Many scientific researches have shown an obvious fact, that the behavior of a human being is created by the environment. If genes predispose a certain behavior but the environment doesnt support it, then that behavior wont manifest, so in this case, genes arent important.

TROMNarrator

The section ENVIRONMENT in the documentaryTROM (The Reality Of Me)shows how the environment shapes human beings behaviors via:

Dr. Gregory Forbes, recorded at TEDGlobal 2010:

We live in a remarkable time the age of genomics. Your genome is the entire sequence of your DNA. Your sequence and mine are slightly different. Thats why we look different. Ive got brown eyes you might have blue, or gray; but its not just skin-deep.

The headlines tell us that genes can give us scary diseases, maybe even shape our personality, or give us mental disorders. Our genes seem to have awesome power over our destinies, and yet, I would like to think that I am more than my genes.

Likewise, every connectome changes over time.

Its true; to some extent, they are programmed by your genes. But thats not the whole story, because there are signals: electrical signals, that travel along the branches of neurons, and chemical signals, that jump across from branch to branch. These signals are called neural activity. And theres a lot of evidence that neural activity is encoding our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, our mental experiences. And theres a lot of evidence that neural activity can cause your connections to change.

If you put those two facts together, it means that your experiences can change your connectome. And thats why every connectome is unique, even those of genetically identical twins. The connectome is where nature meets nurture. And it might be true that just the mere act of thinking can change your connectome; an idea that you may find empowering.

Think about the way you act, your facial expression, the values accepted by you, the way you talk, everything, and remember that they are a result of your environment.

TROMNarrator

Male & Female Behaviors That Result From Environmental Conditioning

Louann Brizendine, neuropsychiatrist and author ofThe Female Brain(2006) andThe Male Brain(2010), recorded at Dominican University of California, March 31, 2010

The nature nurture debate is dead for the following reason: the brain is very, very malleable.

Were all born with male or female predispositions, and then well have hormones that increase that circuitry for behavior, which is what a hormone is supposed to do. A hormones job is to make us predisposed to certain behaviors.

However, the way were raised, for example, little boys: Studies have shown that little boys who were told theyre not supposed to touch something, they often will grab it and touch it, whereas a little girl can be given a verbal demand not to touch it.

Little boys worldwide are punished more frequently for transgressions. Little boys are told not to cry, that theyre supposed to man-up, right? Even at a young age, dads sometimes are very, very scared if their little boy is showing any version of effeminate behaviors.

For example, I remember flying coast to coast with a guy who sat next to me. He said his 18 month old son, when he saw his 4 year old sister open a present earlier that week, which was a purse, he said, Oh, can I have a purse too? And he said he found himself, like someone had kicked him in the stomach, and he just yelled at his eighteen month old son, No, boys dont have purses! He was reporting to me this event, and he felt so ashamed and embarrassed afterwards, because he realized that his little boy wasnt expressing anything about being effeminate or not.

So the way we raise little boys, and we raise little girls, our brain circuits are so malleable. For example, we werent born learning to play the piano, right? You do practice, practice, practice.

You can retrain brain circuits, to do a variety of things. All of our life, we are trained, gender trained, to be more one way or the other.

Males: facial expressions for example, when they measure them and put electrodes on them, and show them a grizzly photograph that is supposed to make you cringe and emotional, their facial expressions, versus females, actually showed more emotional response in the time before it becomes conscious. Then right after the one second level when it becomes conscious, their facial muscles start to freeze down for frowning or smiling. In females, facial muscles actually amplify, and the males go down. Scientists believe, the hypothesis is, that the males have been trained to suppress an emotional feeling.

There is no such thing as: bad, criminal, lazy, brilliant people, thieves or racists. Only people predisposed to such behavior. But if the environment doesnt trigger them, the behavior never manifests.

TROMNarrator

Children Who Lived Isolated From Human Contact From A Very Young Age

The most extreme case is represented by feral children. A feral child is a human child who has lived isolated from human contact from a very young age, and has no (or little) experience of human care, loving or social behavior, and, crucially, of human language.

Feral children lack the basic social skills which are normally learned in the process of enculturation. For example, they may be unable to learn to use a toilet, have trouble learning to walk upright and display a complete lack of interest in human activity around them.

Oxana Malaya began her life living with dogs, rejected by her mother and father. She somehow survived for six years, living wild, before being taken into care. There are few cases of feral children whove been able to fully compensate for the neglect theyve suffered.

Oxana is now 22, but her future still hangs in the balance. Have scientists learned enough from previous cases to rehabilitate?

For six years, Oxana Malaya spent her life, living in a kennel, with dogs. Totally abandoned by her mother and father, she was discovered, behaving more like an animal, than a human child.

For two centuries, wild children have been the object of fascinating study. Raised without love, or social interaction, wild (or feral) children pose the question: What is it that makes us human?

View post:
3 Ways The Environment Shapes Human Behavior - Mutual ...

Human nature refers to the distinguishing characteristicsincluding ways of thinking, feeling, and actingwhich humans tend to have naturally.[1][2][3][4]

The questions of whether there truly are fixed characteristics, what these natural characteristics are, and what causes them are among the oldest and most important questions in philosophy and science. The science that examines human nature is known as psychology and more recently also neuroscience.[5][6][7][8] The concept of human nature is traditionally contrasted not only with unusual human characteristics, but also with characteristics which are derived from specific cultures, and upbringings. The "nature versus nurture" debate is a well-known modern discussion about human nature in the natural science.

These questions have particularly important implications in economics, ethics, politics, and theology. This is partly because human nature can be regarded as both a source of norms of conduct or ways of life, as well as presenting obstacles or constraints on living a good life. The complex implications of such questions are also dealt with in art and literature, the question of what it is to be human.

The concept of nature as a standard by which to make judgments is traditionally said to have begun in Greek philosophy, at least as regards the Western and Middle Eastern languages and perspectives which are heavily influenced by it.[9]

The teleological approach of Aristotle came to be dominant by late classical and medieval times. By this account, human nature really causes humans to become what they become, and so it exists somehow independently of individual humans. This in turn has been understood as also showing a special connection between human nature and divinity. This approach understands human nature in terms of final and formal causes. In other words, nature itself (or a nature-creating divinity) has intentions and goals, similar somehow to human intentions and goals, and one of those goals is humanity living naturally. Such understandings of human nature see this nature as an "idea", or "form" of a human.[10]

However, the existence of this invariable and metaphysical human nature is a subject of much historical debate, continuing into modern times. Against this idea of a fixed human nature, the relative malleability of man has been argued especially strongly in recent centuriesfirstly by early modernists such as Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In Rousseau's Emile, or On Education, Rousseau wrote: "We do not know what our nature permits us to be".[11] Since the early 19th century, thinkers such as Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, structuralists, and postmodernists have also sometimes argued against a fixed or innate human nature.

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution has changed the nature of the discussion, supporting the proposition that mankind's ancestors were not like mankind today. Still more recent scientific perspectivessuch as behaviorism, determinism, and the chemical model within modern psychiatry and psychologyclaim to be neutral regarding human nature. As in much of modern science, such disciplines seek to explain with little or no recourse to metaphysical causation.[12] They can be offered to explain human nature's origins and underlying mechanisms, or to demonstrate capacities for change and diversity which would arguably violate the concept of a fixed human nature.

Philosophy in classical Greece is the ultimate origin[citation needed] of the Western conception of the nature of a thing. According to Aristotle, the philosophical study of human nature itself originated with Socrates, who turned philosophy from study of the heavens to study of the human things.[13] Socrates is said to have studied the question of how a person should best live, but he left no written works. It is clear from the works of his students Plato and Xenophon, and also by what was said about him by Aristotle (Plato's student), that Socrates was a rationalist and believed that the best life and the life most suited to human nature involved reasoning. The Socratic school was the dominant surviving influence in philosophical discussion in the Middle Ages, amongst Islamic, Christian, and Jewish philosophers.

The human soul in the works of Plato and Aristotle has a divided nature, divided in a specifically human way. One part is specifically human and rational, and divided into a part which is rational on its own, and a spirited part which can understand reason. Other parts of the soul are home to desires or passions similar to those found in animals. In both Aristotle and Plato, spiritedness (thumos) is distinguished from the other passions (epithumiai).[14] The proper function of the "rational" was to rule the other parts of the soul, helped by spiritedness. By this account, using one's reason is the best way to live, and philosophers are the highest types of humans.

AristotlePlato's most famous studentmade some of the most famous and influential statements about human nature. In his works, apart from using a similar scheme of a divided human soul, some clear statements about human nature are made:

For Aristotle, reason is not only what is most special about humanity compared to other animals, but it is also what we were meant to achieve at our best. Much of Aristotle's description of human nature is still influential today. However, the particular teleological idea that humans are "meant" or intended to be something has become much less popular in modern times.[18]

For the Socratics, human nature, and all natures, are metaphysical concepts. Aristotle developed the standard presentation of this approach with his theory of four causes. Every living thing exhibits four aspects or "causes": matter, form, effect, and end. For example, an oak tree is made of plant cells (matter), grew from an acorn (effect), exhibits the nature of oak trees (form), and grows into a fully mature oak tree (end). Human nature is an example of a formal cause, according to Aristotle. Likewise, to become a fully actualized human being (including fully actualizing the mind) is our end. Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics, Book X) suggests that the human intellect () is "smallest in bulk" but the most significant part of the human psyche, and should be cultivated above all else. The cultivation of learning and intellectual growth of the philosopher, which is thereby also the happiest and least painful life.

Human nature is a central question in Chinese philosophy.[19] Human nature was considered by Confucius and Mencius to be essentially good.[19] From the Song dynasty the theory of the original goodness of human beings dominated Confucian thought.[20] However, Hsun Tzu taught that human nature was essentially evil.[19] As suggested by these contrasting views, the question of human nature has generated a long debate among Chinese thinkers.[20]

In Christian theology, there are two ways of "conceiving human nature". The first is "spiritual, Biblical, and theistic", whereas the second is "natural, cosmical, and anti-theistic".[21] The focus in this section is on the former. As William James put it in his study of human nature from a religious perspective, "religion" has a "department of human nature".[22]

Various views of human nature have been held by theologians. However, there are some "basic assertions" in all "biblical anthropology".[23]

The Bible contains no single "doctrine of human nature". Rather, it provides material for more philosophical descriptions of human nature.[24] For example, Creation as found in the Book of Genesis provides a theory on human nature.[25]

Catechism of the Catholic Church[26] in chapter "Dignity of the human person" has article about man as image of God, vocation to beatitude, freedom, human acts, passions, moral conscience, virtues and sin.

As originally created, the Bible describes "two elements" in human nature: "the body and the breath or spirit of life breathed into it by God". By this was created a "living soul", that is, a "living person".[27] According to Genesis 1:27, this living person was made in the "image of God".[28] From the biblical perspective, "to be human is to bear the image of God".[29]

Genesis does not elaborate the meaning of "the image of God", but scholars find suggestions. One is that being created in the image of God distinguishes human nature from that of the beasts.[30] Another is that as God is "able to make decisions and rule" so humans made in God's image are "able to make decisions and rule". A third is that mankind possesses an inherent ability "to set goals" and move toward them.[31] That God denoted creation as "good" suggests that Adam was "created in the image of God, in righteousness."[32]

Adam was created with ability to make "right choices", but also with the ability to choose sin, by which he fell from righteousness into a state of "sin and depravity".[33] Thus, according to the Bible, "humankind is not as God created it".[34]

By Adam's fall into sin, "human nature" became "corrupt", although it retains the image of God. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament teach that "sin is universal".[35] For example, Psalm 51:5 reads: "For behold I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins did my mother conceive me."[36] Jesus taught that everyone is a "sinner naturally" because it is mankind's "nature and disposition to sin".[37] Paul, in Romans 7:18, speaks of his "sinful nature".[38]

Such a "recognition that there is something wrong with the moral nature of man is found in all religions".[39] Augustine of Hippo coined a term for the assessment that all humans are born sinful: original sin.[40] Original sin is "the tendency to sin innate in all human beings".[41] The doctrine of original sin is held by the Catholic Church and most mainstream Protestant denominations, but rejected by the Eastern Orthodox Church, which holds the similar doctrine of ancestral fault.

"The corruption of original sin extends to every aspect of human nature": to "reason and will" as well as to "appetites and impulses". This condition is sometimes called "total depravity".[42] Total depravity does not mean that humanity is as "thoroughly depraved" as it could become.[43] Commenting on Romans 2:14, John Calvin writes that all people have "some notions of justice and rectitude ... which are implanted by nature" all people.[44]

Adam embodied the "whole of human nature" so when Adam sinned "all of human nature sinned".[45] The Old Testament does not explicitly link the "corruption of human nature" to Adam's sin. However, the "universality of sin" implies a link to Adam. In the New Testament, Paul concurs with the "universality of sin". He also makes explicit what the Old Testament implied: the link between humanity's "sinful nature" and Adam's sin[46] In Romans 5:19, Paul writes, "through [Adam's] disobedience humanity became sinful".[47] Paul also applied humanity's sinful nature to himself: "there is nothing good in my sinful nature."[48][49]

The theological "doctrine of original sin" as an inherent element of human nature is not based only on the Bible. It is in part a "generalization from obvious facts" open to empirical observation.[50]

A number of experts on human nature have described the manifestations of original (i.e., the innate tendency to) sin as empirical facts.

Empirical discussion questioning the genetic exclusivity of such an intrinsic badness proposition is presented by researchers Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson. In their book, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior, they propose a theory of multilevel group selection in support of an inherent genetic "altruism" in opposition to the original sin exclusivity for human nature. [57]

Liberal theologians in the early 20th century described human nature as "basically good" needing only "proper training and education". But the above examples document the return to a "more realistic view" of human nature "as basically sinful and self-centered". Human nature needs "to be regenerated ... to be able to live the unselfish life".[58]

According to the Bible, "Adam's disobedience corrupted human nature" but God mercifully "regenerates".[59] "Regeneration is a radical change" that involves a "renewal of our [human] nature".[60] Thus, to counter original sin, Christianity purposes "a complete transformation of individuals" by Christ.[61]

The goal of Christ's coming is that fallen humanity might be "conformed to or transformed into the image of Christ who is the perfect image of God", as in 2 Corinthians 4:4.[62] The New Testament makes clear the "universal need" for regeneration.[63] A sampling of biblical portrayals of regenerating human nature and the behavioral results follow.

One of the defining changes that occurred at the end of the Middle Ages was the end of the dominance of Aristotelian philosophy, and its replacement by a new approach to the study of nature, including human nature.[citation needed] In this approach, all attempts at conjecture about formal and final causes were rejected as useless speculation.[citation needed] Also, the term "law of nature" now applied to any regular and predictable pattern in nature, not literally a law made by a divine lawmaker, and, in the same way, "human nature" became not a special metaphysical cause, but simply whatever can be said to be typical tendencies of humans.[citation needed]

Although this new realism applied to the study of human life from the beginningfor example, in Machiavelli's worksthe definitive argument for the final rejection of Aristotle was associated especially with Francis Bacon. Bacon sometimes wrote as if he accepted the traditional four causes ("It is a correct position that "true knowledge is knowledge by causes". And causes again are not improperly distributed into four kinds: the material, the formal, the efficient, and the final") but he adapted these terms and rejected one of the three:

But of these the final cause rather corrupts than advances the sciences, except such as have to do with human action. The discovery of the formal is despaired of. The efficient and the material (as they are investigated and received, that is, as remote causes, without reference to the latent process leading to the form) are but slight and superficial, and contribute little, if anything, to true and active science.[68]

This line of thinking continued with Ren Descartes, whose new approach returned philosophy or science to its pre-Socratic focus upon non-human things. Thomas Hobbes, then Giambattista Vico, and David Hume all claimed to be the first to properly use a modern Baconian scientific approach to human things.

Hobbes famously followed Descartes in describing humanity as matter in motion, just like machines. He also very influentially described man's natural state (without science and artifice) as one where life would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short".[69] Following him, John Locke's philosophy of empiricism also saw human nature as a tabula rasa. In this view, the mind is at birth a "blank slate" without rules, so data are added, and rules for processing them are formed solely by our sensory experiences.[70]

Jean-Jacques Rousseau pushed the approach of Hobbes to an extreme and criticized it at the same time. He was a contemporary and acquaintance of Hume, writing before the French Revolution and long before Darwin and Freud. He shocked Western civilization with his Second Discourse by proposing that humans had once been solitary animals, without reason or language or communities, and had developed these things due to accidents of pre-history. (This proposal was also less famously made by Giambattista Vico.) In other words, Rousseau argued that human nature was not only not fixed, but not even approximately fixed compared to what had been assumed before him. Humans are political, and rational, and have language now, but originally they had none of these things.[71] This in turn implied that living under the management of human reason might not be a happy way to live at all, and perhaps there is no ideal way to live. Rousseau is also unusual in the extent to which he took the approach of Hobbes, asserting that primitive humans were not even naturally social. A civilized human is therefore not only imbalanced and unhappy because of the mismatch between civilized life and human nature, but unlike Hobbes, Rousseau also became well known for the suggestion that primitive humans had been happier, "noble savages".[72]

Rousseau's conception of human nature has been seen as the origin of many intellectual and political developments of the 19th and 20th centuries.[73] He was an important influence upon Kant, Hegel, and Marx, and the development of German idealism, historicism, and romanticism.

What human nature did entail, according to Rousseau and the other modernists of the 17th and 18th centuries, were animal-like passions that led humanity to develop language and reasoning, and more complex communities (or communities of any kind, according to Rousseau).

In contrast to Rousseau, David Hume was a critic of the oversimplifying and systematic approach of Hobbes, Rousseau, and some others whereby, for example, all human nature is assumed to be driven by variations of selfishness. Influenced by Hutcheson and Shaftesbury, he argued against oversimplification. On the one hand, he accepted that, for many political and economic subjects, people could be assumed to be driven by such simple selfishness, and he also wrote of some of the more social aspects of "human nature" as something which could be destroyed, for example if people did not associate in just societies. On the other hand, he rejected what he called the "paradox of the sceptics", saying that no politician could have invented words like "'honourable' and 'shameful,' 'lovely' and 'odious,' 'noble' and 'despicable'", unless there was not some natural "original constitution of the mind".[74]

Humelike Rousseauwas controversial in his own time for his modernist approach, following the example of Bacon and Hobbes, of avoiding consideration of metaphysical explanations for any type of cause and effect. He was accused of being an atheist. He wrote:

We needn't push our researches so far as to ask "Why do we have humanity, i.e. a fellow-feeling with others?" It's enough that we experience this as a force in human nature. Our examination of causes must stop somewhere.[74]

After Rousseau and Hume, the nature of philosophy and science changed, branching into different disciplines and approaches, and the study of human nature changed accordingly. Rousseau's proposal that human nature is malleable became a major influence upon international revolutionary movements of various kinds, while Hume's approach has been more typical in Anglo-Saxon countries, including the United States.[citation needed]

[relevant? discuss]

As the sciences concerned with humanity split up into more specialized branches, many of the key figures of this evolution expressed influential understandings about human nature.[citation needed]

Charles Darwin gave a widely accepted scientific argument for what Rousseau had already argued from a different direction, that humans and other animal species have no truly fixed nature, at least in the very long term. However, he also gave modern biology a new way of understanding how human nature does exist in a normal human time-frame, and how it is caused.[citation needed]

E. O. Wilson's sociobiology and closely related theory of evolutionary psychology give scientific arguments against the "tabula rasa" hypotheses of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. In his book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998), Wilson claimed that it was time for a cooperation of all the sciences to explore human nature. He defined human nature as a collection of epigenetic rules: the genetic patterns of mental development. Cultural phenomena, rituals, etc. are products, not part of human nature. Until now, these phenomena were only part of psychological, sociological, and anthropological studies. Wilson proposes that they can be part of interdisciplinary research.

Read more from the original source:
Human nature - Wikipedia

March 7, 1975

AIM AND INTRODUCTION:

The aim of the practical was to observe territorial behavior among human beings and explore it in relation to animals in the comparative psychological perspective. The general definition of a territory is a defended area. It has to be defended through actual aggression or the threat of it. Territoriality has been observed to exist among certain animal species like birds, insects, mammals and vertebrates. Therefore, a parallel with man has had to be established because territoriality has been seen to exist in man; both as an individual and a group.

The major characteristic of territoriality as observed by comparative psychologists like Lorenz, Tinbergen, and ethnologists like Eibl-Ebesfeldt, is that an animal must be aggressive towards conspecifics. Through studies and observations, the authors have come to the conclusion that the territorial behavior possesses several functions in the evolution and preservation of species. In general it has been suggested that territoriality saves the purposes of distributing or spreading the animals over a large area resulting in the proper utilization of feeding resources, to enable safe and undisturbed reproductive behavior, for example, territoriality in birds ensures that they do not build nests too close together. And a last function of territoriality is said to be reduction of aggression in the animal species which have a high level of it.

SUBJECTS: The subjects consisted of the University of Zambia students who read in the University library. Eight subjects were observed.

MATERIALS: The apparatus used in the experiment consisted of a pen and paper for recording the sitting arrangements and signs of territorial behavior of the subjects.

PROCEDURE: O represents Observer

S represents Subject

Initially, O goes into the library and sits on one of the tables. He notes sitting arrangements of Ss, spacing and objects which are possibly used for marking Ss territory. After a while, O moves to a table which has almost all the seats full and sits next to S and notes the reaction of S; moving chair, objects etc.

Then especially during a different time when there are many empty seats; 12 to 13 hours when many subjects go for lunch, O sits next or adjacent to a subject and notes his reaction.

RESULTS: The tables are made out of a combination of several smaller tables which provide a comfortable space for writing and reading for an individual student.

When a student sits down, he normally or always defines his territory by placing his books all over the rectangular spacing. This was confirmed in all the observations I made when the books are placed in this way, no other student can sit on the chair to read even if the owner of the territory goes away for a long time.

On 31st December 1974 at 9 hours, I was seated on a desk in the reference deck. Six students got their writing pads and apparently went away to attend class lectures. While they were away, three students came looking for a table where they could read. Each one of them came, looked around and went away to another deck. Despite the fact that the owners of the books were away, the three could not occupy their desks. From this observation, we can say that objects act as very strong definitions of territory for human beings.

On deck 14 (psychology) 23rd December 1974, I sat down to read beside a female student. Immediately I sat on the chair next to her, she pulled towards her the edges of books which were protruding into my space. This showed that human beings respect and recognize each others territory.

ISOLATED INCIDENTS AND OBSERVATIONS

Students who read in the library regularly, at least every day, tend to have a specific chair and table where they read from every day. It is as if they say; This is my space, I own it.

***************

On 14th February 1975, a Zambian female student stopped reading at 17 hours. She piled her books on the table, expecting to return and resume reading after supper. When she returned, the table was occupied by three Asian students. Her books had been moved to the middle of the table where it was difficult to determine whether she had previously sat on one of the chairs. With a hissing whisper, she asked one of the students whether he had moved the books. The student denied it. There was a hushed argument pointing of fingers; then the Asian male student rose violently but was held by the other two. At this point, the female student angrily got her books and walked out.

***************

During the first week of the beginning of my second year, I went into the library on the sociology deck. I put my books on one of the tables, sat and wrote for a while. Then I went to look for a book on the shelves. A first year male student arrived; he pushed aside my books and sat down to read. I was very angry. I went there and stared at him for a few seconds and hissed; You dont push away books when someone is already sitting there! I walked away and he seemed amazed. Apparently, he was not yet acquainted with the informal rules about marking ones space in the library.

DISCUSSION

The few observations made seem to confirm that people display territoriality although it lacks overt aggression as is the case with animals.

What purpose, if any, does territoriality save for the human being in such a place like the library? Biological functions are not very evident. People do not mate or show overt courtship behavior in the library and they do not obtain their food from it. Therefore, the only plausible explanation for man to display territoriality in places like the library, is that it is one of those behaviors which have lost their specific evolutionary functions and their remnants are perhaps in the process of degenerating into ritual behavior; i.e. it will no longer save its original biological function.

But one of the functions it could be still saving is to distribute or rather spread the readers over all the available space in the library. Presumably, man feels uncomfortable having limited breathing and elbow movements, when they are too close together.

Territoriality, the one displayed in libraries in particular seems to be an innate or inherited tendency. As in most vertebrates, we observe in man distinct territorial behavior. Individuals maintain distinct distances between themselves and others. Children develop a feeling for property. The expression of both tendencies seems to be based on a common mechanism. (Eibl-Ebesfeldt; 1971, P. 444)

The spacing which is induced by territoriality might be important for the propagation of the human species. This is suggested by an experiment in overcrowding in which animals showed serious behavioral pathologies and physiological malfunctioning. Calhoun (1956, 1962) conducted an experiment in which a colony of Norway rats were made to live in an overcrowded pen. Although the rats were allowed to roam in various compartments, they ended up living together in one pen. Calhoun termed this phenomenon pathological togetherness. The rats fertility was lowered and their life span was shortened. Mann sums up by saying; In mice, overcrowding in laboratory cages leads to abnormal sexual behavior, decreased reproductive and nursing capacities, and aborted pregnancies, deficient maternal care for the young and disrupted next building. (Mann, 1969, P. 17)

Although the analogy cannot be applied to the library situation, nevertheless, territoriality in humans in the library could be to the advantage of the species. For example some contagious diseases like sneezing and other more serious diseases are prevented from spreading due to the distances which human beings maintain between each other. The evidence from overcrowding rats could also explain the high incidence of crime and violence which prevails in overcrowded suburbs of cities.

An interesting area of further examination in the library is the observation in animals that Territories have been likened to elastic discs the more they are compressed, the more they resist further compression. (Manning; 1972, P. 99). In the library this could be tested by an observer or experimenter noticing that a table is already filled but puts an extra chair where there is supposed to be none as shown below.

If a chair is for example placed on either X, since the territories are further compressed, would A and B or A and D react with overt aggression? In this respect perhaps ethical values of the individual subjects would come into question. But however, the results would be interesting.

In contrast with the seemingly inhibited aggression in the library human territoriality, I report on the few observations made at Lachnver National Park during a field trip last December. The Kafue Leahwe was observed at the beginning of the establishment of territories. There was a herd of 10,000 Leahwe, females were moving in large herds while males were scattered around in distances of about fifteen meters apart. There was a fight nearly every five minutes. Chessing between males had a very high frequency and they were also constantly digging horns in the ground. In the 10 minutes we spent observing the last herd of about 1,000, six fights were observed between males and the last one lasted up to 10 minutes until a third male had to separate them to end the fight.

REFERENCES

Manning, A. W. G., An introduction to Animal behavior. (1972)

Mann, L. Social Psychology(1969)

Eibl-Ebesfeldt, Ethology(1970)

(The original document was written on March 7, 1975 when the author, now Mwizenge S. Tembo, was a Junior at University of Zambia majoring in Psychology and Sociology)

Observing Territorial Behavior of Human Beings:

Psychology 932 Practical Report By Jacob Tembo

Here is the original post:
Territorial Behavior Among Human Beings | Hunger For Culture

Demology, or the study of human behavior, has isolated three key types: aggressive behavior, passive behavior and assertive behavior. Each individual's proclivity for any one of these behaviors depends largely upon their personal attitudes, that is, as to the acceptability or desirability of that behavior. These attitudes, in turn, are often closely related to their social or cultural context.

Read the rest here:
What are a list of human behaviors? | Reference.com

Human Behavior and Organization --- This is a course in the diagnosis & management of human behavior in organizations. One of the most important keys to your success as a manager is the ability to generate energy & commitment among people within an organization and to channel that energy and commitment toward critical organizational goals. Doing this requires a thorough understanding of the root causes of human attitudes & behavior and how they are influenced by your actions as a manager and by the surrounding organizational context. Thus, the course seeks an understanding of human behavior in hopes that such an understanding will enhance management practice. It is designed to include both individual level and organizational level concepts to enable students to develop an understanding of both psychological and contextual factors that affect behavior in the workplace.

More here:
Human Behavior and Organization | Michigan Ross

UNTs accelerated online M.B.A. programs aredesigned to seamlessly support the busy lifestyles of high-performance professionals who aspire to greatness.

Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

Accelerate your career with an M.B.A. in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management. This degree can propel you to new levels of opportunity and accomplishment,allowing you to hone your organizational behavior skills, and develop tactics for optimizing the contribution of human resource management to any firms competitive advantage.

Strategic Management

Whether you want to build on your established career path or are preparing to enter the business world, an M.B.A.in Strategic Management will train you to manage an organization, develop strategies for growth and better compete in the global marketplace. An M.B.A.can advance your career, inspire you with new ideas and open doors to opportunity.

More:
Accelerated Online M.B.A. - College of Business - Online ...

If you're a mom, have a mom, or know a mom, there's a chance you're familiar with those vivid and sometimes horrifying stories being swapped back and forth between women about how they gave birth.

When moms rehash their labor/birthing experiences, there's usually a discussion about whether or not they had an epidural, a natural (vaginal) birth, C-section, and how long they were in labor for.

Occasionally, you may even hear a somewhat competitive tone slip into these conversations as to which mom was in the most pain or who had it worse during the whole birthing process.

Sharing and comparing is normal human behavior and we all do it.

But sometimes moms who are feeling inadequate or insecure can get caught up in that whole idea that you've got to have that raw, drug-free, natural birth, exclusively breastfeed once the baby is born, and just be an all around super-human mother in general.

I fell into this kind of trap in regards to breastfeeding (you can read my story about that here) and I still have days where I battle those unattainable expectations in other areas of motherhood.

My first (and only) story about giving birth sounds and reads much differently than the actual experience was for me. It was a vaginal birth and I did not get an epidural. I've had people tell me how amazing and cave-woman-strong I am for giving birth in this manner all the time.

But do you want to know the truth?

The truth is that I desperately wanted an epidural and I had planned on getting one. I literally screamed for my epidural! But it never came. It was too late. My daughter was already making her way out like a human torpedo. There was no time for any of that.

There are no words to describe the pain of labor without an epidural from my own personal experience other than to say I quite literally thought I was dying. (See, I just shared my horrifying birth experience with you)

The entire birth process for my daughter lasted about 6 hours. As soon as I tell some moms that, they're usually quick to tell me how easy I had it compared to their experience of a much longer labor period.

I get it. I'm certainly relieved mine wasn't any longer.

But should you feel less proud of yourself for producing a human being from your own body if your labor finished in less time than the next mom? Nope. Are you more of a woman if you pushed a baby out the "natural" way or had a C-section instead? Nope.

No matter how you did it, you're still bringing an actual human being (or in many cases more than one!) into this world. A baby's not coming out any other way other than via YOU.

You don't need anyone else to validate your journey or give you permission to have pride in how you gave birth to your child or children.

Every mother has her story, her legend, her claim to the physical, emotional, and mental initiation into motherhood. One mother is not stronger than the other for being in labor longer, faster, drugged up, drug-free, or somewhere in between.

It's great to have that story that legend that is your tale of birthing your child or children. Embrace it in all its chaos, flaws, and bloody glory.

My original intention was to be completely drugged up for the birth of my daughter. It didn't play out like that and I ended up freaking out.

Do I wish I'd been all zen and prepared for what was coming? Sure.

All birth experiences are the stunning tapestries that make a life. One is not better than the other, or more amazing than the other. They're just different and we all come with varying degrees of expectation, preparation, fear, hope, and circumstance.

No woman should ever feel less-than for not giving birth in a way that someone else thinks is more superior based on a level of pain or any other factor.

I know many women couldn't care less about what other people think of their birth story, which is awesome. But there are some out there who do feel inadequate about it for one reason or another.

Life comes in many forms, avenues, and journeys. It is a true miracle that should always amaze us no matter how it came to be.

You can visit Michelle at her blog, The Pondering Nook discussing relationships, marriage, divorce, parenting, step-parenting &more! You can also catch Michelle co-hosting at The Broads Way Podcast. Feel free to follow The Pondering Nook on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram & Twitter.

The rest is here:
How You Gave Birth Doesn't Define Your Strength As A Woman - HuffPost

At the age of 16, I went to a summer camp in the Berkshires to work as a waiter.

It was my first extended solo trip away from home. Soon after my arrival, I developed a crush on a beautiful girl named Cindy and I began courting her. Much to my dismay, I had a rival for her affections Howard.

One starry night, Cindy agreed to leave the canteen with me and take a walk along the camps lake. This was a big league move for me.

We strolled for a while, enjoyed easy conversation, and then found a couple of rickety Adirondack chairs a few yards from the shoreline. I deftly moved the chairs close together and once seated, our hands met on her armrest.

Just as our fingers started moving rhythmically, I heard the awful sound of Howards voice behind us: Hi Cindy, Hi Richie; what are you all doing down here?

He pranced to a spot directly in front of us and said to Cindy watch this and proceeded to demonstrate his superior athleticism by doing a handstand and a couple of cartwheels. Then, he silently strutted away with a smug smile on his toothy face as if to say, Bet you cant do that, Ross. I could not.

Cindy shrugged her shoulders and declared Howard to be a showoff. Our excursion ended with a quick kiss on my cheek at her cabins door.

Lying in my bunk that night, I thought more about Howards antics than Cindys dry kiss. Was that a stunt performed by an immature, insecure fool with no other means to get Cindys attention?

Or was it a confident move by an athletic guy who knew girls liked that kind of stuff? Either way, that event is what started me thinking about human behavior, and specifically, what makes people tick. I was oblivious until then.

It is often difficult to figure out what motivates a persons behavior. The context often helps but there are always unknown or unknowable factors. Is it an overbearing parent, emotional insecurity, a physical impediment, fear of failure?

In a world where the end justifies the means, it may not matter. In a more reflective world, the answer to the why question is a mapping system for human behavior. Learning about someones motivation to commit a murder or lead a life of crime can be as interesting as knowing what drove Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey to achieve their extraordinary success.

The criminals mind is a detectives workplace and is fascinating as a form of entertainment as evidenced by the plethora of crime dramas on television and in literature. But the forces powering Gates and Winfrey to their heights might serve as inspiration for our achievements or the way we raise our children.

We have all heard of the Napoleonic complex, which is a reference to short men who are some combination of false machismo, domineering social behavior and disproportionate aggression. The theory is that some short men have feelings of insecurity and inferiority resulting from their height that causes them to overcompensate behaviorally.

I had a friend who was a very successful businessman who only cared about making money. He never had or wanted children. No matter how much money he had, it was never enough.

Although I knew him to have a good heart, his obsession with money made it difficult for him to have friends; yet that never concerned him.

One night over drinks, he confided that he lived in constant fear of waking up one morning to a changed world and all of his money was gone. He explained that he grew up heavily influenced by a grandfather who repeatedly told him stories of the Great Depression and the Holocaust, and that having a lot of money was the only way to be safe if those events, or anything like them, occurred again.

In the context of current events, do we know what forces drive President Trumps persona? A psychologist might explore an enduring need to prove he is bigger and better than his successful father.

From this laymans perspective, it seems that Mr. Trump is driven primarily by an insatiable need for applause, adoration and money. While these forces work well for reality TV stars and real estate developers, I am not alone in wondering whether they are suitable for a president.

I never made it beyond first base with Cindy that summer, but neither did Howard.

Richard Ross resides in Amesbury and mediates business- and real estate-related disputes. http://www.rossmediationservices.com.

More:
What makes people tick - The Daily News of Newburyport

By Vikas Datta

Title: Hands: What We Do with Them and Why; Author: Darian Leader; Publisher: Penguin Random House UK; Pages: 128; Price: Rs 499

If you think the current trend of people, publicly and privately, paying ferocious attention to their smartphones or other hand-held devices and furiously typing, clicking or scrolling away is technology making a travesty of human nature, you may well be wrong. For these habits may represent its crucial parts latest preoccupation.

While the radical effect of the internet, the smartphone and the PC is said to be on who we are and how we relate to each other and whatever we make of the changes, psychoanalyst Darian Leader notes that experts stress that these are changes which have made the world a different place and the digital era is incontestably new.

But what if we were to see this chapter in human history through a slightly different lens? What if, rather than focusing on the new promises or discontents of contemporary civilisation, we see todays changes as first and foremost changes in what human beings do with their hands? he poses.

For while the digital age may have transformed many aspects of our experience, but its most obvious yet neglected feature is that it allows people to keep their hands busy in a variety of unprecedented ways.

Leader, in this slim but more than a handful of a book, contends that the body part that most defines us humans is not our advanced brain but rather our restless upper pair of limbs. Thus, a considerable amount of our history and habits can be related to what we can do or cannot do with our hands and why we must keep them busy.

This, he says, brings us to examine the reasons for this strange necessity to know why idle hands are deemed dangerous, how their roles for infants changes as they grow, what links hands to the mouth, and what happens when we are restrained.

The anxious, irritable and even desperate states we might then experience show that keeping the hands busy is not a matter of whimsy or leisure, but touches on something at the heart of what our existence embodies.

And to ascertain this something, Leader goes on to draw from popular culture (especially films, mostly horror and science fiction but also classics like Dr Zhivago), language, religion, social and art history, psychoanalysis, modern technology, clinical research, the pathology of violence and more to find the what, why, and how.

In this process, we come to know why zombies and monsters (like Frankenstein) are shown walking with outstretched arms, why newborns grip an adult finger so tightly that they can dangle unsupported from it, the reason for prayers beads in various religions (Leader misses out Hinduism), why nicotine patches may not help smokers, the constant preoccupation (for some of us) with texting, tapping and scrolling and our behaviour on public transport.

And as Leader is a founding member of the Centre for Freudian Research and Analysis, people will expect sex to figure somewhere and they will not be wrong or fully right. For he only tackles one aspect, which involves the hand.

He recalls when friends and others asked him what he was working on during the preparation of this book, my reply that it was to be an essay about hands produced the almost invariable response, Oh! A book about masturbation!'. He dryly notes that the association appeared to be so intractable that it seemed foolish not to at least devote a chapter to this.

His observations on hands and their motivations and manifestations break new ground and it will suffice to say that you will never look at fairy tales, from those of the Grimm Brothers to Arabian Nights to J.R.R. Tolkien, the same way again.

His chapter on violence seems a bit out of place, but Leader brings his argument a full circle as he closes on the compulsive use of technological devices what we (and their makers) must know about them.

More of a long essay than a book, it brings to fore to the issue that, despite all our technical prowess, we are still to plumb the mysteries of our mind and body, which can be more complex than anything we invent. (IANS)

Related

Follow this link:
Book Review: A handy guide to human behavior - India New England

Wild dogs in Botswana are an endangered species, and they offer us a rare window into undomesticated dog behavior. Researchers followed five packs of them for a year, recording their social interactions.

Neil Jordan

When they greet each other, wild African dogs often jump around, bark, and touch each other playfully. This is called a "rally."

Andrew King

One of the major reasons for dog rallies is to gather up pack members and start on a new hunting mission. Researchers found that the dogs were "voting" on whether to hunt again by making a sneezing noise.

Andrew King

The more "sneezes" the researchers recorded, the more likely it was that the pack would move along and start hunting. If a pack leader initiated the rally, fewer sneezes were needed to get started.

Andrew King

Though humans like to think of themselves as the only creatures on Earth who vote on what to do, they aren't. Many social animals engage in consensus-seeking behavior, from meerkats to honeybees to Capuchin monkeys. In these species and more, members of the group weigh in about what their next move should be.

Now, a new study of African wild dogs in Botswana adds another animal to the voting pool. It turns out that these endangered, undomesticated dogs "vote" on whether to start hunting by making noises that sound just like sneezes.

Neil Jordan, a fellow at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, worked with a team to follow five packs of these dogs for roughly 11 months, observing their behavior and recording the sounds they made. Based on previous research, he and his colleagues were fairly certain that the dogs had to reach a consensus before setting out on a collective hunt. The scientists already knew that the dogs had a very specific social pattern, called a "rally," wherein the pack would come together and boisterously greet each other. Writing in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Jordan and his team describe how they figured out that rallies were generally initiated by one dog, who "rose from rest in the distinctive initiation posture: head lowered, mouth open, and ears folded back."

After witnessing several rallies, the researchers noticed something strange. They started hearing patterns of sneezes. Jordan said in a release that they "noticed the dogs were sneezing while preparing to go." So the researchers went over recordings of 68 rallies and "couldn't quite believe it when our analyses confirmed our suspicions... The more sneezes that occurred, the more likely it was that the pack moved off and started hunting. The sneeze acts like a type of voting system."

You can hear some sneeze votes in this video.

Even more interesting, however, is that dog democracy is as imperfect as the human version. When a dominant male or female dog called the rally, fewer sneezes were needed to start the hunt. Study co-author Reena Walker added, "If the dominant pair were not engaged, more sneezes were neededapproximately 10before the pack would move off." In other words, some votes count more than others.

Walker told The New York Times that the noise they called "sneezes" isn't really like a human sneeze. There's no inhalation, just an "audible, rapid forced exhalation through the nose." We also aren't sure that this noise is involuntary, like a sneeze, or more like a person making a grunt of assent. What is certain is that the more of these sounds you hear during a dog vote, the more likely they are to move along to do some dog business together.

Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2017. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.0347 (About DOIs).

Listing image by Andrew King

Visit link:
Wild dogs in Africa engage in unmistakable voting behavior - Ars Technica