It is definitely not a secret that every individual is different. People have distinct opinions, perspectives, ways of communicating, principles of communicating, and behavioral patterns. However, there is still a question of why human beings behave the way they do which contributes to the emergence of various discussions between professionals and the public. There definitely is a huge number of reasons for that; thus, the following paper will research this topic a little bit deeper and provide several answers to the mentioned question.
The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the reasons why individuals act a certain way is the issue of nature and nurture. While nature is the predispositions given to people with birth and genetics, nurture is generally understood as the influence of various external factors, such as life, experiences, and parental upbringing (McLeod, 2018). It should be mentioned that both of these concepts are essential in influencing the actions and opinions of individuals. For this reason, in combination, nature and nurture are one of the determining factors and the most obvious causes of specific behavioral patterns.
Talking about the psychological perspectives, it is beneficial to talk about the psychodynamic perspective which originated in the work of Sigmund Freud. According to this thought, “childhood experiences are crucial in shaping adult personality” (Bornstein, n.d.). In addition, this perspective explains a human character in terms of psychological processes that are unconscious (Bornstein, n.d.). By applying this information to the question of why people act the way they do, it can be stated that early experiences have a huge impact on the way human beings form opinions and make decisions. Moreover, all these memories are stored in the mind and influence the actions without people’s conscious awareness about it.
Another perspective that largely influences human behavior is the humanistic one. As suggested by Bland and DeRobertis (2020), this perspective “emphasizes the qualities of well-being and the use of potential to benefit others and the conditions that promote those qualities as the outcomes of healthy development” (p. 2061). In other words, individuals are driven by the desire to do good and benefit the life of the surrounding people. While this perspective does explain the reasons for making specific decisions and acting for the advantage of the world around, it cannot be applied to situations driven by selfishness and individual concerns.
The third psychological perspective that would be advantageous for the explanation of why people act the way they do is cognitive. Based on the ideas of this perspective, human minds act as real computers that process, store, and use the available information for different purposes (De Houwer et al., 2017). For this reason, in order to understand the causes of a particular individual making a specific decision or acting in a certain way, someone has to understand how their brain works and, specifically, how it processes the delivered information. Thus, everything is in the mind and human behavior can only be understood while having knowledge about the complex processes that happen in the brain.
Finally, another essential psychological perspective that influences human behavior and determines the way people think and acts is the biological one. It should be mentioned that this concept is one of the major perspectives in psychology and involves such components as researching the brain, genetics, nervous system, and immune system (Cherry, 2019). The biological perspective emphasizes the importance of nature in creating the personality and, eventually the behavioral patterns of individuals (Cherry, 2019). Consequently, with the help of these perspectives, human behavior can be explained in terms of predispositions that were given to people before they were born and had a chance to experience life.
To summarize, these are only some of the perspectives which can explain why people act the way they do and not differently. Individuals are all different and this is mostly due to the fact that they have distinct genetic and physical features, various life experiences, different surroundings, parents, and friends. That is why, when trying to explain why they make specific decisions or have certain opinions, various factors have to be taken into consideration. By using the information from different academic and internet sources, the presented paper provided a more detailed answer to the question of why individuals act the way they do.
References
Bland, A. M., & DeRobertis, E. M. (2020). Humanistic perspective. Encyclopedia of personality and individual differences, 2061-2079. Web.
Bornstein, R. (n.d.). The psychodynamic perspective. Web.
Cherry, K. (2019). The role of the biological perspective in psychology. Verywellmind. Web.
De Houwer, J., Hughes, S., & Barnes-Holmes, D. (2017). Psychological engineering: A functional–cognitive perspective on applied psychology. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6(1), 1-13. Web.
McLeod, S. A. (2018). Nature vs nurture in psychology. Simply Psychology. Web.