Behavioral and Cognitive Approaches to Forming Habits - Essay Example

? Behavioral and Social/Cognitive Approaches to Forming Habits Kashif Hassan Association of Certified Chartered Accountants A research was lent into my childhood and a 20 people, who knew me closely, were interviewed and asked different questions regarding myself. Each individual was asked questions as per the relation that I share with him/her. Most answers received were typical because as per human psychology, every human being would answer in a more or less similar way. Some of my most distinctive habits, or the most distinctive answers, were put under consideration and taken into account in regards to Behavioral Personality Theory and Social Cognitive Theory. The habit discussed in the paper is that of stretching the eyes. Unlike most other habit, this one was unconditioned and rather an adaptation from a few people who I got to meet very often. Introduction: Behavioral and Social/Cognitive Approaches to Forming Habits On having collected a considerable amount of habits, I compared each of them to how they have evolved by now and if they even exist now or not. Many of the unique answers that I got from people failed for the simple reason that they no more exist. As said above, most people would give typical answers regarding childhood naughtiness and other related events; hence most of the habits told were limited to my childhood and were not even so unique. They could rather be found in thousands of kids in an all times. From the remaining ones, I thought about the habits that I had tried to change or break due to personal reasons or on someone else’s order. When this was set as the criteria of selection, all the habits shortlisted were cut out as they did not exist any longer and had been broken or drastically changed and I went for the habit of stretching the eyes. In addition, this habit, to me, was more personalized than all others and was best relating to human psychology being non-typical. Typical human habits can also, at many areas, be used to study the human psychology but those habits give a general idea of human race and not one person. In order to compare my habit with Behavioral Personality Theory and Social Cognitive Theory, I planned to personalize the paper and began with researching. This followed classified ways of short listing all the habits and selecting one, in order to prove my point. In this paper, I tend to discuss how human behaviors are influenced from the surroundings and how surroundings play a major role in developing certain ideology of a person’s psychology against the belief that the person himself is mostly accountable for what he develops in himself. The two theories are actually interrelated and the paper would tell how. Discussion: One of my habits, as mentioned above, that has neither changed nor evolved in any way, is that of stretching the eyes. The main subject behind the adaptation of this habit is beauty. As we all know that beauty is something that has never had a constant definition; neither in psychology nor in arts and aesthetics. To every person and people in every time frame, beauty has been something entirely according to their surroundings. For instance, during the Stone Age, a beautiful woman was the one with large features and overly curved body whereas today, a beautiful woman is the one with slim figure and delicate features. Not only the environment, but personal tastes, depending on the mentality, can also take the definition of beauty to vary person to person. It is something that is and has been appreciated since times immemorial. As per human psychology, beauty is the an aspect that is favored be it in terms of looks, habits, style, clothing, speaking, gadgetry, home decoration, gardening or just any other thing. In no situation would a human being ever prefer anything that is not beautiful to him/her over something that is beautiful to him/her. Since my childhood, I have always admired the looks and style of a female neighbor, who had this habit of stretching the eyes. She is quite older to me in age but a very nice friend. She probably did it when concentrating on something and busy in deep thinking. Although this whole exercise of stretching the eyes would not last longer than a few seconds, it gave a stylish expression, with little attitude, to her face that I simply loved. As I was growing up and was getting accustomed to follow everything that adults around me would do, I began to adopt this habit. Almost everyone admired the beauty of that girl and I found encouragement to adopt her habits thinking that I would look equally stylish or nice. I still continue with the habit despite making desperate tries to break it. Many times, I have been told by people that it was not a good idea to do this as it may permanently change the shape of the eyes and at some age, I also realized that it did not give the expression to my face that I thought it would. Plan To Change This Habit: By now, I have become so accustomed to stretching my eyes that I do not even realize when I so it and I do not even feel it. I just end up doing it. At times, people point me out while at others, it is often the mirror where I see myself do it. In order to break this habit, will have to remain conscious at most times and abstain from stretching the eyes if I find myself wanting to do it. Only consciousness can help break a habit that is being done at large unknowingly. Gradually, the problem will be overcome. Conclusion: Comparing this habit to Behavioral Personality Theory, I think the theory does apply to my case because certainly I did adopt a habit and the surroundings played some part in it. However, as in case of Social Cognitive Theory, this habit was more acquired due to observing others. When it comes to observing, I not only observed the person from whom I adopted this habit but also what people had to say about her. Thus, I think Social Cognitive Theory better explains my personality as I gain habits by observing people. What they think I good, I would take up and what they think is not good, I would try to break it. Word Count: 1, 053 References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_cognitive_theory http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologystudyguides/a/personalitysg_3.htm Fred S. Kleiner, Gardner’s Art Through Ages: A Global History Read More