What do you consider the fundamental barriers to understanding human behaviour accurately and comprehensively? Use theoretical and/or research examples from the topics you have selected to give evidence for your arguments.
Understanding human behaviour is so important because it is the only way through which a person’s personality that is the reason behind any human action can be observed. Various methods like observation and experimental are used to interpret human behaviour. Although it is necessary but also faces many issues that need resolution. In the essay many of these barriers supported with the research examples will be discussed and evidence will also be given.
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One of the main barriers to understanding human behaviour is observers bias which mainly includes the subjective interpretation of qualitative data. In daily life we come across so many things and events that we don’t intend to notice or actually form an observation about(Salah, Vinciarelli). But, when we actually try and observe something we get to know so many interesting things about that person or maybe that particular event. As psychologists it is impossible to notice all the behaviours that are being possessed by the subject. So, as defence they rather select a particular behaviour for observation so that the study remains more focused. But, this selection brings in a lot of disadvantages like the observation is totally dependent on the observer and thus could be very subjective. The observer may miss certain very important aspects of the study. He may not be able to interpret the importance of a certain observation and may neglect it. He may have a specific idea about something like adopting a certain working strategy and would not be open to any criticism to adopting that specific method. For example, the experiment conducted by Bandura involving the Bobo dolls and showing the children a violent movie where the boy displays aggressive behaviour towards the toys. Then dividing the children in three groups and putting them in the same situation with some form of behavioural instruction. The observation that he made after this could actually include many extraneous variables that may or may not have been noticed that makes the experiment lesser reliable.
Another barrier that can be observed while trying to interpret human behaviour is the way the observation is done. That could be either done in a naturalistic setting or maybe in a controlled setting. Naturalistic setting means that the experimenter goes to the setting and then maybe secretly observers the event or the person. For example, a researcher maybe interested in knowing the students turn out after the holidays either he could go and sit in the class himself which may or may not affect the response or he could observe through a CCTV camera which would be more feasible. The most important pro with the naturalistic observation is that the behaviour of the subject cannot be influenced by any sort of extraneous variable. While when the observation is done in a controlled setting the behaviour of the participant can be influenced as in that case they know that are being observed and may want to display a behaviour that is more socially pleasurable. A lot of people act completely different when they are being viewed while when they are by themselves. This makes the response less reliable for the research.
The third barrier that could make it difficult to observe the human behaviour are the individual differences. That is the specific qualities that an individual possess or exclusive qualities that they have making them distinct from other people. This makes the process of interpreting human behaviour fairly difficult. The observation that maybe made for one set of people will have a group of people who are exceptions for that observation. The people are different from one another in a lot of ways and there can never be a statement about human behaviour that is true for all the individuals, implying that every person is unique from each another is some way. For example, the experiment done by Bibb Latane and John Darley, where the participants were sent to a waiting room to complete a questionnaire. The participants were divided between many rooms. And then he filled the room with smoke and after a while the smoke could hardly be ignored. The psychologists were interested in knowing how frequently would they report the smoke. Some people may and some might not. This shows the deafferenting personalities of people and thus highlighting the individual differences (psychology textbook).
Lastly, the barrier to understand human behaviour is tracking the behaviour change. There is a general tendency of humans to change their behaviour constantly maybe over a period of time. The behaviour changes due to reasons like criticism faced due to that behaviour or maybe due to religious barriers (Prager, Insttute). As the behaviour keeps changing it becomes impossible to keep track of the change and thus the understanding of the human behaviour is not easy. This is also related to the difficulty of non-compliance of the participants. This means that the participants may not be willing to show a particular behaviour in a specific setting while in a different setting they are willing to show the same behaviour(Bryn Fransworth). For example, a very recent topic that has been going on is the rights for the LGBTQ community. If someone is gay and are unwilling to come out in open and are asked certain questions in public about it, they may deny it and may not be willing to share their thoughts just so that no one gets to know about it. But in person that is in a closed setting if they are asked about the same thing they may be more willing to share thoughts and would not deny answering those questions. This is an example of behaviour change depending on the environmental setting. The behaviour can also change with time that is they may want to answer the questions after a span of time when people will be more acceptable about this topic (Michie, West, Sheals, Godinho).
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Thus, we have seen the main barriers to understanding the human behaviour. Just to summarise the barriers are observer’s bias the setting for the observation that is naturalistic or controlled setting. The third barrier was individual differences and the last barrier was tracking behaviour change and also interdependent with the non-compliance of the participants. Although all these barriers are stated but there many other barriers that exist when the interpretation of human behaviour is being carries out. The resolutions for such hurdles still need to be discovered to carry out a reliable research.
References:
- Challenges of Human Behavior Understanding. Albert Ali Salah, Theo Gevers, Nicu Sebe , and Alessandro Vinciarelli.
- Evaluating the effectiveness of behavior change techniques in health-related behavior: a scoping review of methods used. Susan Michie, Robert West, Kate Sheals, Cristina A Godinho, Feburary, 2018
- HARDEMAN, W., JOHNSTON, M., JOHNSTON, D., BONETTI, D., WAREHAM, N. & KINMONTH, A.L. (2002). Application of the Theory of Planned Behaviour in Behaviour Change Interventions: A Systematic Review. Psychology & Health
- HEIMLICH, J.E. & ARDOIN, N.M. (2008). Understanding behavior to understand behavior change: a literature review. Environmental Education Research
- Human Behaviour: The complete Pocket Guide. Bryn Fransworth, January, 2017
- Psychology textbook. Central board of secondary education. Anonymous.
- Theories and models of behaviour and behaviour change. Contributing authors: Jake Morris, Mariella Marzano, Norman Dandy, Liz O’Brien.
- Understanding Behaviour Change. Katrin Prager, James Hulton Insttute, May, 2012
- WEBB, T.L., SNIEHOTTA, F.F. & MICHIE, S. (2010). Using theories of behaviour change to inform interventions for addictive behaviours. Addiction
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