Studying human behavior is essential to understanding how we
live. However, we must learn how to effectively study human behavior. We must
use our humanity to study human behavior, only discarding it when analyzing
specific behavioral aspects. Even though the Alien Lens activity done in class proves
that discarding our humanity helps us understand and criticize certain
behaviors in our society, the Brene Brown Ted Talk proved that using our
humanity helps us better analyze human behavior and further improve our lives.
The Alien Lens activity done in class strengthens the
hypothesis that we have to ignore our humanity to study human behavior. We were
assigned to write about 10 things we observed during the week through the eyes
of an alien who has no idea what human behavior is like; has no humanity. The
results we came up with were fascinating. For example, someone observed that
humans carry around slaves with tags around their necks for identification. The
slaves observed by the ‘alien’ are in fact dogs. People never think that having
a pet dog could be seen like this. We see dogs as household pets that are part
of the family, but we don’t realize that it’s plausible that owning a dog can
be seen through the perspective of having a slave. If you think about it, it
can create a feeling inside of you that want to ignore, which is going to be
explored soon. Ignoring our humanity to study human behavior can be advantageous
to study other groups that might be isolated from our so-called ‘civilized
society’. By discarding what we know about human behavior, we see what an
isolated group does with fresh eyes, not judging or criticizing what they do
based on what we believe is right or wrong. For example, if we encounter a group
that kills dogs for food, we might understand them as barbaric who kill
innocent dogs. If we discard our humanity, we will see the group in a
completely different way. We might see them as people who kill an animal for
meat, just like almost every group we know, including ourselves. Using our humanity
can mislead us in some cases, leaving us conclusions that might be completely
equivocated.
However, using our humanity is vital while analyzing humans
we already have a basic understanding of. In a Ted Talk, Brene Brown talks specifically
about vulnerability. She highlights that embracing vulnerability leads a person
to being ‘whole-hearted’. She researches vulnerability by interviewing people
and interpreting their answers using her humanity. When she starts to think
that vulnerability is key to life, she has a breakdown because it goes against
everything she has lived for. She sees a therapist, which analyzes her
breakdown using her humanity to give answers to Brown. She says that by seeing someone else that uses
his or her humanity to interpret what she’s thinking helped her enlighten and
embrace vulnerability, which leads her to conclude her research. In her
interviews, she interprets people’s answers using what she already knows about
human behavior. This leads her to conclude that vulnerability leads to feelings
of joy and compassion. When we try to drown our unwanted, vulnerable feelings
in alcohol or bury them in food, we also stop thinking about good feelings,
those of joy and compassion. By using her humanity in her interviews and the
humanity of her therapist on herself, she gained a better understanding of
human behavior. Using our humanity to study human behavior is essential for
further analysis of how our society works. We can’t just ignore what we know
about a society in order to study them. We have to be careful with confirmation
bias, though. Sometimes, by using our humanity, we might seek for the answer
that we want, and not that we need. Confirmation bias can play a role in a
human behavior study when a researcher wants to prove something specific, then
he or she seeks to find that proof using different experiments. This is
dangerous because, even if the result is the one that we want, it may not be
correct. If we choose to study human behavior using our humanity, we must be cautious
that confirmation bias doesn’t get in the way of getting us the result that we
need and desire.
Using our humanity to study human behavior is the best way to
study societies that are already known by us, however, not using our humanity
can be effective when studying cultures that we don’t know of. Brene Brown,
through her Ted Talk, explores how she found the answer to living with joy and
compassion through vulnerability, and she got to that conclusion by using her
humanity. Nevertheless, the Alien Lens activity done in class proved that not
using our humanity to study human behavior might open some doors that, even if
we don’t want them open, they must be revealed.
Word Count: 813
Nice job, Gui. You've written a clear response, shown two points of view, shown a sense of reader-awareness, elaborated two responses, used a ToK term, and reached a conclusion. I am so happy to see that you have the basic skeleton of a ToK response under control. The next step is to begin layering more complexity on top of this skeleton, which is strong enough to hang many more ideas and examples on. 1) You first need to find more examples. You have the alien lens explanation, on which you've done a really good job, and you apply it to people eating dogs, which works pretty well. But you need to get a final example in that vein of something real from an actual human science. That would get you full points for that paragraph. 2) Then you need to get the same kind of real example for the Brene Brown paragraph. Again, you've done a great job illustrating your understanding of her work, and this definitely helps answer the question, but for this to work you've get to test it against a real example. What about the Milgram experiment? What would Brene Brown say about that? Or maybe you came across another study when you were reseraching and reading in class. 3) Try to incorporate key ideas from chapter 18 (check your notes), especially validity, reliability, and generalizability. 4) Make a clear link to one of the ways of knowing 5) Introduce at least one more ToK idea (you have "confirmation bias." What else would apply here? Flip through your textbook. 5) Consider more than one meaning for the word "humanity." Follow the implications of the other definition as well.
ReplyDeleteYou're a good writer, Gui, and a clear thinker. If you did everything I've outlined, you could actually get an A.