What influences your personal behavior?

Answer 1

Physical influences include the state of your brain - people with damaged brains can behave differently to people whose brains are not damaged. This includes brains injured during a difficult birth, concussion and damage caused by strokes.

A diabetic may behave erratically when their blood sugar is too high or too low. Other diseases such as epilepsy, and Huntingdon's Chorea affect behaviour too.

Toxins and chemicals influence behaviour. This includes alcohol, drugs, pesticides, herbicides and chemicals used in manufacturing industries.

Those are some physical influences, but there are others. Psychological influences include mental health problems such as schizophrenia or depression.

Social and cultural influences include the behaviour that is expected by the community and what they believe in, their mores and values, and the person's position in that society. We expect certain behaviours from babies and children that we would consider inappropriate in an adult. We expect certain behaviours from acknowledged leaders and different behaviours from those whose social position is perceived to be lower. A example of that would be that we would expect a Colonel to behave in a way that we would not expect of a new recruit in the army.

Society has its expectations and we judge personal behaviour by the expectations of that society. Sometimes these expectations are enforcable and enshrined in law.

Cultural and religious beliefs influence behaviour too. Rastifarians and the Amish behave and dress quite differently, yet both are religions which influence behaviour. A Western person may stand up when someone important enters a room because that is considered polite in Western society, yet a traditional Black African considers it polite to keep their head lower than the important person's head and they may sit down or stay sitting, also out of politeness.

There are many factors which influence personal behaviour and I hope I have given you something to think about.