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

The study of humans has only recently been considered a science, thanks to psychology’s integration of biology into its methods of study. Previously it was simply viewed as a philosophical approach to human behavior, since it was believed that no controlled experiments or accurate theories could be made. Many still do not consider this a “true science” due to its methodology and the inconsistency of the themes being studied, resulting in a lack of precision, which is so crucial to the natural sciences. The human sciences incorporates various areas of study, such as psychology, sociology, anthropology and economics, all of which study the human behavior in comparison to each other, the environment they live in, their culture, etc. However, a human scientist must always consider his humanity, as both an asset that hinders and helps his profession. Our humanity is the quality that isolates us from other living things in the planet. It is a composition of our background, schema, culture, morals and everything else that defines us as a unique human being. Although our humanity may be essential to study and understand human behavior, it is also interferes with the process since it is corrupted by our personal judgment, therefore a balance of both sides must be reached in order to achieve an accurate conclusion or theory.

Some common implications human scientist must always be aware of are personal bias, a community’s change in behavior and moral dilemmas, which most of the time are interrelated factors. For example, what a social scientist sees as ethical might not match the view of the culture being studied. The scientist’s humanity has been developed throughout many years by various factors, which subconsciously prevents him from regarding the group with his own point of view. According to the theory of cultural relativism, present in sociology and anthropology, a human’s behavior, beliefs, actions, etc. are deeply related to his/her culture. Therefore two people with distinct backgrounds will have a different perspective of the world due to the environment they were brought up in. This theory can vary according to the numerous definitions of culture and what makes someone part of it or not. It also suggests that people from the same culture have similar way of thinking, but this can be debated. Regardless, this is a major limitation, since scientists must try to push aside natural instincts in order to allow a culture to behave intuitively, or else the data gathered will be defiled by their personal interference. A second scenario is the human scientist becoming so involved in the experiment or in the culture that his scientific point of view is lost.

There can also be ethical implications when performing experiments on other humans. As seen on the Milgram experiment of obedience, people would be depicted as doctors and command volunteers to shock actors disguised as volunteers. The authority presented by a man in a lab coat coaxed people to obey his instructions. Nowadays, with regulations that prevent experiments such as Milgram’s to be performed, the question that arises is: what is considered moral and is that universal? As mentioned before, what seems correct for a culture can be regarded as the complete opposite for another.

Additionally, people who are being watched tend to act differently as compared to when they are alone or in their usual environment, in order to impress those observing them. This phenomenon can be seen in Hawthorne’s Effect, which was a consequence of an experiment that measured if brighter or dimmer lights had any effect on an assembly line’s production. The results showed that the women in the factories performed better in all occasions, no matter the brightness of the light. Simply by being observed, they acted differently in order to impress those around them. Although the results were discarded, the effect that the experiment produced is used until today. For example, when a principal walks into your classroom during an oral presentation, you are more likely to try to impress this authority figure by speaking up, improving your posture and seeming overall more engaged. This effect makes observing human behavior more complicated since it distorts the data gathered, because people do not act ‘naturally’ while being watched.

            However, as seen through the “Alien Lens,” a human scientist cannot simply disregard his humanity while studying human behavior. In this experiment each student had to observe a common ‘human’ activity and describe it through the eyes of someone completely unaware of our customs and conduct. For example, to describe the human schedule I wrote “human beings follow a strict routine with set times and activities, but are allowed to break this schedule every five day during the ‘weekend’.” During this activity we noticed that by removing our prior knowledge, a great barrier is created during the description of the activities. Three different possibilities could arise from each observation: it could be accurate, misinterpreted or have an unintended judgmental tone to it. Our objective, almost scientific approach, in the activity prevented us from understanding the symbolism or reasoning present in the human life and what each action meant for the person. Therefore our humanity is also essential when observing human behavior, since there are certain practices that are pertinent to the human race, such as sleeping, eating, reproducing, which may be completely misunderstood by outsiders.  This comparison, however, can also be applied to observation within the human race as well. For example, when the colonizers arrived in Brazil during the 1500s, they were quick to judge each tribe by claiming they were deceitful for walking around naked and one document, written by Pero Magalhães Gandavo in 1576, even suggested that they did not know the meaning of the words fé, rei and lei (faith, king and law), since the letters f, r and l were absent from their vocabulary. This goes to show that to understand a culture one must comprehend the reasoning behind each action.

The study of human behavior is mostly based on data, theories and experiments, conducted by humans themselves. Data can be gained through various methods such as interviews, surveys and through observation. Each method has its own strengths and weaknesses, however, to determine the accuracy of the conclusion, a human scientist can check for its reliability. This simply means that the information gathered can be replicated when the experiment is preformed again.  Therefore, the human sciences must make use of the confirmation of theories by other human scientists, while disregarding a single social reality as well. By accepting a single definition and, consequently, eliminating all other possible descriptions for a social reality, a human scientist is essentially isolating himself from different interpretations. This may result in an ignorant point of view, since the person regards his own conclusion as the ‘ultimate truth.’

In conclusion, humanity is a key factor when studying human behavior, since it both enhances and disables a human scientist’s ability to gather data, experiment and observe. By completely disregarding this trait, scientists must approach the study with an objective point of view, which removes the philosophical and symbolic aspects present in the human sciences. On the other hand, by relying excessively on humanity to obtain information, a scientist’s personal bias and judgment will interfere with the process and distort the data collected.

Word count: 1210