Psychology and Human Behavior
Recently, I’ve been taking a psychology class on how human behavior affects the environment and how the environment affects human behavior. I’m learning many different approaches or models for studying the exact same situation or person. So far, I’ve found each of them lacking the kind of depth and breadth found in the LMA system. In LMA, we try to take into account the many different layers of context—both for the environment and for the person or persons we are studying.
The best compromise I’ve been able to come is a combination of ecological psychology, cognitive psychology, and behavioral psychology. I feel that all three aspects would be important to gaining a full picture of the information I am gathering and that without one of those layers, I would be losing something. For instance, while an individual’s perception of himself or herself is very valuable information (cognitive), when that individual is placed in an actual situation, they may not act congruently with how they believe they will act (behavioral).
The Grandmother and the Punk: A Surprising Story
For instance, I remember my grandmother always complained about the “punks” she saw at the mall, on the street and in the grocery store. She would tell me that if she ever ran into one, she would give him or her a piece of her mind. However, one year, I went to prom with my friend Tony, a “punk” with a bright red mohawk. My parents asked that he come to my house to meet them before the big night.
I’m sure you can imagine my anticipation and worry over him meeting my grandmother. He drove me home from school one day and when we got to my house, my grandmother was sitting out on the porch, waiting. I remember cringing and imagining the scene that would follow.
No sooner had he parked than Tony was out of the car, up the porch steps and introducing himself to her. By the time I reached them, they were already having a friendly conversation. And, up until she died, my grandmother frequently asked how my friend with the red hair was doing.
So, even though my grandmother expressed her own words great animosity toward anyone “punk,” she loved Tony, who was and is the epitome of the punk subculture. She considered him a great friend after talking with him for five minutes on our front porch. In this situation the cognitive and behavioral results were incongruent. The ways my grandmother claimed she would act (rude and unfriendly) and how she did actually behave (polite and friendly) were in direct opposition to one another. If we only looked at how she claimed she would act, we would say that my grandmother does not like the punk subculture and she would not tolerate any member of said subculture. If we only looked at how she behaved, we would say that my grandmother was friendly and perhaps even liked the punk subculture. Which, then, is true?
What Do We Take from This?
The answer is that both interpretations are true. The context, which has not been looked at yet, provides some answers as to why. People never think or behave inside a vacuum. In my grandmother’s case, she was raised in a very strict background, where putting yourself on display was considered tantamount to a crisis. When my grandmother was young, my great-grandmother slapped her across the face for wearing lipstick. Later in life, when my own mother wore nail polish my grandmother made a snide remark about my mother “wanting attention.”
Considering that background, it is not hard to see why a subculture, like the punk subculture, which strides with a purpose away from cultural norms would ride on the nerves of my grandmother who saw such behavior as negative. Naturally, my grandmother would think her way of behaving toward someone of the punk subculture would be negative because it espouses something that goes directly against her own value system.
However, when she actually met Tony, the “punk,” she behaved very differently. Again, the missing piece here is the context. First, she was sitting on my parent’s porch listening to the birds and watching the plant life move in the breeze—something that set her naturally at ease. Then, when Tony approached, he went to her directly and as they talked he seemed to genuinely care about the things she said. While this was unexpected for her, she followed the precedent he set and was friendly in return. They ended up developing a natural rapport and mutual respect for one another quickly. In this instance, the environment was one my grandmother was comfortable in and she was greeted in a friendly manner.
When we put all three of these together, we get a very full picture of my grandmother—how she thinks about herself, how she behaves and how certain contexts affect her. Each has important information to tell about her, and by leaving one out, we would leave out important information.
The LMA Perspective
Individuals are not one-dimensional, or even two-dimensional. Individuals are multi-dimensional and so the decision-making process they use is complex and unique to each of them.
This brings me to a paper by Ed Groff that dealt with a similar topic. The paper began with several “scenarios” like this:
A man is running, he is leaning slightly forward, reaching in large strides, arms bent at the elbow but swinging freely at the shoulders. His brow is furrowed and his face is tense. He is glistening with sweat and does not veer from his forward pathway.
This man is:
- returning home from an evening at the opera
- late for his bus
- being chased by a large dog
- on his way to the grocery store
- crossing the street (Groff, 1989, p. 3)
I picked “B.” So obvious, I thought to myself at the time. I was shocked when the answer was any or none of the above. Groff makes the point that without the full context of the situation it is impossible to tell why the individual might be acting this way. It is a not a one to one ratio—that A always equals B—as many “body language” theories espouse. The context of the person being observed is important, just as important as what they are doing.
So, to fully analyze and understand a situation, it is necessary to understand the person or people being analyzed, what their behavior actually is, and the environment they are being analyzed in. And that, is what I believe the LMA system is all about.
Groff, Ed. (1989). Procedings from Eurolab Conference March 1989: Creative Perception: Movement and the Meaning Making Process. Berlin: Ed Groff.
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