Human Behavior Is Largely Influenced by Culture and Instinct
Social Psychologists attempt to explain human behavior with the systems of culture, evolution, and social neuroscience. Through culture, cultural psychologist study how people interact with others within the same dominant social group. As mentioned by the researchers Biswas-Diener and Thin, the studies used to understand human behavior — besides the simple act of observation — is surveying and interviewing. While culture involves similar behaviors and ideas among a group of people, progressive cultivation, ways of life, and shared learning can be studied in order to compare cultures.
Progressive cultivation involves activities that are considered superior in that culture and could be used to differentiate the various social classes. For example, in Western countries, people with at least a bachelor’s degree, and regular international travel, may be viewed as more intelligent, socially connected, and financially successful compared to those who have some college education or less.
Ways of life include actions related to the traditions of smaller groups within the larger cultural group while shared learning involves the teachers and guardians that help a person develop within a culture.
The promotion of individualist or collectivist set of beliefs will vary among social groups and is influenced by tradition and economy. While the definition of success will also differ from one culture to another, a focus will be placed on personal achievement versus group achievement, and some social groups lean will lean more towards one form more than the other.
Every individual grows up to believe that their culture, or set of behaviors promoted onto oneself since birth, is normal and ideal.
Evolutionary Theories
There are five evolutionary theories that are based on human instincts. These instinctual theories are sexual selection theory, gene selection theory, sexual strategies theory, evolutionary psychology, and error management theory. For example, sexual selection theory is where some physical traits aid in finding a mate while having no other survival purpose. Gene selection theory explains why advantageous genes are passed along to the next generation for survival.
Professor of psychology, David Buss, believes that error management theory shows how “psychological adaptation” prevents humans from making the same mistake while evolutionary psychology focuses on how adaptations of the mind, such as feelings, can aid in survival.
The research by Pedersen, Putcha-Bhagavatula, and Miller demonstrates that short-term relationships are more common for men than women, and this is proven through sexual strategies theory which “argues for evolved sex-distinct mating mechanisms (e.g., preferences) for short-term and long-term mating due to fundamental biologically-based sex differences in minimal levels of parental investment (e.g., physical limitations of pregnancy, labor, and nourishing young versus mere insemination).”
In neuroscience, parts of the brain can result in physical responses that are influenced by social categorization and stereotyping — which are the sorting of people into specific groups with associated beliefs, and these personal beliefs may be considered wrong or inferior by the dominant culture. For example, the research by Ito and Kubota shows how “the amygdala…is important for learning about and detecting important things in our environments and plays an important role in fear learning and expression.”
A person may see someone who resembles the image of a meth addict, activate the amygdala, and decide to quickly avoid the person out of fear of being robbed, assaulted, or murdered. The evolutionary theories and the elements of neuroscience can explain what causes a person to make decisions that impact personal survival.
Cultural Bias
When it comes to strengths and weaknesses, cultural psychology faces the issue of bias in favor, or against, certain cultures. The goal of this branch of psychology would be to accept that some practices are different — but not harmful.
Those that are harmful should be considered so, and effort may be made to educate the members of that society about the risks of their traditions.
As for social neuroscience, it is a new theory; therefore, there is more research to be done, but it is obvious that different sections of the brain are stimulated by certain thoughts. This stimulation can aid in figuring out what people are thinking at any given moment. According to David Buss, sexual strategies theory and error management theory are favored over sexual selection theory and gene selection theory because of the amount of research that proves their usefulness and accuracy in the past and in modern times.
Research Ethics
The research methods used in social psychology attempt to study human behavior from a variety of angles. For example, laboratory research experimentation takes place in a controlled environment with knowing participants. As for field experimentation, it takes place in a natural environment with unknowing participants. Nonconscious research involves the manipulation of feelings or thoughts in order to change an action.
A less experimental form of investigation is archival research, and it includes studying data from various sources — especially original documents — and coming to a conclusion. Another experiment type is a survey, and in one set of studies by Korndörfer, Egloff, and Schmukle, it involved a year-long follow-up of questions with several families about their donations to any non-profit or religious organizations of choice. These surveys were performed on a quarterly basis and personal information, related to income and expenditures, was willingly provided.
Survey research was used in a real-life experiment in order to test how prosocial, or altruistic, people could be depending on social class. The research volunteers were made aware that they would be providing sensitive information, as well, but any social pressure to seem charitable may have influenced the amount of money that was spent in donations — even if their names were not publicized.
Any experiment runs the risk of having dubious results, but surveys are prone to the insincerity and exaggeration by those that volunteer to answer questions. Research ethics do exist in the scientific community so that the risk of psychological or physical injury is balanced with the benefits of completing the study.
While completion of a study is important, Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani explains that debriefing is imperative after experiencing dark and heavy emotions so that a volunteer can return to a normal mood with the use of “happy” images or sounds. Ethics need to be taken into consideration when conducting social psychology research because it can result in trauma and the violation of rights.
