My pervious instalment of The Human Behaviour covered the aspect of the reaction and feelings of people in particular social settings. Issues covered included the general outline of human behaviour, their distinct roles in a group social setting, humans being emotive creatures, the issue of fears in a social setting and many more.
This observational series is one that requires time and much observation in order to be acute in its reports.
I’m however, tackling the approach via a means of my personal perspective and thus, certain claims and observations might be subjective to the individual.
The ambiguity of a topic as such is evident.
As mentioned in the previous instalment (refer to article, The Human Behaviour (I); The Social Setting), the human mind is subjective and complex in its own nature. The mind of a person, being the core constitution of a person’s behaviour, decides the person’s behaviour and the way he or she acts, which might shed some light on the ambiguity of the behaviour of humans; we rarely behave similarly.
“the action or reaction under specified circumstances” (as cited from dictionary.com) fully defines the term, behaviour and naturally, as proof to my pervious claim about behaviour being subjective, “action” and “reaction” are rarely carbon copies from one human being to another.
Human behaviour therefore, is a very vast and diverse topic.
Moving on to my substantive for this instalment.
The society around us changes and shapes the very tomorrow for the lives of those living in it. For example, the government might ban education tomorrow and that will surely affect the people in the particular country (with expected mixed reactions, of course).
It is no denying the fact that changes are evident in our everyday lives, and whether if its a good or bad thing, depends purely on the mindset of a person, which often follows in a series of differentiated human behaviour.
But the question remains; how will change ultimately affect the human behaviour? Are we so superficial as to the fact that changes can alter our mindset, in doing so, our behaviour?
There is truth to that statement.
In a sense, changes fosters a different mindset due to the core dependency that humans respond to stimuli. I feel that change itself is a stimuli and thus, we, as living organisms, would and should respond to the changes around us, in terms of either refining, adapting or even totally revamping our mindset.
Though it may seem unrealistic or even nonsensical, humans undergo a series of “revamps” which also can be termed changes, in their mindset and human behaviour. Its amazing that the behaviour of humans can change drastically throughout one’s life, as I’ve found out during my observational period.
Observing changes often takes up a bunk of time and effort, mainly because changes are sometimes uncalled for and highly situational. Knowing this, I knew it was really hard for me to actually observe changes and how those changes affect human behaviour.
Thus I came up with a little something called Contrasting. It may seem complex but in fact, it is much easier to contrast rather than sit and wait for a change to actually happen; some of which can take years to cultivate a significant change in a human’s behaviour.
The concept of Contrasting is a fairly simple one. Basically, when I observed something significant in the field of human behaviour, I would compare the behaviour with the former self. This was, a comparison is created and one would be able to analyse the differences in human behaviour before and after these changes without actually witnessing them.
However, not that Contrasting may work only for certain observational types and the results are more rather, fluid and subjective and observations can only be treated as a generalization.
A good example where I used Contrasting, in a general viewpoint, is in the change of age and its effect on the human behaviour.
The change of age is an aspect that affects the one’s behaviour, in drastic fashion at that, I feel. This can be due to a number of both scientific and psychological aspects that leads to this change.
On a scientific basis, Senescence, which is the big word used to describe the process of aging, often spurs different types of “social, psychological and physical changes” (as cited from Wikipedia.com).
These psychological changes that people undergo during aging hints at the change in behaviour too, in drastic differences and fashion. The change in behaviour for the aspect of age often varies from one end of the spectrum to the other.
You would normally envision old people to be quiet, soft spoken and always keeping to themselves, which is only half correct. Age does make a person keep their problems to themselves as they gain a higher sense of maturity and wisdom; they do not want the people around them to worry. And in this sense, their behaviour will obviously change as they will become less idealistic and more down to earth, accepting things for what they are and as mentioned, keeping their thoughts to themselves in order for the society to not worry for them.
However, this is only one side of the spectrum that I’ve mentioned.
The other half of the spectrum is vocalised (pun intended) by those who develop their sense of right to speak up or being more sociable.
Though the majority lies with the former group, there are exceptions.
My daily bus rides to school granted me this insight for I observed a particularly contentions elderly man; he was voicing his opinions loudly on the bus. Though I enjoyed his rapid comments about various social issues, I pondered on the change that age has taken on him.
He was so sociable that he even spoke to another elderly man who boarded the bus about highly personal topics such as their children.
There was no clear indication that both of them knew each other but the sociable elderly started conversing in fluent dialect, as if they were long time friends. He even helped the other elderly man down the bus as he had difficulty walking.
Indeed that was an act of kindness. But I began to reason, in my head, about the behaviour of the sociable old man. Clearly the change of age has taken him (he was 65) and now has a sociable, and open mindset; lets face it, how many times have you seen younger adults being so open to people they don’t know?
Take note here that I’m not trying to criticise this type of behaviour but more rather, point it out, as people nowadays are somewhat ignorant of such subtle aspects of life.
I feel that another subtle detail that people fail to take observation and notice, in our society is all around us; our environment.
A new sign board, a different coat of paint, a new building built; these are all but a small part of our environment. I’m not trying to be over critical here but one of the main influences of the changes in behaviour is the environment around us.
When one is thrown into a new environment, one often feels lost, disorientated and insecure. Without a doubt, the human behaviour of the particular person will change accordingly. This is why people tend to be more introverted and inward when first introduced to a new environment.
The feeling of disorientation and insecurity makes a person less adventurous as they are afraid to move out of their safety zones and will also result in people putting on “false fronts” either to deceive or simply due to their fears (refer to article, The Human Behaviour (I); The Social Setting).
This however, is more often, a temporary issue as the insecurity of a new environment will fade as soon as that person gets familiar with the surroundings. Again, this is an issue of speed and subjectivity as certain people can adapt almost on the spot while other takes weeks or even months; its that diverse.
People thus undergo a duration of altered behaviour when they’re introduced to a new environment that they’re not used or comfortable with.
Most change aspects are on a long term basis but the change in environment is one of the few aspects that yields temporary change in behaviour.
As mentioned earlier in the article (and the previous instalment), the human mind and human behaviour is closely intertwined together, which means that this serves that another platform for the basis of the change of behaviour; the change in one’s mindset.
Though it may not be easy to change and, with reference to the earlier mention, revamp your mind, it can and has been done, though many people don’t notice this due to its understated observation and notice.
Very so often or another, we’ll come across that one inspirational book that will change your perspective about something. Mind, it need not be a book but can be anything, anything that inspires you to think, reflect and change your behaviour.
The change of mindset is one that not many people are willing to make nor will they notice that they have done so.
A simple quote like “every blessing ignored becomes a curse” (from The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho, 1988) for instance, can change a person’s mindset and behaviour for they are then inspired.
This little motivation (refer to article, Screaming Fans; The Motivational Force and Ambition) leads to a change in behaviour as the person is influenced and motivated to lead a different life, for example and this constitutes to a change.
The change of influence is also based on the mind as the mind perceives, get influenced and acts based on the combination. I find the basis of influence extremely strong and evident amongst teenagers.
Perhaps at a young age, people are more easily influenced due to premature thoughts and unfiltered mindsets. Bad influences can thus pervade these vulnerable minds, corrupting them and tainting them with negative imagery.
I’m sure there are cases of teenagers attempting to emulate their so called “role models” by copying their actions or even mimicking them word for word, stride by stride. Let us question these influences; are they positive or negative?
It is again, subjective. Like a coin having two different sides, it is not exception here.
I feel that altering one’s behaviour based on influences is rather “self-zombifying”. The main reason being that I feel each and every single individual should be distinct and prominent; no two people are the same entirely.
Instead of subjecting to influence and mimicking due to that influence, why not change and create your own influence?
Changes are very diverse in the field of human behaviour, as with the entire aspect of it on the whole. There are many factors that contribute to the change in human behaviour of which I’ve only touched on a few.
The human behaviour is a complex issue which isn’t easy to unravel.
For my coming edition, I’ll be concluding about my observations regarding human behaviour and giving my final analysis of the psychological side of expression.
*The above references made to various authors are in no way used for the reason of blog promotion.
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