To what extent should we use our own humanity to study human behavior? - Sammi

To what extent should we use our own humanity to study human behavior?

Human sciences aim to study human behaviors, find cause and effects to be able to make predictions about how people will act or to cure disorders and mental issues. Sometimes, the human sciences are recognized as: “just the poor cousin of the superior natural sciences.” This statement can swing both ways because people may believe that human sciences are poorer as in weaker in value and limits of experimentation data, whereas natural sciences can generate more certain facts. Nevertheless, what we are able to learn about human behavior and the studies done by humans on other humans has no lesser value than those of natural sciences. There are so many different factors and variables that affect human behavior and therefore we cannot determine an absolute cause and effect relationship. Each area of human sciences, which studies a different aspect of human behavior, is studied differently. Economics, the study of human consumption and production of wealth, uses statistical analysis and graphs to model knowledge and look for patterns. However, as the class saw in the textbook activity on page 310, it is quite easy to manipulate data in a graph to display different perspectives. Psychology, the study of the human mind and behaviors, uses experiments, questionnaires and case studies. These methods are beneficial for understanding and validating results from the experiments, however can lead to high confirmation bias by the researcher or demand characteristics exhibited by the participant. Anthropology uses observation but specifically participant observation. The benefits of this is that you can easily observe the subjects in their natural environment however, if of an obvious different culture due to race or dress, the culture may not act traditionally while the researcher is present. Each scientific field has its strength in research however is also limited do to confounding and natural factors of humanity.

While humans study humans, it’s very difficult for a researcher to turn off their humanity or analyze the behavior through non-human eyes. During an observation a human observer may unknowingly include their emotions in their judgment or even their schema if they are unfamiliar or too familiar with the subject area. This might lead to misinterpreted analysis of behavior. Researchers may be looking to discover something phenomenal and either push the limits of ethics or over-exaggerate behaviors of their participants. In the Stanford Prison Study by Zimbardo he aimed to study how humans take on certain roles when put in positions of power or abuse. Through opportunity sampling he randomly assigned several college males to be prisoners or guards in a fake prison. Although things started to get a bit out of control, whereas prisoners were rebelling and the guards almost abused the prisoners, Zimbardo put himself in the position as the warden of the prison. Due to this he wanted to make sure his prison continued to function, in addition to wanting full results for his experiment, so he kept telling the guards ways to push the prisoners. This is an example of how human emotions, humanity, can get in the way of following the experiment or being ethical in research. Another limiting factor of humanity being involved in studying human behavior is perception. Everything you perceive can be influenced by your schema and manipulations of the senses. In 1974 Lostus et al. studied how language could affect someone’s memory perception. They showed participants some footage of a car crashes and asked them to estimate the speed of the cars that were crashing. However, they changed the verbs used in the questions to see if it had an effect on the answers. They asked: How fast the cars were going when they smashed/hit/bump/touched each other and results showed that the speed was significantly higher with a verb like smashed than bumped. Furthermore in a follow-up two weeks later the participants that had the verb smashed remembered seeing broken class in the footage, when in-fact there was none at all. This shows how human memory perception and knowledge can be affected by our language. This could have an effect on using humanity when studying behavior because how we record or present our results could have different meaning if a different tone or diction is used.  In addition, every individual perceives life and what knowledge they acquire. Many variables can affect someone’s perception including schema, strength of senses and emotions. For example, in the film, “The Gods Must be Crazy,” Xi, a tribe member who had never seen other humans, heard other languages or been outside of his tribe region in the desert was shocked and confused by seeing another race and cars for the first time. He perceived ordinary western people as the Gods and through it very weird how they could not even speak. Even though the other people were speaking, Xi thought they could not speak because he had never known that there were other languages, let alone people, in the world. After seeing a car, Xi thought it was some sort of strange animal that instead of walking, its legs rolled. Although not professionally, when Xi was trying to ‘study’ other humans he was encountering he perceived them entirely wrong simply because he had never been exposed to such things before. Perhaps this is an insight that we as humans might not know what to study about a behavior or that some phenomena even exist because it was not yet within our learned map or story knowledge.

In reality humans cannot always test or understand some human behaviors due to the shared knowledge, limitations and ethics –which were created because of our humanity– and time. With perception, each person has their own knowledge however, how one feels, what one exactly sees or their experience perfectly be shared. In other words, we cannot fully pass our experiences to other people because they will always perceive it as a secondary form of knowledge. This can make humanity difficult to study because it limits our shared knowledge and can lead to humans having different ideas about what we are and how we behave in general. Ethics, a standard created by humans because of our sympathy for others and our human rights, can limit the full extent to which we as humans can study other humans. For example if you are a psychologist or an anthropologist and you want to study the origins or factors of a behavior, you cannot raise a human in complete solitary for its life and then expose them to the world because humans have the right to live how they want. Furthermore in real life, we can only test behaviors or events in the present. We cannot recreate the French Revolution or the Second World War to try and analyze how humans reacted and behaved during those times. We cannot because there are too many factors that constantly urge humans to behave in a certain way and due to the physical restraints of our humanity, we can’t change time and space to research the original time.

Humanity– our ethics, emotions, diversity, perception, logical reasoning–makes it very hard to truly and scientifically test human behaviors. However according to the Verstephen claim: “to really understand a human being you have to use introspection and empathy and your own understanding of yourself and bring that to bear on the subject.” All in all humans should study human behavior and our humanity is key to being able to understand our behaviors correctly as well as treat and test each other ethically, however all results must be analyzed for reliability, validity and generalizability through triangulation, multiple trials and large, diverse sample sizes.

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Carolina von Mutius

Hunt ToK – Block 6

 To what extent should we use our humanity to study human behavior?

In the world we live in, the main source of information essentially comes from humans.  Humans were the ones who put together everything that we know and see as “common knowledge”, and although different schemas are based upon different perceptions, in their core, they all originated from discoveries of mankind. With this in mind, when analyzing the question “To what extent should we use our humanity to study humans”, you must first consider everything that has been done and look at examples of each to draw a conclusion. Nonetheless, this question is extremely open-ended and has a lot of room for argumentation.

The first thing that stands out to me about the prompt is the wording. What exactly does “humanity” mean? According to Dictionary.com, it is “the quality or condition of being human; human nature.” Although this seems like a clear-cut definition, there is still a lot of room for interpretation.  Humans are born with a clean slate, though as they develop and grow, they formulate a conceptual framework in which they will furthermore use when judging and studying humans. Also, the prompt also leaves “studying” very open-ended, especially since it’s meaning is a lot greater than simply analyzing human behavior, but rather drawing conclusions based on evidences and data.

By not taking any human science classes, all my knowledge is limited to what I have learned and discussed in ToK. Therefore, all I have acquired from the topic is based on analysis of both sides and balancing each of the points, which in itself is already using my humanity. Nonetheless, at first glance, my mind automatically told me that using humanity would be inadequate for the study of humans. I am not positive on why I came to that conclusion at first, but somewhere rooted in my schema I made the connections that bias would be an influential factors that would potentially jeopardize whichever study was being executed and weigh in negatively. There are various factors that could support this side of the argument, though: for example, whenever you judge someone based on their appearance, you are using your humanity to draw a conclusion. It is inevitable that when seeing someone with several facial piercings and colorful hair and seeing someone wearing head-to-toe designer clothes, your preconceptions of each person will be polar opposites. By using my humanity, I make connections between someone that would be considered “punk” and another considered “preppy”, and that isn’t because I have been analyzing their personalities, but simply based on my prior knowledge and shallowly judging their appearance. If I were to analyze two people coldly without any influential factors, I would just recognize their physical features. But could my generalization based solely on looks be effective in a way? I believe that to a certain extent, making these assumptions will help. In terms of cultural relativism, there are obvious flaws with this concept: what a scientist may imagine to be a pattern to a certain group of people may be just a bias or relative prejudice. But, it also states that many human features, like beliefs, are caused by their cultural and ethnic background, which helps find reasons behind many current trends. Without this, it would make it extremely difficult to gather data of masses and populations, because it would require individual observations, surveys, and interviews, within others.

Looking at humans coldly without using any humanity would be similar to the alien lens activity that we experimented with during ToK. One specific example that I thought was very interesting was one that I read that someone else wrote, that talked about how all humans at the establishment the alien was observing from (school, in that case) were moving around using their two legs, except for one that seemed to be pushed around by someone else and was on top of two circular things (which were wheels). I had to stop and think about that one for a second, but later I realized that it was actually a boy that I had seen just that day that was on a wheelchair. Although this example isn’t necessarily about human behavior, it does symbolize the lack of humanity when observing data. There was no way that the alien would know that the human does move in two legs but is just temporarily hurt thus on a wheelchair, or anything of those sorts. One very interesting point shown through the study of mirror neurons is of different feelings regarding different people. The article by Psychology Today quotes that “Although I do understand what anger and a lot of other feelings feel like, what I really understand is what they feel like to me.” This is the perfect example of how humanity through the use of story knowledge can help understand humans, and further study them. It is hard to find a common definition for “anger” that will fit for every single human being out there, so there must be a compromise made in order to be able to draw any conclusions through therapy or any other strain of psychology for that matter. Just like at the very beginning of the ToK course, when studying perception, when you see a chair, you automatically classify it in the category “chair”, but the concept of “chair” isn’t exactly the chair you are visualizing. This serves for various things, and human emotions are included, so having a common denominator that will help you understand human behavior is important.

On the other hand, the wheelchair boy example can serve as the complete opposite. There could be a whole other reason other than a broken bone for his use of it: he could be using it as a religious ritual, a protest against some cause or maybe even just for fun. The possibilities are endless, but I, using my schema and humanity, concluded that it was for the reasons that I believed were most appropriate. I connected this with the character of Xi in the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy, because his humanity in approach to the western culture really distorts his vision on what is what. For example, the character believed that a car was an animal that he had never encountered before, and believed that a simple water bottle was something evil that he had as a mission to destroy. Those things are not part of his culture, so he looks at it a basis on what he knows. If he was conducting an anthropological study with basis on his culture onto the western culture, there would be a strong clash due to incorrect assumptions being made, and he could even go as far as making the logical fallacy even if unaware of Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. If he believed that the westerners were throwing water bottles in the trash can, he could have assumed it was because they were evil and thus had to be destroyed.

In conclusion, using humanity can both help and hinder conclusions drawn when studying humans. Although it seems reasonable to try to exclude all debatable and relative factors when drawing a conclusion, subjects as difficult to study as humans sometimes require personal knowledge and schema in order to make any valid claims. The Verstehen position states, “in order to really ‘understand’ a human being you have to use introspection and empathy and your own understanding of yourself and bring that to bear on your subject”. This serves to show that all the bias from personal ideologies, beliefs, morals and perceptions may affect data and conclusions, but it is possible to use humanity to help in the human sciences.

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To what extent should we use our own humanity to study human behavior? -Mitch

In order to truely answer this question, a definition of humanity is needed. For the purposes of this blog post, the definition in regards to study is "any sort of intervention that is done for reasons involving emotion." Our own humanity provides a large amount of help, but it also hinders our possiblility in studying human behavior for many reasons.
A main example of how our own humanity can hinder our ability to study human behavior lies in the confirmation bias, where one searches to make their conclusions fit their data, instead of looking at the data and determining all possible meanings of this data. While we need our humanity in order to at least have a conclusion and use our emotion to decide what is most likely or we should choose, this confirmation bias causes many mistakes in sciences and leaves unreliable data. Another problem with things like this is the subject themself in social experiments, where they assume what you want and then seek to do that. They decide what your conclusion should be or what you want it to be and then adjust their behavior so that happens. It is for this reason that experimentors need to "lie" to subjects slightly, so they don't cause these kinds of errors in experiments. A prime example of this is in an experiment that so clearly shows us why we should not involve our own humanity, the Stanford Prison Experiment. First of all, the bias from the man in charge Philip Zimbardo became too obsessed with the work of the experiment and became so much a part of it that when he heard there would be a "jail break" he prepared all the "inmates" to leave to another place to keep the jail running. Also, in this same experiment, one of the "guards" admits that he thought that the experiment was to prove the depravity of people in situations of power, so he started being harsher to the inmates, showing the other side of the confirmation bias.
However, our own humanity can be very helpful when in an experiment. For example, when Brene Brown tried to conduct her experiment about human vunerability she failed to accurately understand the results she had gotten until she put her own humanity in. Although when she did, it cause her to have a bit of a "break down" showing that using your own humanity can make you more vunerable and potentially bad for you as a person, although perhaps good for the experiment. On the other hand however, when you look at things completely removed from your humanity, such as we did in our alien experiment, it causes a huge lack of understanding. There is no understanding of the culture or emotions of those we study. A big example of this in the alien experiment is what one person recorded, saying that love is a precious resource that is running out, and thus must be replaced by an alternate source or other wise planned for the lack of it. Thus, removing your humanity entirely is not a good solution either.
One area of the human sciences that particularly needs to watch out for how much humanity is involved in their experiments is pyschology. The main reason for this in pyschology is that many things they do could negatively affect people for their entire lives. Many experiments like the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Experiment which danced along the edge of morality in experiments and what could be done to acquire the information necessary caused a creation of a moral code by which pyschologists must adhere to. This of course, removes a certain amount of knowledge that can be obtained by pyschologists, but ultimately saves the sanity and mental health of the subjects, which is more important than that information.
Another thing of interest in the human sciences that benefits from humanity is looking at mental illnesses. There needs to be a certain amount of empathy and understanding that only really comes from humanity being used when looking at these illnesses. This is especially seen in the TED Talk by Elyn Saks about illness from the inside where she talks about having mental illness and managing to overcome it. She calls for people to understand the illness and have empathy instead of imprisoning those with mental illness or restraining them, and that they would then understand them better and morally be better for not causing distress to the patients.
Basically, in the end, it is better in most cases to add a bit of humanity when studying human behavior, but it is best to not use too much. Too much tends to lead to a result that is oddly inhumane for the amount of humanity used, and often a lack of information and/or understanding. Without any, however, it becomes impossible to understand basically anything involved in the human behavior.

Prompt on Human Sciences

To what extent should we use our own humanity to study human behaviour?

The moment I read the question, one question came across my mind: isn’t it impossible to study human behaviour if we don’t relate it to ourselves? The reason is because I believe that whatever kind of behaviour we are studying, will either be familiar or peculiar to us. However, it also depends on what “humanity” means. Since there is the humanity that indicates the humankind - that is, the human beings in general - and the humanity for humanness as in, the human qualities and how human we are, the way we use it to study the human behaviour can differ to a great extent. Also, does “our own humanity” mean the individual’s or the group’s as a whole? This too, can also affect the answer to the question as backgrounds and experiences of the individual must be taken in account.

When we think of behavioural studies, we picture both in group level and individual level. Because the study of human behaviours are categorized as human sciences, it is methodological. If human sciences were to be described with the metaphors of maps and stories, they can be map-knowledge due to the fact that behaviours can be generalized and seen as an overview of human behaviours, and also story-knowledge as they can pinpoint and study a specific behaviour. However, human sciences are not necessarily the same as natural sciences. They both share the word “science,” so researches are inevitably conducted but the main difference is that human sciences mainly consist of qualitative research whereas natural sciences consist of both the qualitative and the quantitative research. The qualitative research includes methods such as interviews and observations. These methods may lower the accuracy of the results and lead to low reliability and even low validity because it is unavoidably subjective.

So what does it mean to be subjective? According to Dictionary.com, the first and most general definition is “existing in the mind; belonging to the thinking subject rather than to the object of thought (opposed to objective).” Given that subjectivity is something that “belongs to the thinking subject,” we can argue that qualitative research belongs to the thinking subject. Then comes the question: how accurate is the mind when considering a thinking subject? In my view, and probably in others too, the degree of the accuracy is never going to be identifiable as the mind will always be biased. Confirmation bias is one of the biggest concepts that explains how we all interpret information differently and accordingly to our own beliefs. We have the tendency to try to comprehend facts and events in a way that makes sense to us. The reason why we all perceive differently is because we each have different experiences and stand in different positions in the society. Hence, what can happen is one’s opinion will not always correspond to another person’s opinion which can result in a clash between the two.

If humanity means both the humankind and the human qualities, the answer of the question as to whether we should use our humanity or not when studying human behaviours, can vary depending on which meaning is used. If it is the humankind, we would perhaps use our own because after all, we are studying the behaviours of our humankind. If it is the human quality, I would say we could and we couldn’t depending on the behaviour that we are focusing on. Also, if it is each of our own, then it is less likely that we should use it because our own beliefs and hypotheses may not always be reliable. On the other hand, if it is “ours” as a group, it could and maybe should be used since the theories and hypotheses have been made with an agreement prior to the studies.

One of the many areas in the human sciences is psychology. Psychology is widely known as the study of behaviours that come from the biological, cognitive, and sociocultural levels. The methods include interviews, observations, and experiments. Because psychology focuses on the behaviour of humans, it is an essential field in order to discover unrecognized facts and patterns. However, researchers aren’t computers or robots; they must always be aware of any biases and limitations when performing a research. Some past experiments have demonstrated that human nature can interfere with the research and produce unwanted and unethical results. One famous experiment conducted by Philip G. Zimbardo, called the Stanford Prison Experiment, led to disastrous and gruesome results and scarring memories for the participants. This was primarily caused by Zimbardo’s lack of care and morbid curiosities which is a quality that can be found in human beings. Another experiment that was performed by Martin Orne demonstrated that demand characteristics -- when participants act differently knowing that they are being observed -- may take part in the interference in psychological studies as well.

Additionally, I believe that there will always be limitations, such as in the interpretation of data, that could affect the results of a study. The fundamental behaviours of humans cannot always be recognized. This can be due to the fact that it is easier for our attention to go to unfamiliar behaviours, or the familiar behaviours might unintentionally be ignored. Consequently, the data can be inaccurate without the researcher knowing which brings us back to the matter of reliability and validity. As I practiced observing human behaviour by looking through the lens of an alien, I had noticed that it is hardly possible to unlink myself with other people. I would always compare their behaviours with mine, and probably have ignored a lot of behaviours that seemed normal to me. The notes I have recorded, mustn’t have been reliable nor valid because I knew I had made interpretations my own way based on my viewpoint and beliefs. I had realized that once these beliefs are shaped and formed, others will no longer be logical, and it is almost impossible to change them into another unless they make more sense.

            In conclusion, without our own humanity, I think it would not be possible to study human behaviour. For all in all, whether it is our own or our groups’, I believe that we always interpret behaviours comparing with our own, either consciously or unconsciously. However, the danger of using our own humanity is that it can almost always be biased. I don’t think that the bias will ever diminish, and studying human behaviour without humanity is unlikely to succeed, so there will always be both sides to every attempt. Nevertheless, in my view, despite that using our own humanity is risky in terms of bias, it is also a great way to study human behaviour if bias and limitations are fully taken into consideration.

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To what extent should we use our own humanity to study human behavior?

Rafaela Sabó

In order to evaluate whether or not we should use our own humanity to study human behavior, we first need to have a good notion of what types of things, ideas, ways of thinking, etc. categorize themselves as our own humanity. It is also important to categorize the purpose of each behavioral study, whether it be personal or informational, and assess the values and limitations of objectivity and subjectivity in investigating humans, and which approach could be more effective in specific areas of human behavioral studies.

There are many different approaches to studying human behavior, such as through experiments, questionnaires, or data collection through observation, but studying human behavior does not necessarily mean that the observer is trying to gather information to prove a theory; after all, not only human scientists study humans. This is where personal and informational studies differ. As curious beings, we are constantly studying human behavior through observation. Though you may not immediately associate it to behavioral studies, when you watch someone as they pass you in the hallway and make an observation, or even judge the way they walk or dress, or even a phrase they said, you are observing their behavior and describing it just as a human scientist would. The only difference is that you are not observing them in order to test a hypothesis, you are, however, doing so based on what you think is right and wrong, and ultimately based on your own humanity. To you, wearing sweatpants may be inappropriate and tacky because at home you learned that those were “stay-at-home” clothes, but through past experience, the person wearing them may have learned that those are the most effective pants to keep you warm and comfortable during the winter. In this instance, both persons’ individual humanities influenced their personal outfit choices and the way they reacted toward each other’s. Now, what exactly is our own humanity? Our humanities are reflections of how our experiences have shaped our ways of thinking and seeing the world. Ultimately, they are our schemas, or the knowledge we use when entering a situation. This knowledge is highly subjective, for it is directly affected by how we were raised, our socioeconomic status, our emotion, the education we received, our customs and culture, our religion, and even our language, among other things. What is difficult to realize, however, is that the degree of subjectivity with which we observe things in both personal and informational studies can be very limiting when used for studying someone’s behavior.

Our personal outlook on the world is affected by hundreds of factors that affect our perception, or our way of interpreting what is around us. Language, for example, has a huge impact on our perception because each language determines how we live our lives. The English language runs on the metaphor that “time is money”, now while this may seem like a miniscule statement, it actually dictates part of how we live because extending from that one metaphor comes phrases that we live by: “waste of my time” or “I’m running on borrowed time”. These phrases make us inclined to believe that everything must be done efficiently and with a purpose, but is that to say that all societies run that way? No, which is why our own humanities can be so limiting. How can we rely solely on our humanities if it sets up our thinking in a particular manner, making it the only way we really know how to observe something? We can, but we should not. We should use our schemas effectively in human behavioral studies. While for personal studies it may not really matter, though it may make you judge someone unfairly, when trying to prove a theory about human behavior, using your schema effectively plays a huge factor in the reliability of your study, because then any other human scientist will be able to reach the same results as you did.

The human sciences are an extremely complex area of knowledge that rely heavily on assumptions and interpretations of patterns in the various areas of study, such as psychology, sociology, anthropology and economics, all of which study human behavior, though each in different contexts. Human scientists in each field use their own humanities in individual ways to give their data more credibility. Looking at things very objectively, the human sciences can be considered less reliable that the natural sciences, because the natural sciences are very objective and their evidence very concrete, while the human sciences are quite the opposite. This however, cannot be considered completely true, for the human sciences, like the natural sciences, use the scientific method, so they approach truth just as much as the natural sciences. Philosopher Thomas Kuhn also states that science can never truly be objective because scientific knowledge is simply knowledge of the nature of objects, as we perceive them, therefore conveying that both sciences are limited. In human sciences, however, no evidence or results from human behavioral studies can ever be 100% concrete because it is impossible to take into consideration all aspects of someone’s humanity to explain why they are acting the way they are. In psychology, even though nowadays we have functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow, no technology available is able to tell scientists if the person’s behavior is being affected by their morals, a past experience they had, or any other number of factors that could affect them. This makes the data collected a lot harder to interpret objectively because the scientist must make assumptions and educated inferences to come to a conclusion. This, however, does not mean that the human sciences are less valid than the natural sciences; it is just a means of justifying the scientists’ use of their own humanity. In the Stanford Prison Study, for example, the prisoners often conformed to their roles and did as they were told by any of the prison guards. The psychologist behind the study, Philip Zimbardo, took note of this pattern and drew conclusions from his observations, but he cannot be completely sure of why the prisoners acted this way. In this case, Zimbardo had to use his own humanity to try to explain why the volunteers were acting in such manners; he had to apply the knowledge he already had about hierarchy and inferiority to make generalizations about human behavior. Though the study cannot be deemed 100% accurate, it is still considered to be a major study that demonstrates the obedience of people and the power of authority.

All in all, it is appropriate to use our own humanity to study human behavior for personal studies in most situations because each person has different morals, so no one can tell them when it is or is not appropriate to judge someone. For informational studies (meaning studies conducted by human scientists in order to prove a theory), however, our humanity should only be used to a certain extent. As seen through the Alien Lens activity, when you observe a society strictly objectively, you often misinterpret everything, leading to inconclusive information. You can’t disregard humanity, not yours, and not anyone else’s, which is why you must use your humanity effectively. In order to get conclusive data from your studies you must try to use your own humanity to understand everyone else’s, but must use it only to a certain extent so your personal bias does not interfere with your observations. What this means is that you should not use your humanity to judge people based off what you think is normal or abnormal, but should use the knowledge you already have to make assumptions that you can adapt to the culture that is being observed. So, for example, if you were studying the Karen Hill Tribe of Thailand, rather than simply label their customs, such as wearing neck rings, abnormal, you would use your humanity to try to understand its significance. Of course not only our humanity will be able to explain its significance; we must still use the various types of approaches to draw conclusions. Together with other approaches, personal humanities can help human scientists in their field of work, but only when used without letting their judgment interfere with the results.

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