Social Influences on Human Behavior



Social Influences on Human Behavior

Introduction

Human interaction is defined as the sort of actions which happen when a group of people have an influence on each other. Persons are frequently uninformed of several factors which influence their actions, behavior and even emotions. We merely tend to adapt to our environment and the social happenings around us. Each happening and situation necessitates a unique set of behaviors and gesticulations. For instance, people behave differently when they are at work and very oppositely when they are with family or friends. Being at work, they act in quite a restricted manner maintaining the expectations from him as a member of a workplace; while on the other hand, being with friends, they would behave in a very casual way - they can talk about practically anything in any possible way they wish. To be precise, human behavior alters according to the diverse situations we face in our daily lives. We tend to explore and discuss the reasons of people's altered behaviors in different situations, especially when the unexpected things happen (Back, K., 1951).

How human behavior changes based on social situations

It has been observed as a common practice that people are inclined to follow the lead of all the other people surrounding them. For example, a person serving in a bar would put his money in his own tip cup so as to make it apparent that others have already given him that money as a tip; this “seed money” would eventually educe other people to kowtow of giving the tip. Hence, conformity means that people alter their attitudes, actions, behavior, and perceptions to coincide with those of an individual or a group they are surrounded by. (Balkwell, J., 1991).

The two examples that I would like to present, reflecting the influence of the social situations on the behaviors of a person are; people drinking alcohol to express their feelings and smoking marijuana at parties because they can't have fun there without it.

Description of the specific behaviors

As a common trend, people find it very relaxing and soothing to drink at various occasions and events. People drink for many reasons. In case of individuals, who feel really stressed out, anxious or timid for enjoying their time in any of the social activities, drinking may appear to be the solution to all of it. Many people drink so as to divert from their messed up lives, stop thinking about their problems and distress. Moreover, for the reason, alcohol makes the memory and brain go blurry; several individuals in fact forget everything that is disconcerting them, at least for some time. Some individuals also drink for they presume they appear to be “cool” by doing so or simply because all their friends drink so they would also do.

Same is the case with smoking marijuana; people do it for several reasons. Most of the youngsters smoke marijuana for the reason that their siblings and friends do the same and insist them to try it ...