SCIENCE TRANSLATIONS
Origins of Human Behavior
Learn the why behind the way people behave
The word “behavior” gets used quite often in everyday conversation, so we seldom stop to ask: What is behavior? From where does behavior come? Why do some people behave differently than others? Why do people change their behavior across situations?
It often seems like people are irrational, unpredictable beings, but that couldn’t be more wrong. People are actually quite predictable once you understand what underlies their behavior. In fact, a primary goal of my field industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology, is to predict human behavior in a work context.
In this blog, I explain the origins of human behavior. Knowing why people behave the way they do can help you grow and improve:
- Job performance
- Leadership skills
- Team building
- Team effectiveness
- Relationships
When you truly understand why people behave the way they do you can adjust your behavior to have more pleasant or productive interactions. For instance, understanding what motivates people can help you keep your team engaged and driven, knowing the style in which someone thinks can help you tailor your communication to be more effective or persuasive, and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your team members can help you build a stronger, more efficient team.
Here is a personal example where my understanding of human behavior has helped improve our team performance: I am not a very competitive person at all. So when we enter an event of a competitive sort (e.g., pitch competitions), I call on my Co-Founder because she is competitive. She gets energized by the idea of competing and turns her focus to ensuring we win. Her competitive nature motivates the team; it’s contagious and inspiring. And our final deliverable is always 10x better than it would have been without her and her competitive drive to win.
Behavior Defined
I-O psychologists define behavior as people’s reactions, results, and responses to external stimuli (i.e., environment) and internal tendencies (i.e., individual differences). Behavior includes actions and thinking processes.
So from where does behavior come?
Remember the longstanding debate of nature vs. nurture when it comes to who we are and how we behave? Well, there is no longer a debate. The science is clear: they are both critical. That is, it’s no longer nature versus nurture, it’s nature and nurture. A person’s natural makeup (i.e., individual differences) and the social-environmental context both contribute to human behavior. There are other origins of behavior including biological and genetic components, however, as psychologists, we leave those aspects to the biologists and geneticists.
Individual Differences
Behavior stems from a person’s individual differences or how people differ in the way they feel and think as well as what they desire and prefer. More technically, individual differences are the self-regulatory psychological systems that drive emotional, cognitive, and motivational processes. These processes direct people to engage in behaviors that move them toward achieving goals.
There are countless individual differences. However, those that have the most impact on behavior are the ones that are studied the most. These individual differences are typically innate or rooted in the person’s history. Below are some examples.
- Cognitive abilities (colloquially known as intelligence)
- Personality (i.e., behavioral preferences and tendencies, emotions and temperament, motivational traits, cognitive styles)
- Interests
- Attitudes
- Values
- Self-perceptions
Each trait does not act alone, however. People’s complex combination of individual differences influences their behavior. I-O psychologists have spent a century researching individual differences and developed ways to measure them so we can predict human behavior. The research has demonstrated that we can, indeed, predict behavior across a wide range of situations. Just a few examples of the kinds of behavior individual differences predict include job performance, health decisions, how much screen time a person tallies, psychological wellness, fast-food consumption, academic success, educational attainment, use of dating apps, and the likelihood of engaging in risky sexual behavior. Those are just a few examples.
Social-Environmental Context
Gaining an understanding of individual differences is just one way to predict behavior. Behavior also stems from the social-environmental context (i.e., external stimuli). The social-environmental context includes more than just the physical situation or environment, it also includes (but is not limited to) cultural and societal norms, social interactions, and the time period/time frame.
Another crucial factor to consider when evaluating the influence of social-environmental context on behavior is that the environment is not static. Rather, it is highly dynamic, constantly changing, and evolving — in both subtle and drastic ways over time.
Person-Environment Interaction
Now that we have talked about both the person and the social-environmental context, we can take it one step further. Namely, behavior is not due to a linear process where a trait is activated because of a situation and then leads to a behavior. It is so much more complex.
The social-environmental context influences how the person behaves but the person also acts and affects the situation as well. In addition, people choose the situations in which they engage and their past behavior influences future behavior. In other words, behavior arises from a dynamic system of interactions and feedback loops between the person and the social-environmental context.
The Process of Human Behavior
Let me break this down with a personal example. I chose to pursue a Ph.D. in I-O psychology because I am curious about people and believe that by making the workplace better, we can improve people’s overall well-being. I have an interest in reading, writing, and research — core tasks involved in a doctoral program. At George Washington University, doctoral students worked in an English basement of a historical row house (apart from the faculty). The basement had abysmal lighting and was arranged in an open-office style. Low levels of light influenced our mood and the open-office arrangement strengthened our relationships because it increased the frequency of interpersonal interactions. Other factors played into our behavior as well. For instance, when someone reheated fish in the microwave (you know who you are), the fishy scent would permeate the entire basement and disrupt our study. The students would collectively complain about the fishy scent, it wasn’t just me. We were abnormally cohesive (there was almost no competition) and therefore we developed a strong social support system and a collective aversion to smelly food. The cohesion among the students influenced how the faculty interacted with us. And so on. And so on.
The Process of Human Behavior: A Fishy Example
To sum, the numerous person-situation interactions influence each other in a dynamic feedback process that evolves and changes over time. Predicting behavior is complex, but now you know an I-O psychologist who can help!
Conclusion
How we behave affects everything in our life from health to family to work. Behavior can lead to positive or negative consequences. Therefore, understanding why behaviors arise can help you to regulate and manage your behaviors to lead to the outcomes you desire.
It’s quite difficult to pack 100 years of behavioral research into a blog — so there is a lot more left to learn. To learn more about behavior and how to use that knowledge to enhance performance within your organization you can: read some research articles, take a course, or hire an I-O psychologist. And as a thank you for reading this blog you now have a recommended book list approved by an I-O psychologist (i.e., me!).
Take-Aways
- Behavior is defined as people’s reactions and responses to external and internal stimuli
- Behavior includes both actions and thinking processes
- Personality and other individual differences lead to variation in behavior across people
- The environment has an influence on behavior
- The social context of the environment also influences behavior
- Each person can influence the environment and the behavior of those around them
- Personality and social-environmental context interact together in a dynamic system
Stay tuned for follow-up blogs that discuss behavioral change, prediction of behavior, and group behavior.
About Blackhawke Behavior Science
Want to learn more about building a strong entrepreneurial team and healthy organizational culture? Visit Blackhawke’s Medium publication, From I-O to IPO, or www.blackhawke.io and get social with us on Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, or Twitter!
