of biobehavioural theory points to those aspects of a person’s behaviour that has much functional relation to the person’s general upbringing and environment as compared to any biological features of the person. This is to say that environmental aspects of biobehavioural perspective give room for more social than scientific deliberations. Environmental aspects therefore focus on issues relating to socio-economic background of a person, the schooling of a person, the parental guidance available to a person and such other environmental issues and their relation to a person’s behaviour. These not withstanding, other theorists in the psychoanalytic field try to draw a very close relationship between the environment and mind. In a generalised form however, biobehavioural theory draws the relationship between the environment and all the other aspects such as neurological, physiological and biochemical discussed above. Causes of Mary’s Criminal Behaviour in the face of the biobehavioural Theory The exhibition of Mary’s behaviour is not something that is new in society. Day in and out, behaviour of that calibre coming from people with the calibre of Mary are seen all around us. Because of the repetitiveness of occurrences, psychologists and other human behaviour experts have really had the time to diagnose and identify why such people are put up by people of the calibre of Mary. The work of these experts has commonly being tagged with existing and evolving theories in psychology, sociology or science in general. In this session of the paper, the biobehavioural theory is going to be used to explain possible causes of Mary’s behaviour. Because the biobehavioural theory has several components or features, the discussion shall be conducted under the various features to make the paper more concise, organized and precise. Environmental causes The story as read of Mary gives more environmental details of her than other details of her life. Environmentally, four major psychological points shall be discussed as relating to the causes of Mary’s present attitude. In the first place, there is the psychology behind why a young girl who went through maltreatment including violence at the hands of her own father and subsequently step father would be engaged in the acts that Mary found herself in. As the story of Mary unfolds, it is seen that she never had the presence of love in her upbringing but violence. In the opinion of Rank (2011), “Violence is the use of physical force to injure people or property.” Violence occurs at home most commonly in the form of rape, beating, hatred and bullying, all of which Mary suffered. Psychologically, Mary turned out to be violent because she had suffered it as a normal way of life. This is to say that the absence of love in Mary’s life caused a psychological imbalance that made her feel that violence is a regular part of social life. This point is backed by Rank (2011) who asserts that “people with antisocial personality disorder often behave violently even as children.” Clearly, Mary was made to be antisocial because of the absence of love in her life and the result of this was the psychological disorder, causing her not to feel for any other person. This is also like saying that Mary had a psychological thinking that she could pay society back by giving back to society the wicked things she received from it. This is how the violent environment of Mary might have caused her attitude. Another environmental phenomenon with Mary’s behaviour has to do with wrong modelling or mentorship. From the story of Mary’s life, it is said that Mary’s step father was wayward towards Mary but her own father was even worse. Mary also did not have a mother who would listen to her. Psychologically, there was a huge gap of mentorship in the upbringing of Mary. This is because parents are supposed to serve as the immediate mentors of their children, nurturing them to know the good and bad of life (Agyekum, 2000). This mentorship was totally lacking for Mary. Worse it all, there was an elderly sister who could only help as a mentor but running away from the family. This was certainly a poor model for Mary to follow. Mary also found herself running away from the house because of the wrong model that was presented to her to follow. Bringing a professional management definition of mentorship to this scenario gives a lot of sense as to why wrong mentorship was a major cause of Mary’s behaviour. Shaw (2011) of Management Help notes that mentoring involves “activities conducted by a person (the mentor) for another person (the mentee) in order to help that other person to do a job more effectively and/or progress in his or her career.” Judging from this explanation, it could be said that Mary’s sister who was a mentor in this case helped Mary to do the job of being a vagabond better and the effect of being a better vagabond was going to the extent of getting herself into all those criminal activities she found herself in. The divorce that happened also had psychological relations to why Mary was the kind of girl she was at her age. Psychologically, divorce can never be ruled out of why a child would grow to be morally questionable. It is explained by the Kids Health Online Magazine (2011) that “divorce happens after a husband and wife decide not to live together anymore and that they no longer want to be married to each other.” For a girl of Mary’s age, the first psychological impact that the divorce might have created in her mind was the break of control for her life. Certainly, Mary developed a mental state of the absence of control because of the absence of her father from the family. It is common knowledge that fathers are thought of as symbols of authority in the family. For Mary whose father left her in the hands of her mother, this symbol of authority was to be thought to be broken and that the room for lawlessness created. It should be noted that as much as the environmental causes had their own impacts in Mary’s life, they were working hand-in-hand with the other biobehavioural conditions such as physical causes including her stage of puberty. This means that as an adolescent, Mary was certainly and naturally looking for room to operate with freedom and so the divorce came only as an authority note for her to start exploring her world and thus her behaviour. When the divorce occurred therefore, one of the best things that could have been done to help Mary was for her to receive counselling to stabilise her mental thinking but this was also absent. The last environmental point to be discussed as the cause of Mary’s criminal behaviour is her affiliate with friends. The case states that Mary was out with an accomplice, meaning that Mary was not a lone ranger. She had friends and company who inspired her to put up criminal behaviour. Friendship cannot be said to be a bad thing altogether. In the world of psychology, friendship is said to have its own advantages. For example Grohol (2011) records the results of over 1000 surveys conducted by Puentes and his colleagues (2008) where it was reported that the act of being offered tremendous positive psychological effects to most of the interviewees. For instance it helped in reducing depression, stress and grief in most cases. Unfortunately however, there were some who did not enjoy any these benefits. On the contrary, these were people who were made to acquire negative psychological mindsets such as the use of friendship commitment to help friends in achieving their corrupt and immoral goals in life. The latter could be said of Mary. This is because Mary was involved in drugs and causal sex: things that she would not have done if her friends had good influence on her life. She was therefore involved in criminal behaviour because of a strong commitment to remain loyal to her wayward friends. Neurological causes Most certainly, there are neurological causes to Mary’s criminal behaviour. By neurological causes, reference is being made to reasons why she could be in the criminal behaviour she has adopted as a result of malfunctioning of her nervous system. Today, neurologists are trying to find greater relation between the neurological functions of a person and his or her psychological mindset. A lot of this research centres on the brain as the major component of neurology and by extension, the nervous system. In a similar research by Society for Neuroscience Conference in San Diego, “researchers used functional magnetic brain imaging to study brain activity in a small group of adolescent boys deemed "reactively aggressive"--meaning they consistently overreact to perceived threats” (Singer, 2007). Certainly, this empirical revelation has it that people of the calibre of Mary who act violently and aggressively could have over-reactive formation of hormones that causes their behaviour. What makes the analysis more likely to be linked with Mary is the fact that the study pointed specifically to people who may be reacting to perceived threats. This is said because the story of Mary tells of how she run away from the home with the notion of running away from perceived threat at the hands of her step father. Such continuous thoughts are likely to account for the neurological disorder over time because as much as a person keeps feeding his or her mind with particular information; the brain of the person is automatically structured to adapt itself to the information in order to create a mental equilibrium (Singer, 2007). In the creation of this equilibrium, Mary is sure to have had the development of vengeance for society thus her criminal behaviour. Biochemical Causes The biochemical causes of Mary’s criminal behaviour will be limited to the unset of her secondary characteristics as an adolescent and specifically to the activities of the secretion of estradiol in her as a female. This is because among the three major steps in the development of the hypothalamo-hypophysogonadal axis discussed under the overview of biochemical aspect of biobehavioural theory, the secretion of estradiol is the one that applies to description of Mary as an adolescent and also as a female. Below is a chemical representation of estradiol. Source: RCN D.C Metro (2001) The limitation to estradiol secretion would have room for the discussion to have a more psychological perspective. This is because the RCN D.C Metro (2001) explains that the onset of estradiol secretion is “primarily responsible for the conversion of girls into sexually-mature women” and we read of how Mary after fleeing from home started indulging herself in casual sex. Indeed, Mary’s entry into sexual lifestyle was as a result of the biochemical onset of estradiol secretion and this causal sex behaviour brought a lot of psychological implications that are responsible for why Mary eventually ended up a criminal. Psychologically, females who involve themselves in sex develop negative emotions that affect them later in life. CBS Health News (2011) reports that “Teen sex — oral or vaginal — may have negative emotional consequences, especially for girls, according to a new study in Paediatrics” (Web MD). As a teenager, this explains the biochemical cause of Mary’s criminal behaviour because once Mary started indulging herself in sex she naturally developed a negative emotional mentality that she was ripe for more ‘adult’ stuff including robbery. Physiological causes As seen in the outline of the various aspects of the biobehavioural theory, the physiological make up of a person sums and outdoors all other internal processes and activities that take place within the person. This is to say that neurological changes and, biochemical changes are all made evident in a physiological manifestation when changes such as increase in body mass and height are seen. Having understood this, the physiological causes of Mary’s criminal behaviour can be explained in terms of the physical developments Mary noticed on her body as an adolescent or better still, young adult. Mary’s sister run away from home when she was 16 years. Clearly at that time, Mary had see significance physical changes in her sister. So having attained 16 and also seen similar changes in her body’s development, Mary was attempted to have classified herself as someone who was also ripe for some elderly actions. At 16, girls are seen to be well built and strong. They are seen to be capable of thinking fast and taking decisive actions. They are also seen to be very manipulative of finding ways of surviving. All these physiological changes are characteristics that cannot be ruled out of a robber or a rebellious child as Mary is seen to be. So if Mary had still been very young and helpless, changes are that she would not have even though of indulging herself in criminal activities because she would not have considered herself to have the strength to do as such. Physiologically, the problem arose because Mary developed the basic bodily features to be defensive and violent. Prevention and Solution One important practice in psychological criminology has always been the identification of causes of problems. This is because once the causes of a problem are identified it makes room for the diagnosis of the problem and suggestion of eventual solutions to the problem (McKenzie, 2001). To a large extent, the source of the problem has been said to contain the solutions as well (Mean, 2003). This means that the biobehavioural theory that was used to identify the causes of the problem can also be used to give remedy and possible preventive measures to the problem. Environmentally, a great deal of work could have been done to prevent the criminal tag that Mary currently finds herself marked with. First of this was for her to have had a loving family. Essien (2010) believes that just like respect, love and hatred are reciprocal. Essien argues that we give back to society love if it presents us with one and we give back to society hatred if it presents us with one. In Mary’s case, her society was her family. If these people had showed her maximum love, Mary would have had a psycho-moral responsibility to give back to society. People who are struck and beaten and tormented get to acquaint themselves with those feelings and tend to think that every other person can survive one and so give that back to others. Mary’s family could therefore have prevented the situation if they were more responsible in their duties to her as caregivers. Secondly, the family could have prevented the problem by acting as good models for Mary. Certainly Mary did not have someone around her she could look up unto as a mentor and role model. Mary did not have an inspirer and this put a lot psychological strain on her as a young girl. With a mentor at hand, she would have had a better way of handling her dilemmas. All said and done, the family can still breathe a sigh of relief from the fact that the girl is still under 18 and legally still under their control. As immediately and urgently as possible, the family must assume their responsibility after all legal issues are settled. The family should task themselves with showing the young lady the love and mentorship she needed. This however calls for a major cleanup in the family especially as the step father has done a lot of acts that could even be described as illegal. The family needs to accept the challenge that it has failed in its responsibility and calling and turn a new leaf. In the absence of greater display of willingness to change and turn new leaf, the next available solution is for Mary to have a change of environment. This new environment should be well equipped with professional who can offer Mary intensive counselling and modelling to help her overcome the psychological spell that has been cast on her. At her age, her criminal so far could go a long way to affecting her way of thinking about her own self. She is likely to develop very negative attitude towards her own self and build a very low self esteem. The environment should therefore be one that can address all these problems; including the fact that she needs to overcome her guilt. Any of the Governmental Care Centres therefore remain the best choice of alternative home for Mary. Because children her are well monitored, the problem of bad company can be eliminated to a very large extent. Mary is also likely to be engaged with academic duties that will give her very little room to put up evil plans in her mind. Above all, it is hoped that she will receive good counselling and mentorship from the home. The neurological, bio-chemical and physiological aspects will be treated as one component for finding preventive measures and eventual solutions. These three aspects will be summed as biological factors of the bio-behavioural theory. Scientifically, the neurological, bio-chemical and physiological changes of a normally growing person like Mary cannot be avoided. This is because growth and development are inevitable. However though, the good thing is that psychologists present us with very soothing counter agents to growth and development that can ensure that a person does not suffer any possible negative consequences with growth and development. One of these counter agents is maturity. Jayaram (2009) explains maturity to be mental growth and states that “Mental growth, however, does not proceed along the same lines as physical growth.” This brings to discussion, how the problem could have been prevented. Mary’s calamity could have been prevented if she was helped to mature. Maturity is not as automatic as physical growth and development. This is because neurological and bio-chemical changes continue to take place unaware, leading to physical growth. But one needs nurturing and guidance to mature. Mary needed someone to guide her on how she could control the biological changes she was experiencing. For instance she needed to be taught that onset of secondary sexual characteristics does not mean readiness for sex. She also needed to be guided on how she could control her emotions. Some of this guidance would have given her enough maturity to handle her biological changes and the situation could have been prevented if such awareness was created because the awareness would have led to maturity. To conclude, it would be said that the best way to save Mary from further trouble as far as her biological features are concerned is that she needs counselling. The counselling that was lacking at the time her biological developments set off must be revisited. Mary should still be taught of how she should cope with her biological changes because at 16, she is still going to experience some more changes to come her way in the nearest future. In order for Mary to have a better appreciation of her situation and to better appreciate that she is not alone in battling the problem at hand, group counselling is suggested for her. This because the Cazenovia College (2011) acknowledges that “group counselling offers an individual a chance to understand feelings and change problem behaviours with the support of peers with similar concerns.” Group counselling will help Mary have a psychological control over herself whereby she will know that she is one of many other girls, who can be helped and thus have hope for the future. REFERENCE LIST Aguen F. R, (2003). Biochemical Human Changes. Social Impact Press: Amazon Agyekum A. S. (2000). Parental Control. Readwide Book Publishers: Accra Akakpo G. (2002). Basic Human Anatomy. Social Press Releases: California Cazenovia College (2011). What is Counselling? Retrieved October 1, 2011 from http://www.cazenovia.edu/default.aspx?tabid=461 Changing Minds (2011). Physiological Psychology. 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Retrieved October 1, 2011 from http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/19679/ Super Pages (2011). What is Neurology? Retrieved October 1, 2011 from http://www.superpages.com/supertips/neurology.htmls Read More