Several Human Behavior Theories - Essay Example

Human behavior Human behavior Introduction Human behavior is one of the concepts of learning founded upon the dominant idea that all human behaviors are achieved through conditioning. This is also identified as behaviorism. Conditioning occurs when the individuals interact with the surroundings. According to psychologists, human behavior can be reviewed in a systematic, perceptible, and observable method with no discussion of interior mental states (Tay and Diener, 2011). There are several human behavior theories that can be used to describe human behavior. This paper focuses on three psychologists-Aristotle, Rene Descartes, and B.F. Skinner to discuss the Article by Cara Buckley of 2007. A synopsis of the article by Cara Buckley 2007 At 137th street at 12.45 p.m., Mr. Autrey was taking his daughters- aged six and four- home before going to work (Buckley, 2007). A man started convulsing and collapsed. Two women and Mr. Autrey rushed to assist. Mr. Autrey managed to stand, but then tripped to the stage edge and fell to the tracks, in between the two rails. Before the train rolled, two cars before the train stopped, just before him, the cars stopped passing few inches taking away his blue cap to block the train (Buckley, 2007). The yellers shouted that they were better. However, he shouted that he had two daughters at the top of the stage. Their cries of wonder and applause come from the well-wishers who were trying to assist. Mr. Autrey was then taken to St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center. Mr. Autrey rejected medical assistance and said he was fine (Buckley, 2007). Later he vested Mr. Hollopeter in the hospital before going on duty. He said that, he just saw somebody that needs help and he assisted him (Buckley, 2007). Aristotle believed that morality is a critical part of life. He disagrees with Socrates and Stoics, who believed that righteousness was completely enough for the people, and a happy lifespan. The Stoics maintained that the knowledgeable man might be happy, as long as he was good. Aristotle felt that though individual needs righteousness for a decent life, but one also needed some luck (Tay and Diener, 2011). According to him, Autrey was just trying to practice righteousness, which is part of being good and having a good life. The righteous consists of internal righteousness, and some external circumstances, for instance, good health, a loving family, are awarding occupation, as well as unrestricted society. If an individual does not get these elements, it will not be easy to achieve happiness and good life. Aristotle’s concept of the moral is determined by the riches an individual makes (Tay and Diener, 2011). Therefore, Aristotle would say Autrey obtained happiness through the application of his righteousness within him. Through his daughters, we get to understand that he comes from a good family and he has a good job. According to Descartes’ reasoning, humanity is very dualistic (Stephen and John, 2002). The religious understanding of the human soul is put contrary to the machine-driven world including the individual body that does not have any divine dimension (Stephen and John, 2002). Therefore, Descartes would say that the connection between people and natural surroundings motivated understanding- a distinguished position- and charged it with the responsibility to determine nature (Stephen and John, 2002). That is why Autrey rushed to assist Mr. Hollopeter. Descartes makes use of the image of a tree to examine knowledge and learning (Stephen and John, 2002). He feels that the tree can be used to describe philosophy; it originates from metaphysics. Descartes starts with metaphysics as his background because it is the root of all systematic and mathematical facts (Stephen and John, 2002). His concepts of the tree represent applications of knowledge- external environment, individual body, and to the behavior of life. Descartes would say that Mr. Autrey used his knowledge to the external world to offer assistance and help to Mr. Hollopeter. He is knowledgeable and educated so he will apply what is sensible to save Mr. Hollopeter. In fact, he was on his way to work and to him, he felt he was doing what was right. According to Descartes, understanding is a belief based on strong foundations (Stephen and John, 2002). The use of knowledge consists of the search of convictions that revealed absolute belief (Stephen and John, 2002). The main and most important “conviction” obtained via this procedure is the existence of the consciousness. Therefore, Mr. Autrey and the women thought it was right to assist Mr. Hollopeter because they believed it was the right thing. According to Descartes, all animals are like machines (Stephen and John, 2002). In this, he states that individuals are also part of this theme. The only thing that differentiates people from animals is the ability to think (Stephen and John, 2002). Descartes defines a person as thinking being who makes choices in life. According to him, Mr. Autrey and the other people who assisted Mr. Hollopeter simply reflected and used their philosophy skills to rescue him. Furthermore, Descartes says the human self is a mere perspective, not the main part of the body (Stephen and John, 2002). He says that we should question others and not hear what people say. He says question can be used instead of rumors (Stephen and John, 2002). Descartes also speaks of the ‘I’ as if it is the mind and spirit, whereas the body is spatial; a subject of the material world. According to him, Mr. Audrey must have used the concept of human self to attract attention and rescue Mr. Hollopeter. B. F. Skinner’s classification is grounded on operant conditioning. The system is in progression of operating on the surroundings, which in common language means it is springing around its field. In this operation, the system faces up to a special kind of motivation, known as reinforcing stimulus or a reinforcement (Lana, 2002). This distinctive stimulus has the consequence of expanding the operant; that is, the actions happening just before the motive. A consequence and the environment affecting the behavior in future then precede the operant conditioning (Lana, 2002). Skinner would then say that the conditions that took place motivated Mr. Audrey to act quickly. Behavior modification refers to the process of obliterating the bad behaviors and reinforcing positive behaviors. Skinner asserts that the bad behavior is determined by getting rid of the bad motives (Tay and Diener, 2011). This modification has been used in various psychological difficulties like addictions, psychoses, autism, shyness, and schizophrenia (Tay and Diener, 2011). Based on this concept, Skinner would say that, the society is full of immoral practices and discrimination (Tay and Diener, 2011). Therefore, Mr. Audrey risked his life to impart information about virtues among the community members, as well as his daughters. According to Skinner, the wicked end up badly since the wicked is rewarded by worse circumstances. The virtuous do well as the virtues are rewarded (Tay and Diener, 2011). Mr. Audrey and the others assisted Mr. Hollopeter because the result could be rewarding. Through their assistance, they became famous, and this in itself is rewarding. Skinner states that, both self-determination and self-esteem are examples mentalist constructs as proposed by Skinner (Tay and Diener, 2011). Other patterns include protection mechanisms, the personality, models, unreal finalisms, self-actualization, managing strategies, consciousness, and food shortage. He also explains that the homunculus which means little man existing in people is used to describe people’s behavior, thoughts like soul, awareness, ego, consciousness, and personality. Therefore, according to him, Mr. Audrey’s ego pushed him to rescue Mr. Hollopeter. He can then be described as one with very strong personality. The life of a human being may entail several preferences, joys, and achievements. It may also include several pains, grieves, and difficulties and remains a respectable life or a joyful life (Lana, 2002). Therefore, happiness is not only made of pleasures but also entails pains and suffering. Aristotle helps people to see this view by mentioning two aspects of happiness, which are suffering and pleasure. Therefore, despite the fact that Mr. Audrey risked his life to save Mr. Hollopeter, he managed to experience pleasure and suffering of assistance. Happiness is important in itself where it entails integrity, preference, reason, and morality. People select themselves, but they select virtues to obtain happiness. Happiness is selected by the individual to satisfy themselves in making happiness final and self-sufficient (Lana, 2002). Therefore, by providing assistance Mr. Audrey and the others would feel honored and pleasure, which he achieves by selecting appropriate virtues to assist Mr. Hollopeter. Aristotle asserts that the most significant factor in the attempt to attain happiness is a decent moral personality; in that, there is the concept complete virtue (Lana, 2002). He says that an individual should not only be virtuous, but also behave in harmony with virtue. The individual should also have different virtues to have a happy life (Lana, 2002). According to Aristotle Mr. Audrey and the other rescuers were trying to practices their different virtues, and that incase of challenges like the people with good virtues will always try to help those in need. Skinner, and Stimulus-Response supporters, believed that the behaviorist concept could be used to construe a learning situation (Lana, 2002). They believed that an individual could acquire knowledge that had been reinforced previously. Behaviorist reduced all responses to associations, to an outline of positive and negative support that determines links between motivations and their environmental backgrounds. Strengthened responses would be repeated and the punished ones would be stopped (Lana, 2002). Therefore, Skinner would then say Mr. Audrey wanted the children to see what he has done to reinforce a particular attitude in them, and to make the daughters learn positive moral values. Skinner states that, human behavior is a complex concept though not different from the rat that runaround looking for food after reinforcement or the pigeon that is trained how to produce sounds. There has been a discussion on whether nature or environment is the more important aspect of human description. The behaviors portrayed state that human beings are a result of natural surroundings (Lana, 2002). The view that human choices and actions are caused is part of a larger philosophical theory called determinism influences people’s options. From this concept, Skinner would say nature that predicted Mr. Audrey behavior. According to Aristotle, intellectual virtues refer to the understanding, theoretical reason, and practical knowledge used by the individual, based on love and wisdom. Having more knowledge is having an intellectual virtue (Lana, 2002). Therefore, Mr. Audrey and his friends had virtues that are more intellectual and were just putting them to practice. Aristotle adds that, in principled subjectivism, moral ethics are dependent on motivation, human, or a willing individual (Lana, 2002). If the willpower is human, then an individual has the root for modern ethical relativism, in which individuals choose what is correct and wrong (Lana, 2002). Therefore, these people mainly acted because of their willpower directed them to make a decision to help Mr. Hollopeter. Skinners interpretations were to some extent less dangerous than those of the theorists (Lana, 2002). Skinner assumed that people have a mind, though it is simply more useful to study noticeable behavior rather than interior intellectual events (Lana, 2002). According to him, Mr. Audrey did not use his knowledge to assist Mr. Hollopeter. He only practiced an observable behavior that was motivated by a condition of convulsions. Conclusion Several people pay attention to psychology so that they can comprehend human behavior, but our most fundamental way of understanding phenomena is to conduct research in prompts. Psychology is often grouped as a science, which tries to explain and estimate human behavior. Skinner assumed that the greatest way to appreciate behavior is to observe at the grounds of an achievement and its significances. This approach is known as the operant conditioning (Tay and Diener, 2011).Behaviorism is mainly concerned with noticeable behavior compared to internal feelings like philosophy and feeling. It is important to note that Skinner says that a rat learnt to press the lever because it wanted to eat but it was an observable behavior (Tay and Diener, 2011). From a discussion, the paper concludes that Skinner was not highly motivated by critical responses; he is not concerned with the things that are right or wrong because they are either real or unsuccessful, and discussion that does not stop. The paper can conclude that Skinner is not interested in behaviorism psychological concepts, rational equalities that are needed to be confirmed right (Tay and Diener, 2011). From this discussion, we can say that Aristotle feels that everyone needs to be happy. Many people do not act on what is important for them to become happy. To be happy an individual needs succeed in the search of happiness, one must be an operative human being. To be an operative person, one must search for virtues of human nature. Aristotle believes that happiness is the only good thing in an individual’s life. Its goodness entails self-sufficiency in its virtuousness. Other things that happen in life are just as good as they influence the best (Tay and Diener, 2011). Aristotles ethical philosophy is founded on virtue, not as the morals based on responsibility. He bases his virtues on how to achieve virtues instead of basing beliefs on moral responsibilities to do particular things and refrain from some. He says by taking part in these activities individual gain virtues. Finally, Descartes believed that there is no difference between an animal a human being. The only distinguishing factor is that man has the ability to think make choices and apply his knowledge to solve situation at stake (Tay and Diener, 2011). References Buckley, C. (2007). “Man Is Rescued by Stranger on Subway Tracks,” New York Times, January 3, 2007. Lana, R. E. (2002). “The cognitive approach to language and thought’. Journal of Mind & Behavior. Vol 23(1-2): 51-67. Stephen, G. and John, S. (2000). Descartes’ Natural Philosophy. London: Routledge Tay, L., and Diener, E. (2011). “Needs and subjective well-being around the world”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 101(2): 354-365. doi: 10.1037/a0023779. Read More