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

Luiz Felipe Vidigal Araujo

ToK Block 6

Human behavior is studied by the Human Sciences. Under this AoK, there are many other branches that look at specific parts of human behavior: There is Psychology, which by its definition studies the mind and its functions; Anthropology which is the study of human kind; Economics which studies the production, consumption and transfer of wealth; and finally, Sociology, which studies the structure and development of human society. Basically, the human sciences consist of humans studying what makes them humans, right? Therefore, we can assume that there is some humanity involved in the study, which brings us to the question: to what extent should we use our own humanity to study human behavior? 

Who could be better to understand humans than humans themselves? Still, scientists debate whether or not the humanity involved in a scientific study can affect its outcome. The Verstehen Position actually protects the humanity involved in a study, and even claims that it is necessary to fully understand another human being. We can very much confirm this position when looking at the Alien Experiment. In this activity, the objective was to look at human behavior is the most objective possible way, as if we didn’t know what was going on. On my report, attitudes that were simple, with obvious purposes, were completely misinterpreted, what clearly demonstrates that the Verstehen Position is valid. So, although humanness may be necessary for scientific studies of humans, it can, sometimes, interfere with the results, on what is called the confirmation bias. In general terms, confirmation bias is a person’s tendency to favor information that confirms his or her hypothesis, like, for example, when a student naturally looks for information that confirms his/her ideas, disregarding any possible contradictions. Scientists that are passionately involved in their study can fall into this trap and go on a slippery slope. 

Passion and standpoints can critically shape our perspective. This time looking at history, it is interesting to see how a person’s background/opinions may interfere on how they look at a study. Although History may not be considered a science, some people claim otherwise. In Brazilian Social Studies (BSS) there is a very interesting distinction between History, with an upper case, and history, with a lowercase. In spite of the fact that both words are the same, History has a scientific connotation, invoking further analysis of history. Therefore, we analyze history, the facts themselves, to make History. When looking at History, it is interesting to see how language can drastically affect a study. For instance, talking about the arrival of the portuguese in Brazil, there are two streams of taught as to what happened on April 22nd, 1500. One of them being descobrimento (discovering) and the other being achamento (finding). Without having any background knowledge, it may be hard to understand how such similar words can bring so much conflict to a BSS class. Well, because history is not black and white (it is gray), there are different interpretations as to what happened on this event. With that in mind, people who believe in the descobrimento claim that the portuguese were not aware of the existence of Brazil, therefore the term discovering is applicable, whereas people who believe in the achamento claim that there were people living in the Brazilian territory before the portuguese arrived, therefore Portugal only found the land. Both concepts are perfectly right, but, because some people can feel very intimate about historic events, a person’s humanity may interfere in which term they would use. Someone who believes in the sovereign of the Portuguese would likely use the term descobrimento while a person who believes that the land naturally belonged to the Indians would use the term achamento. This might seem like a pointless debate, but the two words bring such a different connotation to the event that there will be an ongoing historic debate between the two perspectives. 

As we’ve seen, humanity does interfere in the way we interpret things and how we study them. There is a very unique experiment that happened once at Stanford University, the Stanford Prison Study, now illegal due to the many ethical violations, which revolutionized the field of Psychology. This experiment basically wanted to observe what happens when you put good people in an evil place. The researchers found out that while the guards could behave sadistically  under their role, prisoners were also feeling repressed, even though all of the participants were aware that it was an experiment. Interestingly enough, even the professor who conducted the experiment, Philip Zimbardo, caught himself being part of the psychological changes that were taking part in the prison. That leads us to a knowledge question, as to whether or not, the fact that the experimenter got involved in the experiment affected the outcome of it. There were times when students, who were participating as prisoners, requested to leave the experiment. Because of the way Zimbardo reacted to the request, the experiment kept on going. Of course, because of the deep psychological trauma that it was causing, the experiment only lasted 6 days, when it was supposed to last 2 weeks. That being said, the experiment would’ve lasted even shorter if it wasn’t for Zimbardo’s role playing. Therefore, it is possible to say that, the fact that Zimbardo’s humanity caught him in his own experiment, makes it much more credible since it further extended the experiment and produced such drastic results. This is also tied to the Verstehen Position, since Zimbardo’s humanity was essential to produce such results. 

After all, it is almost impossible to mention a study of the Human Sciences which does not involve any humanity at all, since, even to start a research, there must be human effort in the first place. At this point, I can even say that my own humanity influenced me to write this blog post using the previous facts to either support or attack my knowledge claims. Of course, I’ve used these examples because I feel more intimate with them, adding a humanness to may blog post. Now, answering the question to what extent should we use our own humanity to study human behavior? Well, although humanity should be used to the point that it either enhances the results of a study, like in the Stanford Prison Experiment, or creates a debatable standpoint, like in BSS, it should be obliterated when it has the potential to affect the outcome to an extent that it would not reflect the truth, slippery slope of the confirmation bias. 

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