Do Human Psychology Explainable?

Do Human Psychology Explainable?

Human behavior can't always be explained

Sometimes people challenge me.

It is not uncommon for my friend came to me and ask like, “OK if you’re so smart and know so much about human behavior, tell me why a guy would be standing outside the funeral home smoking when his friend in the box died of lung cancer?”

Busted!

Contradicting myself may seem counterproductive, but in the big scheme of things we all get to re-evaluate now and then.

Well, I have been thinking that maybe the highlight reel I wrote on human behavior just doesn’t give the whole picture. Maybe, just maybe, after reviewing some of the complexities of people and why they choose what they choose to do, and why they act totally irrationally and why society is full of disconnects, I will concede that my simplistic approach doesn’t work for all situations.

There is definitely a show of cognitive dissonance, and try as I might, I can’t begin to explain it. My painfully naive approach is excusable, right? I actually want people to make sense in their words and actions. Is that asking too much?

The trouble is, sometimes people, and situations and the whole of society don’t always follow a logical and easily explainable pattern. In laymen’s terms, some people are one egg short of a dozen.

I never understood why Imelda Marcos needed more than 3,000 pairs of shoes. It would take over nine years for the rotation. By the time she got back to those strappy little red pumps with the rhinestones, they would be totally out of style. Who would want to wait that long to see them again?

And I can’t imagine why anyone would kiss his crucifix and then shoot his brother-in-law. (Think mafia).

The confusing part of being an educator is that if we read, we then see the glaring contradictions. Newspapers, journals, biographies and history all reflect the poor choices and lack of continuity. To say “the truth hurts” is the understatement of the millennium.

Tragic outcomes are reported every day from incidents that have been precipitated by religion, or tradition or greed. The brutal rape and murder that took place in India reflects a cultural intolerance and incomprehensible actions. Because a woman was out one evening with a man who wasn’t her husband, she was raped and murdered. The attorney for the accused said he would burn his daughter to death for the same act, and this punishment is justifiable.

Upholding their strong beliefs puts all women and children in jeopardy in that culture. Religious beliefs that say they value human life and honor women and children.

A recent issue of Christian Science Monitor had an article about the suburbs now hosting more people in poverty than the cities; and in the same issue the MONEY section reported the 37 percent increase in homes sold costing over $1 million in just the first half of 2013. Perhaps the headline should have read, “What’s wrong with this picture?”

While we are on incongruence, even the Pope has cited the disconnect between Christian behavior and marginalizing gay and lesbian members of our society.

For those of you who want to add to this list of eight degrees of crazy, feel free to share them with your friends and neighbors when discussing common sense and civil behavior.

I want to add my all time favorite, Nadia Suleiman. If you don’t recognize the name, she is the octomom extraordinaire. She professed to love children and said she never takes any government assistance and other statements a few degrees off of truth. She has 14 children as a single, unemployed woman who has defrauded the government, posed for porn and has been accused of various and sundry activities involving child welfare.

She probably can’t get her own reality show because the title “Eight is Enough” was taken and nobody wants to name a show “Bad Choices Make Good Viewing” although apparently that too is a truth I keep denying. The doctor who enabled her (and impregnated her) should be “locked up and throw away the key,” to use a favorite phrase of my mother.

Just when I thought I could explain human behavior, I came to realize explaining SOME human behavior is like explaining the smell of the color 4.