The Ignorance of Human Beings in Understanding Human Behavior - Essay Example

 The human mind is indeed so complex and multi-faceted that various studies agree and disagree on every topic only to disagree to agree on clamors for further studies. Psychological positions have not changed over the years except in adding highlighted areas that were initially touched on before. The cognitive principles accounting for an individual’s behavior has led psychologists to question dispositional constructs like motivation and underlying behavioral result. It is like the Mobius strip where if you trace your finger on the figure, an interesting phenomenon occurs. There appear to be two sides but the point where one side begins and the other side ends is not as divided as being drawn in by a straight line. It’s like traveling without actually leaving because your finger goes around but you end up where you began. The same idea goes for attitudes and behavioral choices we take. What catapults us to choose left over right and vice versa or doing right or wrong and evidently choosing one over the two? What leads an individual to act and think as he does and then act and think differently altogether? In understanding this, the working definitions which will ultimately set the pace for us in this article need to be clarified for purposes of discussion. Motivation and behavior, although loosely used in conversational English and interchanged conveniently, are two very different words in the study of psychology. Motivation is a goal-oriented behavior that varies in intensity and persistence, meaning we do the things we do because of a need to do it with reasons ranging from the logical to becoming illogical. It’s like eating because of hunger or plainly because its time to eat. People need people. Why? Because there is so much in us that craves approval, justification and belief that we find it in other people as well. It shapes us as the person we think we can be. And it leads us in bettering ourselves when we get the approval we want. Which is behavior… it is then safe to assume that behavior gets us where we need to be but we need motivation to drive us to our destination. It is then imperative that we ask ourselves what comprises us to make the choices we do and what factors come into play that makes us the person we are. This is where social influence, norms and roles come into the fray. What moves us? Social Influence in the handouts highlights the source of the choices we make which is the influence of other people for our modified behavior. The amount of influence or behavior is significant that we use this knowledge to consciously or unconsciously make our choices in real life. We conform to social norms because misery needs company and the need for affiliation increases during periods of anxiety. Michael Adams used this in his book “Sex in the Snow”, wherein his description of groups (tribes as he called them) support each other at all times thus enhancing performance on difficult tasks as supported too by other researchers. This leads us to believe that in a group or social circle, the individual has the motivation to succeed when his needs are met such as approval, encouragement, support and interaction. However, it is interesting to also note that an individual’s behavior may decrease in his performance too when lack of arousal is present. An individual may feel that his personal contribution in the group will have little or no difference and refuse to be exploited. Or when an individual is faced with a social dilemma and makes it hard to focus on the self and the group at the same time. The fulfillment of emotional and material goals may allow an individual to perform but will constrict his inner personality in his pursuit to be liked in the group and be known as a positive member that agrees where he wants to disagree. After discussing social influence, we can now discuss how attitudes can influence behavior relative to the handouts. We must remember that attitude is directed at objects and is evaluative which is either positive or negative and it endures and is dispositional. (Pettijohn, 1996) Psychologists infer attitudes because of the unreliability of only one indicator. It helps to infer an attitude using multiple indicators as it is more accurate and its network or scheme is more complex but believable as actually existing somewhere in the brain. Its description integrates all components it represents when it sees an object, a belief is activated then instantaneously, the individual reacts to the object. Case in point is when a choice in a social partner presents itself. Repeated and multiple encounters increases self awareness (going out on dates, talking on the phone), increased self-awareness strengthens attitudes and improves prediction (dating exclusively) which leads to activated attitude (marriage and old age). Though predicting behavior comes easily when there is a network of schema involved, attitudes on behavior assessment may differ greatly when a there is a delay in inter-personal support (spending time with him solely makes him ideal to be a social partner but inhibits your social life) and situational pressures decrease prediction (varying economic status; you are rich, he is poor) and prediction may be lower than expected. In a sense, attitude is behavior when it is instantly done. It can change readily due to experience and persuasion (such as responses to stimuli) and the theories of attitude formation (dissonance-reduction theory, etc.) then comes into the picture. These then leads to our judgement and choice-making processes. We no longer predict the outcome but act on a choice which seem at times mundane or the most consequential in our lives. An expert on the ideals of choice, Professor Iyengar contrasts the choices we make to the realities we faced. The assortment of options available to us on a daily basis is what makes her research fascinating and groundbreaking. A sound and accurate decision making is important to individuals and social groups for them to survive in a society. Therefore social judgement and how it translates to choices and actions is interesting to study. How do individuals arrive at decision-making with so many choices to study over? What makes a sound decision? When does one arrive at a decision? First, our personal values and preference influence the way we perceive things. Going back, we now know that the social roles we grew up in play a major part in shaping those influences. It is then stored and organized in our brain sections making note of what feels good or bad, hurts or pleases us thus, the formation of our preferences and choices. In this light, when choices or preferences are formed we could then formulate our judgement (this has been good or I felt better after doing this or I was hurt climbing the tree) and move on to a decision (I would never climb a tree as long as I live) that has been a process that encompasses a network of other simple processes inside of us. Yielding to social pressure in a world that highly values individualism in a way, encourages conformity and obedience in individuals. Edgar Allan Poe the author, once said that ‘to conform is to be foolish’. We believe ourselves to be individuals but we fail to realize that groups and belonging to one define and influence us. Various forms of social influence shape our thinking whether we admit it or not because the need to be accepted is prevalent in every one of us. We act to be accepted in a social group and change our behavior to that of the group’s majority. We follow an authority and look for guidance in others that may or maybe not a leader but is certainly is control of the situation. In cases where there is an immediate decision to be made, we don’t really know how we will behave and is believed that it is our motives and desires that determine our behavior (Milgram,1963). We are more likely to comply (obey) when there are factors that affect conformity and obedience such as committing to a behavior previously or ordered by a person in authority or alone than when in a crowd. Threats may be construed as disobedience, non-conformity and prejudice reactions to the situation. Social Prejudice can be downplayed with high motivation control. The results will then inhibit negative biases to the contexts associated with prejudice. The interaction to control prejudice is evident in the individual responses to different races which aim to provide cues driven by automatic inhibition. This is where mental control comes in to direct our attention and focus on positive thoughts. We call it mental control when we intentionally focus our minds to its wanted states (Wegner,1994). “The basic model upon which psychoanalysis is constructed is the disease model, in that it portrays neurotic behavior as unfolding relentlessly out of a defective psychological system contained within the body” (Scheff’s, 1966) It seems that certain individuals possess the predisposition to behave in a socially deviant manner, particularly when experiencing a personal crisis that triggers the psychological illness that prevents him from making an informed decision and behavior. Mental control is then defective for it constricts the brain’s possibility to process properly the situation at hand. The illness prevents the individual to behave in accordance to society’s expectations. Metaphors could then lead us to believe that a lot of factors (physiological, social, race etc.) shape a person’s attitudes and his behavior. It is conditioned throughout history and change is always inevitable. Let me share with you a passage that moved me most. It is clear that culture may value and make socially available even highly unstable human types. If it chooses to treat their peculiarities as the most valued variants in human behavior, the individuals in question will rise to the occasion and perform their social roles without reference to the ideas of the usual types who can make social adjustments and those who cannot. Those who function inadequately in any society are not those with certain fixed “abnormal” traits, but may well be those whose responses have received no support in the institutions of their culture. The weakness of these aberrants is in great measure illusory. It springs not from the fact that they are lacking in necessary vigor, but that they are individuals whose native responses are not reaffirmed by society. They are as Sapir phrases it, “alienated from an impossible world.” Radical explanations are observed but the fact remains that experiment and research findings are a testament to the ignorance of human beings in understanding human behavior. It is complex and absurd in surreal ways that have been explained and studied everyday only to come close in predicting it but never actually being sure of what one could think of and behave. The tip of the iceberg has been scratched. A lot more is needed to be discovered and understood. The world awaits the answers. Bibliography Adams, Michael.(2006) Sex in the Snow. 10th Anniversary Edition. Canada Benedict, R. (1934) Patterns of Culture. New York. Houghton-Mifflin Iyengar, S. Columbia University. The Psychological Pleasure and Pain of Choosing. Society of Personality and Social Psychology Annual Meeting. Pettijohn, T. Discovering Psychology. 5th Ed. Deaux Wrightsman Scheff, T (1966). Being Mentally Ill. Chicago: Aldine Wegner, D.M. & Pennebaker, J.W. (Eds.) (1993). Handbook of Mental Control. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall Motivations and Social Psychology Topics Retrieved on Jan.28, 2007 www.lermanet.com/exit/milgram/conform/htm www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/39117.html www.pierce.ctc.edu/tink/general/review/social obedience.html www.psych.ohio.edu/research/res_sjbdm.html www.sciencedirect.com/science Read More