Human Behavior
Psychology has long sought to explain why we do what we do. Yet so much of the grand sweep and scale of human behavior is now lost in a reduction to basic elements. How did it become the fashion for analysis to trump synthesis?
Can the science of behavior still capture the epic poetry in our motives, instincts, drives and passions?
J
ust what is psychology? That is, what does the concept mean to you? (It’s a question fairly asked even of those who have studied the subject.) Now chew over your answer carefully and consider what that means to you? (We’re following a procedure of reductionism typical of much psychological experimentation, though here the aim is clarity.) If you repeat the process perhaps many times over, you’ll finally arrive at an answer that will satisfy.
Your questions instead will relate to the broader picture, to the motives and passions that drive us (we so rarely seem to drive them)...
But it’s unlikely to rest there. Your newfound confidence will lead you further into the arms of curiosity, and onto other questions. Questions on all aspects of what you now believe psychology to be. Such questions won’t be narrow. They won’t relate to a single experimental null hypothesis, and they won’t be answered by anyone enmeshed in minutiae. Your questions instead will relate to the broader picture, to the motives and passions that drive us (we so rarely seem to drive them), to our emotions (so many, and so rarely independent), to the aimless ideas that fill our heads and only later prove significant, perhaps even to ways of influencing others (indeed why not?).
If these are your kinds of questions, this is the road to take. And if you’re happy to chance the risks that come with greater understanding, then we can take it together in The Secret World of Human Behavior.
