Behavioural Categories...

What is meant by "behavioural categories"?
I've searched my textbook and my previous work through of research methods and the internet but can't seem to pin it down :s-smilie:

Would it be possible to have some examples?
Thanks

Reply 1

GodspeedGehenna

3

No idea, too vague.

Reply 2

cpsj92

Behavioural Categories, im guessing your talking about psychology, well they are for example: crying, laughter,smiling etc..
They are used to record behaviour.
hope this helps.
cpsj92

(edited 14 years ago)

Reply 3

amy092

9

This comment was really old but I've only just needed to look for something like this, it was so helpful, I couldn't find it anywhere, thank you :smile:

Reply 4

Anttiroiko

It might be useful to consider first, what is the context in which these 'behavioural categories' have been referred to. This implies that it depends on the context in which these kinds of categories are distinguished from other relevant categories, which may explain why in the given context it is important to refer to 'behavioural' categories in the first place. To make the long story short, let us first assume that the term 'behavioural categories' has been used in social scientific context, which would imply that the author most likely wanted to refer to categories which are different from 'structural categories'. The latter refers to such fundamental concepts as 'class', 'institution', 'regulation', 'capital accumulation' or 'corporate power', whereas 'behavioural categories' refer to fundamental -- e.g. explanatory, interpretative or descriptive -- concepts that relate to human behaviour, such as 'motivation', 'incentive', 'attitude', 'satisfaction', 'pleasure' and so forth.
As said, as the use of such concept is context-specific, and the other possibility is to see this in psychological context, as suggested by cpsj92. Yet, even in such a case we must remember that 'categories' are not just any concepts but the ones that have some special relevance in the given explanatory scheme or framework. Thus, taking this into account, I wonder if anyone has to refer to 'crying', 'smiling' etc. as 'behavioural categories' (unless they are really used to theorize about human behaviour, communication or gestures). Rather, they refer to more fundamental aspects of human behaviour, as referred to above, such as 'motivation', 'emotions' and the like. Hope this helps. Any corrections are warmly welcome.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 5

tgwktm

19

behavioural categories are behaviours that might be observed in an observation study. these are behaviours and not emotions so laughing, smiling or crying would be behaviours but happiness and sadness wouldn't be cause they are emotions

Reply 6

Tornad0h

hey sry for resurrecting this thread out of nowhere but if the question was "suggest three behavioural categories that could be used in an observational study of attachment in children aged 16 months." would the answers then be:

separation anxiety
stranger anxiety
pleasure when reunited (could I phrase this better?)

Reply 7

iammichealjackson

18

Original post by Tornad0h

hey sry for resurrecting this thread out of nowhere but if the question was "suggest three behavioural categories that could be used in an observational study of attachment in children aged 16 months." would the answers then be:

separation anxiety
stranger anxiety
pleasure when reunited (could I phrase this better?)

You'd probably have to be more explicit. A behavioural cataegory is something that you could rate on some sort of checklist or scale. Imagine you needed to describe to someone else how to measure seperation anxiety, and assume they don't know what that is. behavioural categories are things that you could tell him to look out for and he could mark its presense, so it would include things like: does the infant cry when the parent leaves? Does the infant smile when the parent returns?

Reply 8

Tornad0h

Ahh that makes more sense. Could of been some really silly dropped marks there thanks for the reply :smile:

Reply 9

Skelch

Sensory; Do they self simulate
Esacape: will they show behaviour to avoid a task /lleave a room
Attention; will they do something to gain your attention
Tangible: A behaviour to get a acetrainobject / thing

some also calss pain as categorie of behaviour.

Behavioural Categories...

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