Psychobiology, Behavior, and Physiological Mechanisms

Introduction

The study of psychobiology attempts to explain behaviour in terms of physiological mechanisms. Previous research shows that female and male reactions differ with regards to emotional stimuli (Campbell et al., 2002 & Orozco & Ehlers, 1998, as cited in Hall, 2004). “Sex Differences in Functional Activation Patterns Revealed by Increased Emotion Processing Demands” (Hall, Witelson, Szechtman, & Nahmias, 2004) studied the effects that different emotional stimuli have on brain activation patterns (Hall et al.). The study was divided into two experiments, both of which compared and contrasted the results between two different groups of eight women and eight men (Hall et al.). In experiment one, patients performed three tasks: facial detection, identity matching and emotion matching (Hall et al.). In experiment two, a different group of eight women and eight men performed gender matching and emotion matching, with an additional auditory stimulus (Hall et al.). The results showed that sexual dimorphism was present in the reactions between women and men (Hall et al.). This essay proposes to examine the psychobiological aspect of the studies, to identify any interesting and relevant results, and to analyze its key elements and scientific rigor. Furthermore, it will explore possible future improvements to the study, as well as highlight possible applications of the results. This essay will prove that the research paper is both relevant and interesting to psychobiology.

Relevance to Psychobiology

As previously mentioned above, psychobiology studies psychological phenomena in terms of biological processes. Studies that are deemed to be psychobiological must consist of both psychology and biology. The study focused on the ar...

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