Power point presentation Slides Presented in Lectures at Services institute of Medical Sciences Lahore

1. Introduction to Behavioural
Sciences
DR SHAHID HAMEED WARRIS, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR

2. Holistic Medicine is derived from the theory of ‘Holism’
which states that reality is made up of unified wholes
that is greater than the sum of its parts. Each part is
linked with the other in a dynamic way.
Literally, a person is made up of mind, spirit and body
which are linked to each other: they are sub-parts of
a greater whole. It treats the wellness of the body
and the mind simultaneously.
Traditional/allopathic Medicine considers body, mind
and spirit as separate. It simply treats the diseased
part of the body
Holistic vs. Traditional Medicine

3.  Essentially, behavioural sciences deals with the study of
human behaviour employing:
 Psychology (Study of mind. It includes:
 1. the role of emotions, thoughts, cognition, motivations, perceptions
and intelligence in maintaining health
 2 development of personality.)
 Sociology (Study of human societies and the structures and
processes within them. It includes the influence of society, family,
gender/social segregations, housing, employment and other
misc. social factors in maintaining health)
 Anthropology (Study of anthros “human”, including their origins,
physical attributes and cultures. This study focuses on the
cultural conventions, stigmas and racial/geographical distribution
of a race which affect the attitude towards disease/health/cure in
it)
Thus, Behavioural Sciences…

4. THINKING

5. Thinking: Definition
 Thinking consist of cognitive
manipulation of both information from
the environment and the symbols
stored in long term memory.
 Symbols represent some event or
item in the world stored in LTM
 Types of symbols: Images, language

6. Types of thinking
 Autistic thinking
It is highly private and may use
symbols with very personal meanings
e.g. dreaming.
 Directed thinking
It is of two types:-
 Problem solving thinking
 Creative thinking

7. Thinking
It is the set of cognitive processes that
mediate between stimulus and
response e.g. buying a mobile phone.

8. Thinking process
In thinking process symbols are used -
words and images
Images and thinking:
Images are mental pictures used in
thinking, incomplete, visual maps,
abstractions from LTM
Exercise: Imagine yourself standing in front
of SIMS. How would you drive to Liberty
market ?
Visualize the image made in your mind.

9. Language and Thinking
 Many people do thinking by using
words symbols, their meanings and
rules of grammar to join the words to
form phrases and sentences. These
symbols are stored in our semantic
long term memory.
Inner speech with or without the use of
vocal apparatus.
Deaf use sign symbols or any other
private symbols.

10. Concepts
 A concept is a symbolic construction
that represents some common and
general features of many objects and
events.
 All the common nouns in vocabulary
are concepts e.g. man, red, fruits,
truth, etc.

11. Contd..
 On the basis of concepts we classify
objects and items into categories.
 E.g. red and not red, fruit and not fruit.
 On the basis of concepts we simplify
many items around us in to categories
decreasing the load on our memory
e.g. there are 7 million different
shades of colors, and 92 different
types of rice.

12. Types of concepts
 Basic and natural types:
Learned easily in early life.
 Acquired types:
Learned through discrimination
learning, contexts and definitions.

13. Problem solving
Problem is defined as any difference
between one situation and other situation
we wish to produce (our goal).
In solving the problem we use the following:
 Our perception of the problem situation.
 Information stored in long term memory.
 We process the perception and information
according to certain rules such as
Algorithm and Heuristics.

14. Algorithm
 Set of rules which if followed correctly,
leads to solution of the problem.
 Algorithm guarantees solution of
problem
 E.g. Area of a box measuring 10 feet
in length, 04 feet in height and 06 feet
in width
 Apply rules of multiplication

15. Heuristics
 These are the rules of thumb.
 These are the strategies based on our past
experience with the similar problems.
 These are likely to lead to a solution but do
not guarantee success.
 One common heuristics is to break the
problem down into smaller sub problems,
each closer to the end goal.

16. Decision making
 It is a kind of problem solving in which
we are presented with several
alternatives, among which we chose
one.
 E.g. buying a mobile phone
 In decision making we use utility,
subjective probability and heuristics.

17.  Utility means maximizing the expected
gains or minimizing the possible loss.
 Subjective probability means making our
own estimates of probability of various
outcomes.
 Heuristics are the rules of thumb based on
our past experiences of making the similar
decisions.

18. Creative thinking
Creative thinking means trying to create
something new under the sun.
Creative thinking is used by artists, writers,
poets and scientists.
Emphasis in creative thinking is on the
word ‘new’.
Creative thinking involves unconscious
re-arrangements of symbols

19. Stages of creative thinking
 Orientation: defining the dimensions of
the problem.
 Preparation : saturating with all the
possible information about the problem.
 Incubation : failure of conscious efforts
leads to processing the problem at
subconscious level.
 Illumination : sudden bubbling up of
solution to the awareness.
 Verification : evaluating and verifying the
solution obtain in the stage of illumination.

20. Characteristics of creative thinker
 High in intellectual abilities.
 Talented in special ways for example in
music or mathematics.
 Strong motivation to solve the problem.
 Special personality features e.g. high
verbal fluency; flexibility with numbers
and concepts; original ideas; sense of
humor; high energy level; ability to
abstract, organize and synthesize;
willingness to take risk; reluctance to follow
routine task.