How Much Does Culture and Lifestyle Affect Behavior?

There are circumstances and conditions in our lives that simply come with us at birth; such things as our ethnic origin, our race, the culture into which you are born-just to name a few things. You have no control over the culture into which you are born, they are a "given" to you. It is your "world." The lifestyle of your parents and/or caregiver becomes the constant influence in your existence. Your perception of life is greatly influenced by the culture and lifestyle of your caregiver. Your behavior will directly correlate with their influence upon you, to a great extent of your existence. You are imprinted in your thinking and consequently in your behavior by those who care for you. This is the core influence upon how our personality and character development.

The culture into which you are born will influence how you see the world. We gain understanding of our personhood;our communication skills develop as to how we relate with the rest of society. It affects how we see ourselves "fitting" in the world around us. We are influenced in a negative or positive manner by the lifestyle of our environment. We learn to cope in our personal surroundings, using the same coping mechanism we see demonstrated in our immediate environment. Society and family "cue" us to how we are accepted by the larger community in which we are introduced to interact and develop our personal concept. We begin to define ourselves in the culture to which we are born in our moral system, our way of interacting in social relationships and other human endeavors from consumer goods to art, music, language, and science. As we grow up, lifestyle becomes our personal choice of how we refine or fine tune our behavior. There is no choice (option) as to the culture into which we arrive on earth, is concerned.

How the larger society perceives your culture is a part of your inheritance at birth. How you accept yourself and how you choose to be perceived is a part of your personal choice and