Understanding Human Behavior – Part 2
(c) Peter D. Marshall
(4) What Makes Us Different?
Our Society and Culture
Social beliefs are powerful, shared ideologies which can direct the actions of whole societies. These “group” beliefs have a strong influence on how we interpret certain events, how we explain what is going on to ourselves and how we act. So to understand a person, you must also understand their society and culture because so much of what we learn as we grow up is about acting in the ways “our society” expects.
For example, in Western Cultures we see the person as a separate individual who can choose to belong to whatever social group they want to, but in African Cultures they see the person as being a member of the community and how they live concerns the rest of the community.
Different cultures can also make biased assumptions about individuals and what it is to be a human being. People with different cultural and social beliefs often end up talking past one another, which can result in them not understanding each other – or worse!
The Time Period We Live In
Human behavior can vary from one period of history to another and from one environment to another as society changes. For example, longevity, living standards, health issues and education 500 years ago were much different than they are today.
We are also partly influenced by our genes and our evolutionary history and what we learn (and how we learn) is different in each generation and each culture.
Where we Live and Work
Where we live, work and play constantly shapes us throughout our lives. We act, and react, completely differently in some environments than we do in others because we tend to adjust our behavior to different situations.
Since our behavior is also based on our society’s (and culture’s) image of how we are supposed to act and survive in a particular environment, we must adapt our behavior to those surrounding’s which only allow certain kinds of actions. So if we are in a church or in a prison, how we act is based on that particular environment.
Different environments also affect us by encouraging us to do things we might not normally do like going to a sports game where we dress up, yell and do crazy things we would never think of doing at home or at work.
Our Personal Space
We tend to use distance to tell us about our relationship with other people. Everyone is surrounded by a little “bubble of personal space” and we only allow people inside this space if we know them well enough, and different cultures have contrasting ideas of how big that bubble is. When we meet people, we generally respond differently to strangers than to people we are familiar with, so when talking to a stranger we tend to stand further away from them than we would with a friend.
Even when people are very close to each other, the amount of contact they have with the other person depends on the culture they live in or grew up in. Example: people usually stand closer to each other in Middle Eastern cultures and further apart in North American culture.
(5) Self-Esteem (Self Worth)
Each of us have our own idea about what we are like, how we think and what we are good or bad at doing. Healthy self-esteem is our ability to accept who we are by accepting our strengths and weaknesses but also recognizing that we are still worthy.
It’s a basic human need to look for sources of positive self-esteem by belonging to social groups that influence our sense of identity. Two psychological needs that have to be satisfied in order to have good self-esteem are the need for positive consideration from other people (love, affections, trust) and the need for exploring and developing our own abilities (talents, ideas, interests.)
Our level of self-esteem also depends on the type of personal relationships we have, both in the past and in the present. Fortunately, most people have always had a reasonably high level of self-esteem but problems can arise when our need for approval from others is in direct conflict with our own abilities.
People with low self-esteem usually have unrealistic conditions of worth (they see themselves as failures or as inferior to other people) and they tend to look for positive experiences to compensate for their negative thoughts and feelings, even if these feelings are only temporary.
(6) The Observation Business
As artists and filmmakers we need to make it a priority in our lives to understand human behavior by observing people going about their daily lives to discover what actually motivates them to take action – and then apply these real human traits to our fictional characters!
Once you know what “really” motivates a person to take action, you will have the knowledge to better understand your story, a clearer idea of how to block your scenes and you will feel more confident guiding your actors to believable performances.
As writers and directors it’s our job to continuously dig deeper into this act of observation, so we must practice the art of observing human behavior everyday because as storytellers, we are all in “the observation business.”
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