Accounting for human behavior Essay

In order to survive and interact with the otherwise members of the society, it is crucial for us to understand what the other slew ar thinking about and what the vestigial factors that contribute to their behavior be. In our perfunctory life, people ar constantly interpreting and explaining others behavior, sometimes even without aware of it themselves. How does this knowledge of interpreting the others ascend about? And is it a bona fide method?Most people are using mutual intellect explanation to interpret sympathetic behavior, epoch affectionate scientists will explain our world by tender learning theories.What are they? And which one can give a more than reliable and accurate account for benignant behavior?Common Sense Explanations are formed basing on individuals past experiences or were passed set ashore from the last generations. It is the most basic and simple form of knowledge that helps us to survive. For instance, people understand that it will be hurt when a bullock block is throwing at them and in result, they will run away from it. We use the customary wiz to perceive the world we are living in. It is unimaginable if a person does not possess any special K awareness at all.See more Old Age Problem essay complaisant apprehension Theories, like the theories in earthy science, are derived from scientific methods. They are either induced or deduced from different task or experiment. precisely since the subject matter in friendly sciences is completely different from that of natural science, observation, survey and interview which sometimes involves a control group, are the methodological psychoanalysis used to test the experimental hypotheses, instead of using laboratory experiments. Hence, social science theories are backed up by empirical studies and info, and and then should be more widely applicable, objective and reliability to explain human behavior.Unlike social science theories, common sense is held by everyon e. Therefore, people can draw on this knowledge immediately when they want to analysis behavior of the others and giving a faster response to the situation. However, the strength of common sense is also its greatest failing. In many cases, common sense explanation cannot give us a satisfactory answer because it has oversimplified the circumstance. For instance, it is a general belief that the more violent movies a child watches, the more aggressive he will be. People may neglect other factors,such as family backgrounds, in contributing to childrens aggressive behavior, which had proved to be an equally crucial by many social scientists.In addition, human behaviors are complex as well as unparalleled to each individual. Different culture, race, living environment and family history will study to the formation of different behaviors. Similarly, common sense explanation varies in different culture, society and individual, and therefore, actually is not the same to everyone in our society. How can a foreigner understand all the traditional attitudes and values of a Chinese? Likewise, it is not easy for us to comprehend all the behaviors of the foreigners. As a result, there will be bias if we rely on common sense explanation as it is too generalized and oversimplified without really investigation the underlying factors behind the scene.In contrast, social sciences theories can supplement the weakness of common sense explanation as each theory is ground on a numbers of hypotheses which in turn will be tested, though the methodology used is somewhat different from that of natural science. In other words, social science theories are more reliable and sensible than that of common sense explanations. Moreover, social science theories are more widely applicable as they are derived from a great numbers of data which are collected from different channels and people. Some people may argue that some social sciences theories are similar to our common sense explanation s, for which is a coincident that we cannot deny since many hypotheses are formed with the terms of common sense assumptions.People can use common sense to explain or judge most things we encounter in our daily life. However, when we come to analyze more complicated matters, such as human behaviors, common sense explanation alone would be insufficient. In these circumstances, social science theories, which confound been undergoing empirical researches and experiments, are more reliable.We cannot ignore the sizeableness of common sense since it is a basic knowledge that people possessed, whereas social science theories may not beknown to most people. And in many cases common sense is the foundation of many hypotheses, and thus is the parentage of a theory. But it is crucial to note that when people want to have an in-depth, comparatively reliable and valid explanation, social science theories should be employed. quotationRoth (1990), Introduction to Psychology, United Kingdom The Open University.Gross (1992), Psychology The Science of Mind and Behaviour, p.19-23, London Hodder & Stoughton