The Human Behaviour (I); The Social Setting

Life is full of daily complexities and mysteries, even though most people are immune to certain aspects of various society implications.

This is why I personally feel that the skill of Observation, is an invaluable one to have in any setting of our modern society (refer to previous article Observation; The Art Of Reading Your Environment Like a Book).

To me, I see every social outing or social event as an opportunity to study and observe, and thus that is actually one of the reasons why I endeavoured this personal project of mine; to do a three part observational project on the complex human behaviour.

The human mind works in many different and complex ways unfathomed (refer to previous article, The Human Mind; A Powerful Tool or just a Voice inside us?) and I find this detail extremely appealing. Reason being the scope of the human mind; its almost endless.

The mind invokes the behaviour and thus completes a person. The limitless aspects and diversity of the mind is so immerse for it holds no boundaries and that is what makes the human mind and behaviour so appealing to me.
No doubt, there is a link between the mind and the behaviour for the mind controls the behaviour and in some cases, vice versa.

Throughout my field studies and observations, I’ve observed some interesting details and reactions from my study subjects, who were people I totally didn’t know; they were just random members of the public.

For this part of my observation, The Social Setting, I took to densely populated areas, bustling with human activity. I started out with places like the train station, shopping malls, eating outlets and general meeting places where masses of people would designate to meet up.

I wanted to explore and observe the people’s reactions when they’re in social situations such as, being in big groups, their facial expressions when they’re in groups, the social composition and aspects along that line, things people normally wouldn’t observe or take notice.

I’ve been sitting in a particular train station for quite some time now on one of my research days, doing a general observation of the people and the activity in the station. It was interesting in a sense that somehow, I felt a sense of organization amongst the what seemingly mass of people rushing thru and fro, trying to catch their trains; a particular chain of order in the system was in place.

My attention however, was caught by a bunch of elderly people, meeting up in the station.

Interestingly, I did a little comparison with the people around them, who were mainly alone or in smaller groups.

I saw laughter. I saw excitement. And probably most importantly, I saw joy and happiness in the eyes of the elderly who were meeting up, something the people around didn’t seem to show on their faces. Whether they’re deep in thought or rushing off to work (as it was around the morning rush hour) I didn’t see what I saw in the group of elderly.

Why is this so?

Human beings are social creatures. Its is in our nature, instinct and blood to be socially involved.

This is evident in our everyday lives as we are able to see people having more fun than being alone, but of course, there are minorities of those who prefer and seek happiness when they’re all alone in a solitary world.

Their activity level increases when they’re in a group as well; Social habits and settings help people open up.

Passive and inward individuals are more likely to open themselves up and speak when they’re in a familiar social setting mainly due to the fact that they are comfortable.

The insecurity in them, during social situations, is compromised by comfort and thus they open up and speak their thoughts. They become less conscious or afraid especially in big groups as a result.

I’m sure that at some point in your lives, one might have come across a wildlife documentary about animals seeking shelter and protection in big groups; humans work in the same way as well.

Except in our case, it isn’t the battle of the fittest and for survival but a psychological and mental insecurity that eludes these individuals.
However in every social group, there are always prominent characters that stand out. Many calls it the stereotypes of a social group, but I simply like to term these as prominent personalities in any group setting.

You’ll always have the strong, outspoken and domineering one. This is the person in the group that makes decisions and starts the conversation going. We commonly term this person the leader or initiator. These people usually behave aggressively and all out.

You’ll then have the supplier, the support and material person that usually comes up with the ideas and suggestions. There are many terms for this role but I like to call them the resource providers. They provide valuable inputs and suggestions to the direction in any social setting and they behave passively.

Finally, you’ll have the typical listener. They are the ones that get the work done but in this case, they listen to the flow of the conversation dictated by the leader and contributes.

The basic build-up of a social setting is highly subjective as it largely depends on the configuration of a particular group. The above that I’ve mentioned is just a general guide upon my observation in a particular social setting.

As mentioned earlier in this substantive, human behaviour is a limitless field of study. This also means that each and every individual is different in terms of behaviour and mindset.

It is natural that everyone has different interest, needs and wants and thus, social groups will not always work out every time.

However, the biggest obstacle that most people face when they come against a difficult social setting is fear.

“a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil and pain etc” (as cited from dictionary.com) as such often appears in certain social settings.

The aspect of fear is that it plays on one’s emotions and supplements it with negative thoughts that often scares or discourages oneself. In a social setting perspective, fears of meeting new people, for instance, often eludes individuals, especially those of conservative personality.

In such situations, such individuals will often retract into their “safety shells” and either hide or keep a low profile.

We call such a fear a strangers Xenophobia. The human behavioural aspect when it comes to fear is especially prominent as human behaviour drastically changes when subjected to the essence of fear.

Public speaking, is another common fear people have and that occurs in a social setting.

It isn’t easy to speak in front of a huge crowd due to the reason that almost everyone is insecure about themselves; they are subconsciously affected by what people view of them. And thus most people will dawn on a different facade when they’re exposed to a tough social setting such as public speaking.

I personally feel that the fear of public speaking lies with the idea of being a social misfit if derived of a wrong impression. Everyone in society wants to be socially accepted in the right way and thus would be very conscious about their appearance or performance when they’re under public scrutiny.

The social setting is a vast exploration for human behavioural observations. However, there are many other fields to cover and consider in terms of the observation of human behaviour, which I’ll cover in my coming additions.