#Human Behavior

[myfandomrealitea]

Fireworks and balloons are actually a perfect example of human entitlement in terms of "my right to enjoyment outweighs the consequences and risks even to other people."

Like the environmental impact alone of fireworks and balloons are well documented as devastating but people will still threaten to kill you for suggesting only silent fireworks should be sold or that balloon releases should be recategorized as illegal.

I think the one that really gets me is when people insist on defending balloon releases in honor of the dead despite the fact that people, animals and nature over-all have been killed and suffer due to them.

[we-are-ignited]

One of my favorite “weirdly human” things is when you don’t necessarily believe in something but you still respect it/wont fuck with it.

Idk it feels so…distinctly human and it’s my favorite thing

[soulinkpoetry]

This makes so much sense.

.

[mace-waz-here]

One of the things I love about us humans is how easily we attach to things. Whether it be alive or not, we will feel such a strong surge of love for a thing that we treat it like a kid. Pets, stuffed animals, plants, even books and computers. We’re so quick to call anything our baby, or at least act like it just so long as we feel a connection with it. For the most part at least, I think we all, even if we don’t want kids, have an evolutionary parental instinct, and especially after puberty, we will see anything cute or that we love and let that instinct take over

An even less physical example of this is people latching onto characters like this. A character they particularly related to especially, if not already a kid. And we do it with things that can be very much so older than us.

[jolikmc-thoughts]

I love it when people say that doing something in a fantasy setting means that you want to do that same something in reality. If that were the case, then…

Anyone who plays Super Mario Bros. wants to curb-stomp real turtles and set things on fire.

Anyone who plays Minecraft wants to punch real trees and force real animals to breed while they watch.

Anyone who plays Call of Duty wants to do a 360°-no-scope on actual human beings.

Anyone who plays Animal Crossing wants to give a bunch of money to a real-life raccoon.

Anyone who plays Stardew Valley wants to make a real farm, kill real bugs in a real mine, and give their real friends and neighbors the same gift twice a week in hopes of becoming closer.

Yes-good. Very logical. Mm-hmm.

[she-is-ovarit]

Regularly venting about other people or judging others for mistakes or miscommunications in a negative light persistently, especially within a workplace, is a behavior that I hope becomes unlearned. It's contagious and if we catch ourselves doing it, we shouldn't lean in. It creates in-groups and out-groups, creates an environment in which everyone including those venting feel unsafe, and just generally lacks a trauma-informed perspective.

I'm not talking about venting and judgement that may be a proportionate response to sexual harassment or other exploitive behavior. But someone slacking at their job duties because they're understaffed and/or overworked, misunderstanding an email or a conversation, forgetting details mentioned in a meeting, etc.—these are all very human errors which may occur especially during the flaring up of traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, illnesses or disabilities, exhaustion, side effects of medications, and so on.

Venting, casting judgement, blaming, etc. creates distrust and lack of emotional safety, fragments human groups and teams, and contributes to a really toxic environment.

[tmarshconnors]

Graphology: The Study of Handwriting

Graphology, the study of handwriting, offers intriguing insights into personality and behavior. I find it fascinating how the way we write can reveal aspects of our character—our emotions, motivations, and even how we interact with the world.

Graphologists analyze various elements of handwriting, including size, slant, pressure, and spacing, to interpret individual traits. While some consider it a pseudoscience, the connection between our writing style and psychological characteristics is an engaging area of exploration.

Understanding graphology can enhance our self-awareness and improve communication. It offers a unique lens through which we can examine ourselves and others, providing insights into human nature that may otherwise remain hidden.

[er-cryptid]

Cultural Anthropology

Patreon

[velvetporcelain]

I knew it.

[donotdestroy]

"Narcissism is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one's idealized self-image and attributes."

— Sigmund Freud

[studiesofanalienplanet]

There is actually a very fundamental principle in Human interaction, but barely someone ever talks about it. It’s not altruism, although it often gets mixed up with it. But there is the fundamental principle of helping and getting help. Like when I go and do something to help you, it’s with the fundamental concept and agreement, that if I ask you for help at some point, you’ll help me back.

And you can find the principle all over. It’s the only reason todays societies are functioning. They do so on the principle of „I contribute to the wellbeing of the group and so the group helps me back.“

If you want it’s the basic concept of splitting up work.

And here is the thing why group projects are so rarely liked. If you contribute something to the project, but the others or one of them doesn’t put in the amount of work or resources they should, this fundamental principle gets violated.

And that’s something people instinctively know. Except for a few individuals which you might call „Egoists“. Because for a few individuals it pays off to not do the work and surf on the other peoples „I help you, so…“

But at some point, if you have too many people who have forgotten the „so I help you back“ part, the system crumbles. Because if I can’t pay my help forward and trust to get helped back in return, when I need help. Then it doesn’t pay off for me. And I stop offering „I help you, so…“

But the problem is, that a lot of the activities of the past decades has been practically aimed at destroying this fundamental principle. We put people on pedestals who violate this principle on a daily basis. We put people on pedestals, who exploit that principle and take and take and take from people, amassing resources for themselves. And then they tell everyone „Do the same. Stop holding up your side of the bargain.“

And some people listen, because they can see it is working for them. And then you have one more person not holding up the principle of equal exchange. And the whole concept crumbles a little bit more.

That’s the state of the world we a in right now. Too many people have stopped believing in the fundamental principle of human help economy.

They are still a minority by the way. But the harm they do on the world is real. And it has gone into the degree where people are seeing that the principle gets violated. And start to demand change.

[climatecalling]

Just one-quarter of the world population is responsible for nearly three-quarters of emissions. The authors suggest the best strategy to counter overshoot would be to use the tools of the marketing, media and entertainment industries in a campaign to redefine our material-intensive socially accepted norms. “We’re talking about replacing what people are trying to signal, what they’re trying to say about themselves. Right now, our signals have a really high material footprint –our clothes are linked to status and wealth, their materials sourced from all over the world, shipped to south-east Asia most often and then shipped here, only to be replaced by next season’s trends. The things that humans can attach status to are so fluid, we could be replacing all of it with things that essentially have no material footprint – or even better, have an ecologically positive one.” The Merz Institute runs an overshoot behaviour lab where they work on interventions to address overshoot. One of these identifies “behavioural influencers” such as screenwriters, web developers and algorithm engineers, all of whom are promoting certain social norms and could be working to rewire society relatively quickly and harmlessly by promoting a new set of behaviours. The paper discusses the enormous success of the work of the Population Media Center, an initiative that creates mainstream entertainment to drive behaviour change on population growth and even gender violence. Fertility rates have declined in the countries in which the centre’s telenovelas and radionovelas have aired.

[lostsprite1985]

psychology 4 - why it comes in the night

i and so many others experience this: it's always at night we feel our emotions the strongest. it's at night we feel our bad memories, our doubts and our sorrows weighing the heaviest on us.

personally, i have practiced reframing - taking emotional force by holding a healthy narrative. but i still feel this phenomenon at night.

so i asked myself: why does it always come in the night?

one common explanation is the lack of distractions at night. when we work all day, take care of our family, meet friends or occupy ourselves in any way, our minds are often too busy to get lost in memories.

but what about people who aren't much occupied during the day? people in psychic wards, in hospitals or simply when being is on vacation?

as i am reading Bessel Van Der Kolk's "The Body Keeps the Score" these days, i came across this observation of his: patients in the hospital he worked at started to open up at night and spoke carefully about what haunted them. also people not suffering from mental disorders experience this. so there must be cause other than "lack of distraction" or suffering from mental disorders.

here is what i found:

the stress hormone cortisol drops at night: cortisol is a stress hormone which naturally is highest in the morning. it gives us a healthy state of alertness so we have energy for the day. it also functions as a stabilizer for our mood. but when it drops at night, we lose this emotional buffer. note that this is the process of a healthy brain/mind. there can be genetic disruptions in every hormonal system and things like trauma destabilize everything. too high or too low amounts of cortisol have a huge effect on our feelings and behavior.

melatonin increases to prepare the body for sleep: this means it is signalling the body that it's nighttime. our body temperature lowers, and it reduces alertness together with the decrease in cortisol levels. melanotin and cortisol act like a see-saw: cortisol is high in the morning and drops at night, and melatonin is high at night and low over the day. melatonin is highly influenced by light exposure and tied to the circadian rhythm.

decreased activity of the prefrontal cortex (PFT): the PFT is responsible for rational though, inhibition and emotion regulation. decreased activity means our limbic system takes over - emotions are felt stronger. at night, the brain processes experiences - what we learned, what we felt. limbic systems involved are the hippocampus and the amygdala. the hippocampus is like a librarian who keeps our memories. the amygdala is our threat-detection-center but it also tags our memories with emotions - especially strong emotions like fear, love or disgust.

so this combination of stronger memory retrieval paired with heightened and less dampened emotional activity, and a lessened rationality is what makes it come in the night: - melatonin and cortisol levels tell you body to get to sleep. - when your body feels sleepy, your rational brain goes to bed, too. - then your centers for emotions and memories become more active.

[defleftist]

Last week I had to go to the ER due to an unfortunate run in with a bat and worries about potential exposure to rabies. This trip to the ER was a fascinating anthropological study of human behavior while under stress. Maybe the most noteworthy thing I noticed was a man sat near me in the waiting room who brought with him a book called Classical Christianity. He read the book briefly before casting it aside to watch videos on his phone. After an hour or so of waiting (it was a very busy night in the ER we all had to wait a long time) he jumped up, book in tow, and went up to the front desk where he proceeded to yell and flip off the front desk worker before storming out of the ER in a huff. Just saying, that didn’t seem like very classical Christian behavior my dude. But hey, I’m just a godless heathen who would never dare to treat overworked and underpaid healthcare workers like that.