Reference no: EM132374038

Behavior is variable.

Variable means changeable or different. Every behavior differs each time it occurs. We may perform a particular behavior often or seldom, skillfully or clumsily, fast or slow, in some circumstances and not in other circumstances. As these examples show, any behavior can vary on different dimensions, that is, how often, how intensely, in which settings, etc. For instance, take the behavior of laughing. On the dimension of frequency, some people seem to laugh all the time and others hardly ever laugh. On the dimension of intensity, some people have big, booming laughs and others just giggle. And on the dimension of setting, you're more likely to laugh when you're with your friends and less likely to laugh when you're with your boss.

So psychology is not simply the science of behavior; it's the science of the variability in behavior. It investigates how, why, and under what circumstances people and other animals do the things they do & why they do them in particular ways.

If everyone performed your target behavior in exactly the same way and in exactly the same circumstances, it wouldn't interest you. Maybe some do it too much and others don't do it enough. Maybe some do it in similar ways and others do it very differently. Maybe some do it at the right times and places and others do it at the wrong times or places.

For your target behavior, you will describe the range of variation on a particular dimension.