Physcology Paper

25, March 2012

General Psychology

Jason Turner

Human Influence

Introduction

There are five general perspectives on human behavior, learning, biological, sociocultural, cognitive, and psychodynamic influences. To understand them I will summarize each and examine them from a relationship standpoint and I will use my grandparent’s relationship to compare them.

Body
The first Human behavior is learning this in association with the relationship I am relating it to can be summarized by a first impression, but goes on throughout the course of the whole relationship. Social cognitive learning theorists have a combination of how people learn in their environment, but also how they react to others and sometime imitate them. This in my grandparents relationship even when they were in their 60’s they said they still learned from each other, of course they were probably completely different people when they first met compared to later on in their lives. From talks with my grandfather he said he learned a ton about life through my grandmother, some had to do with her amazing way to manage money. I believe that when in a relationship such as theirs where it lasted many years they were both huge contributing factors to their environment from their first meeting to their children being born all the way to their retirement. Next I turn to the biological perspective, this focuses on bodily events affect behavior feelings and thoughts. This to me brings to mind the age old quote “can’t live with them, and you can’t live without them” when referring to my grandparents. This especially in relationships I believe is very important, your biology I believe has a lot to do with whom you will be in relationships, not just looks but subconsciously according to a study done by the bbc “ Women still subconsciously choose their mates based largely on their biology” the same is still true about men whom our book states still base attraction off of age. Younger women being associated more with fertility. It is kind of fun to look back as my grandfather was 6 foot 6 and my grandmother being 5 foot 10
This tells me that my grandmother obviously liked taller men, and as she was older than my grandfather he always told me she was someone who challenged him. So that tells me that my grandfather liked her wisdom. Needless to say their biology definitely affected their learning and performance, as I am sure it changed throughout their relationship as their environments changed. The thing about the biological factors within their relationship that always dumbfounds me is the fact that I know they weren’t the same people after they had been when they first met as their biology had surely changed with them through the years as their environment had as well. They learned and grew as people from one another and it I think is a reason for our high divorce rate in the US today. Next I will move to the cognitive perspective which ties a lot to the last paragraph in one way in particular their moral behavior. It was always funny to me to watch my grandparents in this light as my grandfather was always a bit lighter on the moral side of things and my grandmother was very strict in her moral character or proper I should say. This ties directly to the cognitive perspective. My grandfather would never smoke in the presence of my grandmother, as she would always get on to him if he were to slip a curse word out of his mouth. So in her own way my grandmother played I direct part in my grandfather’s cognitive perspective (at least around her), and she did eventually get him to stop smoking! I do think she played a very direct part in motivating my grandfather as well. She was one of the contributing factors in how his company became successful, not only in motivation, but also by helping him in his weaker aspects of it. She motivated him in a way of money, he was a great salesman but he was horrible at budgeting his money so to motivate him she controlled the money, and if he had a good month or year she would give him a bonus. The sociocultural perspective of everyone’s relationship plays another huge part in a relationship. It is really funny as I look at my own relationships and this I feel plays a huge part in my relationships but I don 't think it played as much of a part in theirs. For instance I think that dating in this time is different when I usually meet someone it is typically within a group setting, and if the girl in question doesn 't like my friends it will more than likely not work out. In my grandparents time it was a bit different my grandfather’s friends did not play as big a role in their relationship as they do in mine he went through an older style court dating. One thing I do thing that has remained a constant and one of the things I remember my grandmother saying that she did like a lot about my grandfather was his interaction with those around him while on dates and such. He was an outspoken louder person who made friends really easily, as my grandmother was more of a quiet shy type that did not make friends as easily and did not interact with social groups the same way. This plays to opposites attracting but in the end I think they complimented each other very well in their differences. They were always talking giving insight on how they saw certain interactions and seeing it from a different perspective. Even know writing this paper it gives me an insight for some of the traits from their relationship I would like my own to mirror. Finally the psychodynamic perspective to get a grasp on the theoretical things I have pointed out through this paper. Most classify this perspective in philosophy which everyone has their own opinion. There are many who have a view on aspects of the dating world and relationships, which I think has a lot of bearing in certain situations but to classify all actions into behaviors, can get one into trouble if you are over analytical. I believe that even as we discussed earlier in our discussions we know that everyone’s biology is changed throughout the course of their lives, and with that they learn from their environment. Relationships are in a way an environment and people can change drastically throughout them. With all the different relationships and beliefs and people there are this perspective I believe can change often and it would be hard to pinpoint ones distinct behavior and classify it but we can definitely know that there are correlations in these perspectives to the psychodynamic factors.

Conclusion To conclude all of these factors is also part of concluding the relationship of my grandparents they are among the few to make it their whole relationship although rocky at times without getting a divorce. I cannot even remember a time when they separated; this is something that is not very common in relationships anymore. Some of the factors throughout this paper led me to reasons of why they did make it so long. They learned a great deal from one another some consciously and some subconsciously, but in the end I would classify them as some of the most adaptive people I had ever met. Being in this relationship and what you see from all these perspectives is an adaptation to ideas and beliefs and they believed in each other and did so for 55 years.

Works Cited

Wade, Carole, and Carol Tavris. Pschology. Tenth Edition. NJ: Pearson Education, Inc., 2011. Print.

Bbc online www.bbc.org authored by Charles Darnell

Mens Health Magazine April Issue pg 56 The dating game authored by Nicah Wilmerhoff

Cited: Wade, Carole, and Carol Tavris. Pschology. Tenth Edition. NJ: Pearson Education, Inc., 2011. Print. Bbc online www.bbc.org authored by Charles Darnell Mens Health Magazine April Issue pg 56 The dating game authored by Nicah Wilmerhoff