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Essay:People's behavior is largely determined by forces not of their own making.


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Hi,

 

I tried to pen down a few points about this topic. But definitely need help revising it. Thanks.

 

Behavior is a trait of personality of an individual. It is how a person reacts to a given situation. Every day, we come across various situations were we would have reacted in ways that come naturally to us. The topic is trying reason out what affects the behaviour in people or what instigates it. It states that behaviour is more moulded by forces that are external i.e, their surrounding environment than self-made. I believe that external factors significantly affect ones behaviour.

 

 

Let us start from the point of childhood. Don't our personalities today reflect what we have faced during our childhood? For example, a child who was brought up in a peaceful and content family would be far more balanced and composed in behaviour. A child belonging to family having strong moral values will grow up with a strong character. Here, the forces that determine the personality is our family. At the same time if a person lives in the company of negative people, it surely will show up in his character.

A very good example of being pressured to change behaviour is during adolescence. Peer pressure on their teenage children is every parent's fear. Why? Because they tend to change their behaviour into something that is not governed by their natural instinct, influenced by friends. And over time, this gets embedded into their personality.

Taking a more positive outlook, most of our leaders came from humble backgrounds, but changed into vibrant people after facing the real world. Like Indira Nooyi, Pepsi Co's CEO, who was one of the most influential people listed by Forbes. She came from a traditional south Indian family and has completely changed to a dynamic personality because of both the challenges and the support that she received from the world around her.

 

 

Thus, behaviour works a lot around how a person's current mindset is. And the mindset of a person is largely affected by external entities. Even a person who is always composed can turn irascible in no time if he is left to handle a refractory child for long! Or even the most pessimistic person can turn an optimist if he has a good set of friends or books or anything which can motivate him. Thus, it is the forces around us, from the beginning to end of our lives, that determine our behaviour and hence our personality.

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I am afraid that my response does not even accurately answer the question. I suppose that I had some difficulty understanding precisely what the question was asking. I was unsure as to whether it was asking about conscious vs unconscious motivations, instinct vs free will, etc. I understood it as a nature vs nurture question and answered it as such. I suppose I am not so much interested in whether or not my response was good enough, but whether or not I answered the prompt correctly. (But if you do feel like commenting on the quality of my response, please do!!)

 

Prompt:

 

People's behavior is largely determined by forces not of their own making.

 

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.

 

 

 

My Response (in 30 minutes):

 

The study of human behavior has been constant and continuous since the first psychologists began to study patterns of behavior and fervently attempt to explain it. The ultimate debate of human behavior has always been whether nature or nurture has the most influence over how people think and act, and despite the hundreds of various studies that have been conducted over the years, the debate still remains current, with people standing firmly on both sides.

 

The reason for the continued presence of this unresolved debate is that both nature and nurture contribute equally in the motivation of human behavior, and attempting to prove one’s influence over the other is an impossible task. Human beings are born into this world with a very specific wiring—personality characteristics and predispositions to various outcomes that are likely to manifest regardless of environmental influence. In addition, the conditions of one’s environment will likely dictate how those personality characteristics will manifest. In conclusion, it is the mutual influence of biology and environment that determine individual behavior patterns.

 

Twin studies have demonstrated that in more cases than not, if two identical twins are separated at birth and raised in entirely different conditions, surrounded by different people and given different opportunities, their attitudes and beliefs, successes and failures, internal thought processes and outward behaviors range from generally similar to exactly the same. Studies such as these would prove that nature is the dominant influence in human behavior. Similarly, though we would expect functional families to raise functional children and dysfunctional families to raise dysfunctional children, thus highlighting the dominant influence of nurture, studies often prove otherwise. These studies have shown that two “normal” people, void of any known mental illness, cognitive disabilities, or socioeconomic misfortune, can raise a child that ends up having severe emotional disturbance; this is also true conversely. Although these specific cases are, indeed, extreme, it proves that there is no guarantee in any situation that nature or nurture in itself will dictate human behavior patterns. The only answer, it seems, is that behavior is a combination of the circumstances made for you, and the biological way you came into the world.

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