Abstract
Friends, environment, and culture influence our behaviors. An individual’s behavior comprises of a range of physical acts and visible emotions. The variables that are closely connected with our everyday life are music, media, and culture. As such, the three variables influence aggressive behaviors. The article below focuses on the variables in a bid to understand their relationships with aggression. As such, the article’s hypothesis states that music, media, and culture have an impact on violent behaviors. The research question seeks to analyze these variables enhance aggression. Several scholars have investigated the effects resulting from the above factors. Several psychology books have identified numerous causes of violent behaviors. All these pieces of literatures agree that because there are several variables involved, aggression varies from one region to another and from one person to another. In the proposal, the works of the researchers who have examined these features are analyzed. The research findings will be very beneficial for future studies. They will provide a basis for examining how aggressive behaviors are influenced by external factors. Consequently, future inquiries should explore more variables that affect aggressive behaviors. Similarly, scholars should probe how the understanding of each feature can be used in managing and preventing violent activities. If a comprehensive study is undertaken in the future, all the external factors that influence aggression will be understood. The findings will be useful for the psychologists, rehabilitation centers, and people affected by the behavior.
Introduction
Human behavior is a product of a range of various interrelated factors that walk alongside with our lives starting with the early childhood and is even thought to be closely related to genetics and predicted by it (Hartwell, 2014). Thus, it can be concluded that people’s behavior is always under the influence of people around us, environment, culture and other things that cannot be excluded from our lives (Kierkus & Baer, 2002). The effect produced by them is considered by many scholars; however, they still have not come to the irreversible decision. We pointed out three variables that are tightly connected with everyday life and go along with us wherever we are. These are music, media and culture – things that every person is aware of and understands. We develop a hypothesis that human behavior changes in the course of a lifetime, because it is influenced by music one listens to, media the person perceives, and culture he/she inherits. This issue is important as the knowledge of the reasons of some kinds of people’s behavior provides individuals with the opportunity to reduce the adverse impacts and become more independent in the decision-making and actions (Rost, 2002).
Literature Review
Of course, we are not the only ones who investigate this issue that is why in our study we refer to the works of the researchers, who examined the influence made on the human behavior.
In her article, Tropeano focuses on the influence provided on people by the music they listen to and music videos they watch. She also found that “watching the violent music video containing violent lyrics, aggressive behavior, and degrading behaviors toward women did make an individual feel and react more violently with regards to responses to questions about fictitious scenarios” (Tropeano, 2011). According to this research, it becomes obvious that even one’s musical tastes have a great impact on the personality and actions of a person, which supports our hypothesis.
Media is the factor that recently started to affect people’s behavior at a great rate. Paek, Gunther, McLeod and Hove focus on the issue using the example of smoking decisions made by adolescence and their connection with media. They distinguish that the majority of peers are influenced by antismoking messages in predicting adolescent smoking attitudes and behavior (Paek, Gunther, McLeod, & Hove, 2011). After the evaluation of the gained dada the authors came up to a decision that media is really a great tool for antismoking campaigns, which proves that it has an immense influence on people, as media surrounds them whenever and wherever they are.
We all exist in the particular society, and its members render us the values of the culture while interacting with us. Thus, it influences our behavior, thoughts, and actions. Matsumoto claims that culture “emerges from the connection between the ecological context and basic human nature, and the way in which social roles are determined by culture-specific psychological meanings attributed to situational contexts” (Matsumoto, 2007). He also comes to the conclusion that every day people play some specific roles that are expected of them by the society; the performance of the roles differs due to various cultures, but the influence stays unchanged.
Hypotheses
After considering the information received from these articles, several hypotheses can be made. People who listen to calm music receive positive impact as it helps them to compose themselves while those who prefer sharp and disturbing melodies gain detrimental effect. Under the influence of media, people change their attitudes and decisions, which reflects on the behavior. Human behavior alters, because it is affected by the values of the culture that one is taught.
Taking into consideration everything mentioned above, we can prove that human behavior is not constant. It changes due to the influences from the outer world even though we do not always realize this. As music, media and culture are inalienable parts of our life, they are the ones that affect it the most.
Conclusion
Human behavior comprises of a range of physical acts and visible emotions associated with persons. While certain traits of one’s character may be more constant, other conducts will vary as a person transitions from birth through maturity. Other than being influenced by time and heredities, behavior is an understanding of an individual’s attitudes and values. In the article, three variables that are associated with our everyday life are analyzed. They are music, media, and culture. Among the three variables, culture is the most significant predictor of the research question. Culture refers to a system of collective values and beliefs held by community members. As such, it determines how humans interact. Culture influences aggressive behaviors. In societies, distinct values and beliefs affect our behaviors, thoughts, and actions. For example, children brought up in a violent culture tend to exhibit aggressive behaviors and thoughts. Notably, aggressive behaviors vary from one region to another. Human behavior varies because it is affected by the values of the culture that one is taught. The disparities illustrate that cultures play a huge role in how members exhibit aggressive behaviors. An understanding these variations is significant because it enables persons to manage aggression and reduce its adverse impacts
The research findings will be very useful for future studies. It will offer a basis for analyzing how aggressive behaviors are influenced by external factors. Therefore, future investigations should investigate other variables that affect aggressive behaviors. The three factors identified in the research are part of many causes of violent behavior. Similarly, researchers should examine how the understanding of each feature can be used in mitigating violent conducts. The results of the study will be utilized by psychologists and people affected by violent acts. The findings will offer means of managing and preventing the issues associated with the behavior.
References
Hartwell, H. (2014). Behaviour change. Perspectives in Public Health, 134(1), 1-15.
Kierkus, C. & Baer, D. (2002). A social control explanation of the relationship between family structure and delinquent behaviour. Canadian Journal of Criminology, 44(4), 32-70.
Matsumoto, D. (2007). Culture, context, and behavior. Journal of Personality, 75(6), 1285-1320.
Paek, H., Gunther, A., McLeod, D., & Hove, T. (2011). How adolescents’ perceived media influence on peers affects smoking decisions. The Journal of Consumer Affairs, 45(1), 123-146.
Rost, J. (2002). When personality questionnaires fail to be unidimensional. Psychologische Beiträge, 44(1), 108-125.
Tropeano, E. (2011). Does rap or rock music provoke violent behavior? Journal of Undergraduate Psychological Research, 1(1), 31-34.