Human Behavior: Culture, Socialization, and Personality
Culture
Culture is received through education and learning.
- Social: According to Herder, society is a system of relationships that connects individuals. Culture represents social life.
- Plural: Each group possesses specific forms of culture.
- Symbol: Humans have an average vocabulary.
- Learned: The acquisition of culture requires instruction.
- Historical Consciousness: Culture is enriched through time.
Socialization
1. Childhood (Most Important)
- Customs, patterns, and social groups are acquired.
- Bonding occurs with family, friends, and others.
- There is no consciousness (uncritical).
- Adaptation and training depend on its success.
- Failures can have irreparable consequences.
2. Throughout Life
- Future values and functions are learned.
- Rules and ideology are internalized.
- Emotional and other interpersonal relationships are responded to.
- Intense socialization involves readjustment of guidelines.
- Socialization is more effective when it occurs earlier in life.
- Socialization occurs through repetition and internalization.
Psychological Theories
- Behaviorism: Psychology should only consider observable behaviors.
- Psychoanalysis: Studies unconscious human activity.
- Humanistic: Understands humans as individuals who tend towards self-realization.
- Cognitive: Considers interconnected processes.
- Current: Evolutionary psychology, differential psychopathy, applied animal psychology (criminology, industrial, etc.).
Intelligence
Intelligence is formed by several factors: verbal, numeric, spatial, and motor skills.
- 0-2 years (Sensorimotor): Instinctive behavior (e.g., sucking).
- Skills and habits are acquired.
- Problem-solving is similar to that of animals.
- 2-6 years (Preoperational): Language is acquired.
- Thought is like an internal dialogue.
- Animism: Giving life to inanimate objects.
- Artificialism: Belief that everything is created by humans.
- Moral Causation: Attributing events to moral faults.
- Finalism: Belief that everything has a purpose.
- Egocentrism: Everything is referred to oneself.
- Concrete Operations: Logic and concrete operations are acquired (e.g., the principle of reversibility). Moral impartiality develops, and egocentrism is overcome.
- Formal Operations: Mature intelligence is acquired. Logical relationships are established, and abstract problems are solved.
Motivation (Maslow)
- Physiological Needs: Includes basic needs for survival.
- Safety: Feeling safe and protected.
- Love/Belonging: Seeking affection and group integration.
- Esteem: Desire for respect and recognition.
- Self-Actualization: Development of individual potential and marked ideals.
Theories of Motivation
- Homeostatic: A lack or need triggers behaviors to restore equilibrium.
- Incentives: External reasons act as instigators of behavior (incentives) to achieve pleasure and avoid pain.
- Cognitive: The importance of ideas in inciting action to achieve goals.
Personality
Personality designates the psychological structure of the individual, the set of characteristics that make up a person’s way of being.
Theories of Personality
- Constitutional: Relates personality to physical constitution.
- Traits: Reduces personality to a set of traits that predispose individuals to act in certain ways.
- Behavioral: Traits can change, thus personality can change.
- Psychoanalytic: Highlights the unconscious and innate aspects. Personality is divided into three parts:
- Id: The set of erotic and aggressive drives, ruled by the pleasure principle.
- Ego: The conscious part that deals with repressed desires.
- Superego: The set of social values integrated through education.
The ego resolves conflicts between the id and superego through:
- Repression: Forgetting or suppressing forbidden desires.
- Displacement: Directing the energy of the id towards a substitute object.
- Sublimation: Channeling the energy of the id towards socially acceptable goals.