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Application of Logic to Understand Social Behavior

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oceandrop
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22 Jul 2011, 9:27 pm

Does anybody else attempt to understand the behavior of others and themselves through diagrams? I made this for example to help explain why one extremely competitive person in my life always compared himself obsessively with others and became so angry and upset when he 'lost' and so incredibly happy when he 'won'. After reading a lot of things both in religion/spirituality and in psychology, and making this my special interest for a while, I have reached the diagram below, which may be subject to further revision but I think covers the gist of what is going on.

I now understand better why 'Pride' is understood in practically every religion to be the source of countless human miseries and the root of many other sins including rivalry, envy, jealousy, etc.

What do you think?

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oceandrop
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22 Jul 2011, 9:57 pm

Perhaps then I am losing my mind altogether!



Buck-oh
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22 Jul 2011, 10:21 pm

oceandrop wrote:
Perhaps then I am losing my mind altogether!


It explains the behavior, but on a really superficial level. It's a great illustration of a general pattern, but it's more effective if you can find what caused that pattern of behavior in the first place. If someone's self-esteem is that strongly linked to competition, there's an issue there that goes well beyond simple human nature. At that point, a person with that much invested in winning may be confusing their esteem issues with perceived acceptance by peers, parents, authority figures, and members of the opposite sex.

Some people play games as an excuse for social activities and don't really care whether they win or lose, others are way too focused on winning. If someone puts an outrageous value on winning, then there's a lot more at stake than just the game.



oceandrop
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22 Jul 2011, 10:56 pm

Buck-oh wrote:
oceandrop wrote:
Perhaps then I am losing my mind altogether!


It explains the behavior, but on a really superficial level. It's a great illustration of a general pattern, but it's more effective if you can find what caused that pattern of behavior in the first place. If someone's self-esteem is that strongly linked to competition, there's an issue there that goes well beyond simple human nature. At that point, a person with that much invested in winning may be confusing their esteem issues with perceived acceptance by peers, parents, authority figures, and members of the opposite sex.

Some people play games as an excuse for social activities and don't really care whether they win or lose, others are way too focused on winning. If someone puts an outrageous value on winning, then there's a lot more at stake than just the game.


Yes true. In fact this particular person was a middle child among 9 or so very competitive brothers. I strongly suspect sibling rivalry and ultimately competition for the mother's/father's love and affection played a strong role in establishing this pattern of behavior. The sentiment of 'Pride' -- that is the belief/desire to prove oneself better than others -- ultimately became part of an effort to prove oneself worthy of a love and acceptance that had to be earned through competition in childhood.



SammichEater
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22 Jul 2011, 11:05 pm

I like where you're going with this. Have any more of these human behavior charts?


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MountainLaurel
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23 Jul 2011, 12:26 am

I think the self esteem portions of the diagram are in error. Self esteem is intrinsicly SELF esteem and is not gained or lost through winning, losing or any type of comaprison with others.

While I agree that pride is the great stumbling block, your diagram is only 1/2 of the picture, the negative half. The other half involves humility (the positive half).

The qualities from which humility flows are:
observance & acceptance of what is (giving up our illusion of control of everything but ourselves)
acknowledgement of & peace with one's own flawed nature
taking responsibility for our own choices & actions, (both good and bad)
understanding that the world owes us nothing
forgiveness of the self & others
honest observance of the self (taking honest personal inventory, not comparisons to others)

From humility flows SELF esteem (peace with one's OWN self).



oceandrop
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23 Jul 2011, 7:37 am

MountainLaurel wrote:
I think the self esteem portions of the diagram are in error. Self esteem is intrinsicly SELF esteem and is not gained or lost through winning, losing or any type of comaprison with others.

While I agree that pride is the great stumbling block, your diagram is only 1/2 of the picture, the negative half. The other half involves humility (the positive half).

The qualities from which humility flows are:
observance & acceptance of what is (giving up our illusion of control of everything but ourselves)
acknowledgement of & peace with one's own flawed nature
taking responsibility for our own choices & actions, (both good and bad)
understanding that the world owes us nothing
forgiveness of the self & others
honest observance of the self (taking honest personal inventory, not comparisons to others)

From humility flows SELF esteem (peace with one's OWN self).


Thanks for the input. I agree humility is the flipside to all this. Basically I would put the whole of the diagram I posted above into a box and call it a false paradigm that many people subscribe to. There are different paradigms that different people subscribe to which influence their self-esteem. A dedicated artist may hinge their self-esteem on producing works of art that are highly appraised, whilst a religious person may hinge their self-esteem on living according to what they believe is in line with God's good pleasure. The proud man however hinges his self-esteem on positive comparisons with others, and the consequences are ultimately competition and enmity with the fellow man.



Last edited by oceandrop on 23 Jul 2011, 8:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

oceandrop
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23 Jul 2011, 7:40 am

SammichEater wrote:
I like where you're going with this. Have any more of these human behavior charts?


Thanks. Yes, here's what I think embarrassment is and where it comes from. I did not experience embarrassment or blushing etc. until almost twenty years old and I believe it was due to massive delays in the first few steps due to impaired Theory of Mind.

Image

The social conditioning part I think comes after having experienced embarrassment and the pathways in the brain for it are established. For example I knew that not having enough money or having a card rejected at a check out when shopping was associated with embarrassment. Although the logical part of our brains may not think too much of this (e.g. we may know that we have enough funds in the bank), we learn that this is a supposedly 'embarrassing' situation and therefore may experience embarrassment due to habit/social conditioning.



Moog
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23 Jul 2011, 8:14 am

These are interesting. I like flow charts myself.

I'll be poring over what you've posted when my brain is in the mood to work.


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