Social Influences on Behavior Argumentative Essay

Abstract

Diverse societal situations, or situational variables, may include a huge influence on a person’s actions and performances. Psychology has an important function in individual’s communication which is why it is crucial that we need to comprehend how psychological factors can manipulate someone’s actions when they are face to face with a variety of public situations. A number of these factors will incorporate: the need to fit in, unselfishness, traditional values, social facilitation, and respect.

Humans frequently become accustomed to their public settings because various types of social environments support the growth of specific behaviors. This is frequently due to a mixture of the abovementioned psychological factors that manipulate someone’s actions in any given social circumstances. Social Influences on Behavior Paper Human Interaction Humans will experience social situations all the time, just about every day. The way that we react or conduct ourselves all the way through these types of situations can be prejudiced by the essential psychological concept of human communication.

Human communication is “how people think, feel, and behave toward one another” (Newcomb, Turner, & Converse, 1996). This communication can be seen as unfair by a lot of factors, which can incorporate: human being experiences, stereotype, favoritism, and acknowledgment. Everybody has had their own unique experiences throughout life which often influences the way they interact with other human beings. Each person’s experiences can reflect in the way that the person behaves in social settings and interacts with other humans.

Stereotyping can affect the lives of all human beings in any given culture, which also has an impact on human interaction and behavior. All cultures tend to develop certain stereotypes (race, gender, sexual preference, etc. ) based on biased opinions, and these stereotypes can become evident when humans interact with one another. The role of discrimination within human interaction has been the topic of many controversies throughout history due to its negative impact on human interaction. Discrimination can cause controversy and anger between people who do not share commonalities.

Stereotyping and discrimination are similar in that they are both driven by the influence of bias and prejudice. Attribution is an individual’s way of asking (or explaining) why people act or respond the way they do when faced with social situations (Kowalski & Westen, 2009). Humans use attribution in an attempt to make sense of their own actions and the actions of those around them. All of these elements combine to create the building blocks of human interaction. Social Situations Social situations are virtually unavoidable for most people.

Human beings are naturally social creatures, which is why most people learn to behave in a specific way when they have to be face to face with a range of public situations. One decent illustration of how a public situation can manipulate human beings actions would be the unlike those of how an adolescent behaves when he or she is around friends versus family members. Most adolescents are influenced by the concept of conformity when interacting with peers and friends. “Conformity is the process by which people change their attitudes or behavior to accommodate the standards of peers or groups” (Kowalski& Westen, 2009).

Adolescents may conform out of the need to belong within their specific group of peers. Fear of rejection might also be a driving factor behind adolescent conformity. For many adolescents group think is a strong influential factor. Group think “occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment. Groups affected by groupthink ignore alternatives and tend to take irrational actions that dehumanize other groups” (Irving, 1982).

The consequences that the adolescent may face by not conforming to certain expected behaviors may lead to isolation or even discrimination from the peer group. In the event that the adolescent conforms to dangerous or harmful behaviors (such as alcoholism or drugs) he or she may need therapeutic intervention in order to improve the destructive behaviors that are being exhibited. Without an intervention the adolescent may become addicted to drugs or alcohol or they may cause harm to themselves or others. Unfortunately this type of scenario happens to many adolescents due to the pressures of fitting in within a high school setting.

Adolescents who are otherwise well-behaved with good judgment of ethics and principals can develop into an addiction by their group of friends and the effect of the group think that their overall actions become tainted or unnatural in a harmful way. When interacting with family members adolescents may be driven by social facilitation. Family members often push adolescents to achieve a certain level of success, which can alter the behavior of the adolescent due to the facilitating affect that the family members may have on the adolescent.

Obedience is another important element of social interactions between adolescents and parental units. In most cases if an adolescent is not obedient and disobeys his or her parents there are often consequences as a result of the disobedient behavior. Another example of how social interaction can change an individual’s behavior would be a situation in which an upper-class individual is approached by a homeless person who is asking for money or food. In this type of social situation altruism is the key element that drives the behavior of the upper-class individual.

Altruism is described as helping another individual with no expectations of personal gain or reward. The upper-class individual may not necessarily empathize with the homeless individual, but the need for altruism may encourage him or her to give the homeless person food or money. In this case the upper-class individual’s behaviors may actually be driven by ethical hedonism, which occurs when “apparent altruism is really aimed at making the apparent altruist feel better” (Kowalski & Westen, 2009).

The upper-class individual may fear that not responding to and helping the homeless individual will lead to consequences such as being portrayed as cheap or egocentric. Although it may appear that the upper-class individual is being altruistic, his or her behavior may actually be driven by selfish motives that are unapparent to other people. In this particular example no therapeutic intervention would be needed. Conclusion The influence of factors such as altruism, obedience, conformity, and social-facilitation can be evident in all social interactions.

Social psychology also plays an imperative role in all basic human interactions because it helps resolve some of the mystery behind people’s actions. While comprehending specific basics of public/social psychology can definitely help out in the awareness of several people’s actions it is difficult to fully comprehend and explain all of the driving factors behind each and every individual’s behavior within social situations. Human behavior is typically unpredictable, but there are a variety of common factors that can influence behaviors in any given social setting, which is where social psychology comes into play.

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