Consider the following story:

Maria and Emily, both age 24, are identical twins. Their father has just died. At his funeral service, Maria is weeping hard. Emily, dry-eyed, is nervously examining her fingernails.

These two women are genetically identical, and they both spent 18 years in the same house, with the same parents. So why are Maria and Emily acting so differently?

The stories people tell

Several people at the funeral will tell you just what the problem is.

“That Emily!” says one. “One time I said hello to her and she just walked past, like I wasn’t there. Thinks she’s better than anybody else.”

A young man who went to high school with both of them says, “Everybody in that family is kind of standoffish, except Maria, who would do anything for anybody. You can just tell she misses her dad terribly!”

The only problem is that they’re all wrong.

The truth about human behavior

As human beings, we tell stories about ourselves, others, and the world, based on whatever scrap of information comes to mind, or on some half-conscious opinion or prejudice of our own, or on nothing at all. To know that this is true, you need look no further than to the various stories generated around the public (and possibly scripted) behaviors of famous actors, singers, and sports figures.

We tell stories about
ourselves, others, and the world —
and they’re usually wrong.

Then what is the truth about human behavior?

At this stage in my career, I have spent over two thousand hours listening to people tell their life stories and watching them struggle with significant unhappiness and problems. What I’ve learned is this:

The forces behind a person’s behavior are usually complicated and rarely obvious.

Not convinced? Then let me take you through a modest thought experiment.

Nine different realities, same behavior

I’m going to describe nine scenarios, each with a different Maria and Emily. To the same ending — Maria cries and Emily fidgets nervously — I will add a few details that will make the behavior of each woman both believable and understandable.

To clarify what aspect of life is at the heart of a given scenario, the details are preceded by a word or phrase that points to the underlying cause of Maria and Emily’s behaviors.

Factors relating to the individual

Temperament. Each of us has his or her own emotional “thermostat” setting. It’s nothing profound, but it shows up quietly again and again throughout our lives. In this scenario, you can explain the twins’ behaviors by saying that each is behaving according to her termperament: Maria shows her emotions easily, while Emily tends to be nervous.

Maria cries and
Emily fidgets nervously.

Drug abuse. Here, both children love their father (which explains Maria’s tears). However, Emily is coming off a drug high. She appears nervous because all of her energy is going toward holding herself together until she can use again. Her need to mask any indication of her craving completely displaces the sadness she would otherwise be displaying.

Factors relating to the family

If we consider the individual to be the “ground zero” of human behavior, then the layer that surrounds it is the immediate family. These scenarios show two different ways in which other family members might influence the young women’s behavior. And there are hundreds more, because the family is easily the most complex configuration of humans in the world.

Personality conflicts. In this scenario, the young women’s father was authoritarian and Emily was persistently rebellious. Their conflicts escalated during Emily’s adolescence, eventually eliminating her emotional connection to her father. We can’t say exactly what Emily is feeling, but it’s not sadness.

Parenting styles. Both parents were emotionally harsh to Maria and Emily. Maria took their criticisms seriously and is weeping because she was never able to make her father proud of her, and now she never will. Emily somehow grew up with a strong self-image. As a healthy reaction to unfair treatment, she has emotionally detached herself from both parents. Her father’s death is no loss to her.

The family is easily the most complex
configuration of humans in the world.

Factors relating to the outside world

Even the “Parenting styles” scenario begins to blur from the realm of family into the outermost layer of influence, the outside world. If the twins’ parents were emotionally harsh, where did that behavior come from? Outside influences include: extended family; friends and coworkers; social and religious communities; and the more abstract influences of governments (at multiple levels), business and economic entities, social movements, and world events.

The first scenario shows that “the outside world” can also extend backward in time. The second is just one example of how an impersonal decision can have very personal side effects.

Multigenerational factors. As with the “Parenting styles” scenario, Emily became estranged from her father. But this time, it is not because she was rebellious. The underlying reason goes back two generations to her father’s mother, who died young from an illegal abortion. This loss deeply affected her father, both in his childhood and later as an adult.

When Emily began dating, her father’s loss resurfaced as an irrational fear that she would become pregnant and die from an abortion. His heavy-handed attempts to control her life crowded out all the positive feelings she had for him.

Her father’s loss resurfaced as an
irrational fear that she would become
pregnant and die from an abortion.

Social policy. The school system that the twins attended valued academic achievement so much that they created separate classes for their Advanced Placement students. As a result, the only time the AP students were around the rest of the student body was in the lunchroom (and even then, they usually sat with each other).

Emily qualified for AP and did extremely well, got a scholarship to MIT, and became the lead engineer at a tech startup that has just been profiled in the Wall Street Journal. She acts distant because she’s worried about whether the funeral will end in time for her to make an important phone call.

Abuse and trauma as factors

This final section is unpleasant but necessary, using abuse and trauma as placeholders for the seriously bad things that happen in every human life. Here, “trauma” refers to its psychological definition, which includes exposure to an event that is life-threatening or perceived as such (and other requirements). Many unpleasant or even dangerous experiences that people describe as “traumatic” are far milder than those that actually cause psychological trauma.

We use abuse and trauma here
as placeholders for the seriously bad things
that happen in every human life.

Sexual abuse 1. Maria was sexually abused by her father, and the abuse was eventually revealed. Maria’s tears are the outward signs of a combination of love and shame that she can neither articulate nor understand. Emily’s silent disregard of her father is the only expression that she has ever given to her contempt for him.

Sexual abuse 2. Here it is Emily, not Maria, who was sexually abused by her father. Emily was able to process her trauma. She now sees that she was in no way responsible for what happened to her, and this explains her unemotional demeanor at the funeral. Maria has no idea that Emily was abused, and her tears for a father who was good to her are quite genuine.

The trauma of disaster. Years ago, Maria and Emily saw classmates die in a school shooting. The event traumatized both of them, but in different ways. Maria can suddenly descend into strong emotions that she can’t control. Outwardly, Emily appears to be coping better than Maria, but she has been traumatized in a less obvious way. She has unconsciously learned how to avoid fear by dampening her emotions. Unfortunately, this means that she has also lost the ability to feel pleasure or happiness.

What we can learn from these scenarios

Maria cries and Emily fidgets nervously.

But why?

Is it because Maria began life as a sensitive girl, with her emotions always just below the surface?

Is it because teenage Emily didn’t get along with her father?

Is it because of a well-intentioned decision made by the local school board?

It could be any of these reasons, or it could be something else.

People are complicated, so…
the answer depends.

And real life is more complicated than these nine simple scenarios. For example, Maria may be as outraged as Emily over her parents’ harsh emotional behavior, but other things from her past could tip her feelings away from anger and self-protection and toward love and guilt.

What are those “other things”? They could be about Maria herself. Or they could be about how Maria is affected by someone in her family (present or past), her school, her church, or her community. Or they could be about some factor in the world — social, political, economic, religious, or intellectual — that somehow touches her life.

As I said earlier: The forces behind a person’s behavior are usually complicated and rarely obvious.

An invitation

There is wisdom in the practice of reminding yourself that you may not fully understand why somebody does a certain thing. And when you realize this, you may decide to act differently. For example:

• You can decide to react in a way you won’t regret later.
• You can decide that the situation isn’t that important, let it go, and move on with the rest of your day.
• You can decide to ask that person, “What’s going on for you right now?” or “What can you tell me about that thing you just did?” In doing so, maybe your relationship will improve, or at least you’ll learn something new about that person.

When you say, “Oh yeah, I know what that’s about,” the road ahead narrows, and you may not like where it takes you.

But when you realize you don’t know for sure, new roads (perhaps just over the horizon) pop into existence. And if you pay attention, you may find one that makes life better.

Thanks for listening.

If you like this story, please Recommend it, Follow me, or Share it with someone — see the icons below my name at the end of this page. You can also read my other posts or share what’s on your mind. Wider readership will encourage me to write more. Thanks. — GW

In addition to neuroscience, life hacking, lifelong learning, computer programming, and other pursuits, Gregg Williams is a Marriage and Family Therapist in Silicon Valley CA. He sends messages occasionally on Twitter and app.net as @Therapy4Change.