The term behavioural sciences encompasses all the disciplines that explore the activities of and interactions among

organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of human and other animal behaviour through controlled and naturalistic observation, and disciplined scientific experimentation. It attempts to accomplish legitimate, objective conclusions through rigorous formulations and observation.[1] Examples of behavioural sciences include social psychology, psychobiology, and sociology. Contents
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1 Difference between behavioural sciences, cognitive sciences, and social sciences 2 Categories of behavioural sciences 3 Applications of behavioural sciences 4 See also 5 References 6 Selected bibliography

Difference between behavioural sciences, cognitive sciences, and social sciences[edit]

The term behavioural sciences is often confused with the terms cognitive science and social sciences. Though these broad areas are interrelated and study systematic processes of behaviour, they differ on their level of scientific analysis of various dimensions of behaviour. Behavioural sciences abstract empirical data to investigate the decision processes and communication strategies within and between organisms in a social system. This involves fields like psychology, social neuroscience and communication science. Cognitive science as a collection of several disciplines that study the processes by which the brain gives rise to the mind [2] Examples of cognitive sciences include neuroscience, linguistics, computer science and cognitive psychology. In contrast, social sciences provide a perceptive framework to study the processes of a social system through impacts of social organisation on structural adjustment of the individual and of groups. They typically include fields like sociology, economics, public health, anthropology, demography and political science.[1] Obviously, however, many subfields of these disciplines cross the boundaries of behavioral, cognitive and social. For example, political psychology andbehavioral economics use

behavioral approaches, despite the predominant focus on systemic and institutional factors in the broader fields of political science and economics.

Categories of behavioural sciences[edit]

Behavioural sciences includes two broad categories: neural Information sciences and social Relational sciences. Information processing sciences deals with information processing of stimuli from the social environment by black box cognitive entities in order to engage in decision making, social judgment and social perception for individual functioning and survival of organism in a social environment. These include psychology,social cognition, social psychology, communication science, semantic networks, ethology and social neuroscience. On the other hand, Relational sciences deals with relationships, interaction, communication networks, associations and relational strategies or dynamics between organisms or cognitive entities in a social system. These include fields like sociological social psychology, social networks, dynamic network analysis, and communication science.

Applications of behavioural sciences[edit]

Insights from several pure disciplines across behavioural sciences are explored by various applied disciplines and practiced in the context of everyday life and business. These applied disciplines of behavioural science include: organizational behavior, operations research, consumer behaviour, health communicationand media psychology.