Behavioural sciences

Behavioural science is the branch of science concerned with human behaviour.^[1] While the term can technically be applied to the study of behaviour amongst all living organisms, it is nearly always used with reference to humans as the primary target of investigation (though animals may be studied in some instances, e.g. invasive techniques). The behavioural sciences sit in between the conventional natural sciences and social studies in terms of scientific rigor. It encompasses fields such as psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, and economics.^[2]

The behavioural sciences encompass both natural and social scientific disciplines, including various branches of psychology, neuroscience and biobehavioural sciences, behavioural economics and certain branches of criminology, sociology and political science.^[3][4] This interdisciplinary nature allows behavioural scientists to coordinate findings from psychological experiments, genetics and neuroimaging, self-report studies, interspecies and cross-cultural comparisons, and correlational and longitudinal designs to understand the nature, frequency, mechanisms, causes and consequences of given behaviours.^[1][3][5]

With respect to the applied behavioural science and behavioural insights, the focus is usually narrower, tending to encompass cognitive psychology, social psychology and behavioural economics generally, and invoking other more specific fields (e.g. health psychology) where needed.^[4] In applied settings behavioural scientists exploit their knowledge of cognitive biases, heuristics, and peculiarities of how decision-making is affected by various factors to develop behaviour change interventions or develop policies which 'nudge' people to acting more auspiciously (see Applications below).^[1][2]

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Robila^[6] explains how using modern technology to study and understand behavioral patterns on a greater scale, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and greater data has a future in brightening up behavioral science assistance/ research. Creating cutting-edge therapies and interventions with immersive technology like virtual reality/ AI would also be beneficial to behavioral science future(s). These concepts are only a hint of the many paths behavioral science may take in the future.

Insights from several pure disciplines across behavioural sciences are explored by various applied disciplines and practiced in the context of everyday life and business.^[7]

Consumer behaviour, for instance, is the study of the decision making process consumers make when purchasing goods or services. It studies the way consumers recognise problems and discover solutions. Behavioural science is applied in this study by examining the patterns consumers make when making purchases, the factors that influenced those decisions, and how to take advantage of these patterns.

Organisational behaviour is the application of behavioural science in a business setting. It studies what motivates employees, how to make them work more effectively, what influences this behaviour, and how to use these patterns in order to achieve the company's goals. Managers often use organisational behaviour to better lead their employees.

Using insights from psychology and economics, behavioural science can be leveraged to understand how individuals make decisions regarding their health and ultimately reduce disease burden through interventions such as loss aversion, framing, defaults, nudges, and more.

Other applied disciplines of behavioural science include operations research and media psychology.

The terms behavioural sciences and social sciences are interconnected fields^[8] that both study systematic processes of behaviour, but they differ on their level of scientific analysis for various dimensions of behaviour.^[9]

Behavioural sciences abstract empirical data to investigate the decision process and communication strategies within and between organisms in a social system. This characteristically involves fields like psychology, social neuroscience, ethology, and cognitive science. In contrast, social sciences provide a perceptive framework to study the processes of a social system through impacts of a social organisation on the structural adjustment of the individual and of groups. They typically include fields like sociology, economics, public health, anthropology, demography, and political science.^[10]

Many subfields of these disciplines test the boundaries between behavioural and social sciences. For example, political psychology and behavioural economics use behavioural approaches, despite the predominant focus on systemic and institutional factors in the broader fields of political science and economics.

• Behaviour
  • Human behaviour
  • loss aversion
• List of academic disciplines
• Science
  • Fields of science
    • Natural sciences
    • Social sciences
  • History of science
  • History of technology

• George Devereux: From anxiety to method in the behavioral sciences, The Hague, Paris. Mouton & Co, 1967
• Fred N. Kerlinger (1979). Behavioural Research: A Conceptual Approach. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. ISBN 0-03-013331-9.
• E.D. Klemke, R. Hollinger & A.D. Kline, (eds.) (1980). Introductory Readings in the Philosophy of Science. Prometheus Books, New York.
• Neil J. Smelser & Paul B. Baltes, eds. (2001). International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 26 v. Oxford: Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-08-043076-8
• Mills, J. A. (1998). Control a history of behavioral psychology. New York University Press.

• Media related to Behavioral sciences at Wikimedia Commons