You Studied psychology…
Do you Apply it In Your Own Life?
A Strategy
Use behavioral neuroscience to make sense of the findings of psychology
For me this has happened in the following Six Epiphanies
1. It’s an evolutionary feature: Don’t mistake mental features for bugs.
2. Teaching: Apply psychology to teach psychology.
3. Myths: Question public myths and misleading hoaxes.
4. Biopsychosocial: Use the biopsychosocial model correctly.
5. Measurement: Pay attention to measurement.
6. Translational: Apply psychology by translating research.
A worldview called the biopsychosocial model
Using behavioral neuroscience is part of applying the biopsychosocial model devised over 40 years ago by George Engel. Far from being just a vague recommendation to consider behavior at three levels, it is a reminder that most experiences represent interesting interactions among molecular, behavioral, and social influences that can be made quite specific.
BIO: The biological approach comprises everything we think of as inside a person: molecules including genes, cells like bacteria and neurons, and entire systems like the nervous system or the gut-brain axis.
It is confusing to think of the biopsychosocial continuum as three levels, because we can distinguish multiple levels of organization just within the biological “level”.
PSYCHO: The psychological approach includes the person or individual animal and everything we can observe the whole organism doing.
SOCIAL: The social component involves a community or society. New phenomena can appear in this realm such as communication, reproduction, and collective behavior, just as a collection of automobile drivers becomes traffic.
The biopsychosocial model forces us to examine behaving individuals but the host of interactions that control behavior, including genes and a cell’s chemical environment, a culture’s food and its effect on our internal chemistry, or the way that social stress triggers bodily inflammation to influence our moods.
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