Why Do People Do What They Do????
June 20, 2022 Changing the schedule to every other week and getting a handle on one of the world’s major complexities: Why people do what they do
Hello It’s Complex Readers,
Before getting to this week’s newsletter, I want to let you know that It’s Complex will be switching to a bi-weekly format. People are busy and I don’t want anyone to be stressed out by the newsletter. Some readers have told me that it’s a lot of content to deal with every week and a lot to think about. So, let’s try every two weeks.
Please let me know what you’re thinking and if you have questions. You can contact me individually (reply to this email) and I can work on incorporating comments and questions into newsletters. And I will keep all communications confidential. A reader asked…
This week’s newsletter is about why people do what they do. How much time do you spend puzzling over why people do what they do? I think that what people do and why they do what they do are major sources of complexity in the world. Let’s think systemically about some of the multiple, connected, and dynamic processes that contribute to why people do what they do.
Please tell everyone and anyone about It’s Complex. Thank you!
A Reminder for Familiar Readers and an Orientation for New Readers
The world is a complex place. At It’s Complex we think about and deal with the world’s many complexities—from global issues to individual experiences. We think about and deal with complexity from a holistic systems perspective. A system is a wider whole made up multiple, connected, and dynamic parts. So, we think about and deal with any complex issue in terms of multidimensionality, connectedness, and dynamics. I like to abbreviate them as MCD. Think MCD, be MCD!
Multidimensionality refers to how complex phenomena are made up of multiple parts.
Connectedness refers to the varied ways in which complex phenomena are connected or linked. No part is an island. Systems theory emphasizes interrelatedness—mutual and reciprocal connections between and among parts and wholes.
Dynamics refers to how system processes are ongoing and can be played out in stable ways, as well as in varied, changing, and sometimes unpredictable ways.
For further details, check out some of the first newsletter posts.
Newsletter: Why Do People Do What They Do????
The world is a complex place in part because it is populated by people who are complex in oh so many ways, including why we do what we do. Who among us has not wondered why someone did what they did? How much time do you and your friends spend discussing why people do what they do? Why did she do that? Why are they doing that? Maybe you sometimes even wonder why you yourself do what you do. Do you sometimes shake your head, shrug your shoulders, and say that you just do not get someone? You do not know where they are coming from. Someone recently told me that he has given up on trying to understand a friend he has known for decades. That seems like a long time to not understand someone and to puzzle over why they do what they do.
People are certainly complex and can be understood as systems, as discussed in a previous newsletter: Person-as-System Part of a person-as-system includes why people do what they do. We can think about some of the complexities of why people do what they do in terms of multidimensionality, interrelatedness, and dynamics.
For starters, we are dealing with multidimensionality here because people do what they do for multiple reasons. Or, we could say that there are multiple sources of human functioning, or that many factors contribute to what people do. Maybe you are thinking about your friend who did what she did because that is just how she is. That sounds like individual processes to me because it describes your friend as a particular individual who acts in her individualized ways. Insofar as all human beings are embodied physical beings, everyone’s action also involves bodily processes, from the brain to the toes and everything in between. We can also think about the context of people’s action. Someone else told me recently that context is everything. Have you ever been criticized for taking what someone said out of context? Have you ever criticized someone (maybe a politician or pundit) for taking a statement out of context? These ways of speaking about context recognize that what people do takes place within particular contexts and that understanding what people do requires understanding the contexts of their action. Context includes the cultural context, and everyone’s action involves cultural processes. Maybe he did what he did because that is what they do in his culture. Context also includes other people, taking us to social processes which comprise anyone’s action. When you were a child, did you ever tell your parents or teachers that someone else made you do what you did? He made me do it! Do you sometimes act differently in relation to different people? Have you ever been surprised to see someone you know in one social context act very differently in another? Insofar as all human beings act in physical environmental contexts, everyone’s action also involves environmental processes. Do you find that you are irritable when it is hot, or that you prefer to hunker down and play board games when it is cold and snowing outside? Staying physically distant during a global pandemic is easier when there is more rather than less physical space available.
So, we can say that human action involves and emerges through individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes.
And so, why do people do what they do? Because of how multiple, interrelated, and dynamic individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes are played out.
I will not even attempt to define individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes definitively or exhaustively because they are complex processes that themselves can be understood in terms of their own multiple, interrelated, and dynamic sub-processes. But we have to start somewhere and we can grapple with them further in future newsletters.
Individual processes refer to how individuals contribute to their own action or how an individual can be a source of what they themselves do. A person can contribute to their own action by deciding or choosing to do X and then by doing X (or at least trying to do X). A person can contribute to their own action by acting for the sake of personal reasons, goals, beliefs, or values. Individual processes also refer to how a person subjectively experiences life and constructs or interprets what is going on as it is happening. Individual processes further involve typical ways of acting for a person and how a person acts in their own individualized ways.
Social processes refer to how people contribute to each other’s action. Social processes encompass how anyone’s action is made up of other people, including how people identify and recognize each other, as well as how people enable and constrain one another’s action. You probably act differently in relation to some of the different people in your life, partly because those people are influencing what you do (and you are influencing what they do). Even when others are not immediately present, others may be contributing to someone’s action. For example, if you run around town trying to find the perfect birthday present for a friend, you are acting in relation to that person even though they are not immediately present.
Cultural processes refer to how human action is always culturally situated and to how culture contributes to what people do. Culture is a complex can of worms if ever there was one (and I am planning on writing a few culture newsletters in the future). At this juncture, we can define culture in terms of historically-rooted shared and debated beliefs, values, and norms. Cultural processes also involve traditions and typical ways of acting that reflect beliefs and values. They further include what I refer to as wider societal processes, such as political and economic processes and policies, as well as the structuring of power relations.
Bodily processes refer to the varied ways in which human action is embodied and involves bodily processes. Bodily processes include biological, chemical, neurological, and genetic processes. We also use particular body parts to act. If you are consoling someone, you speak to them and maybe you extend your arm and pat them gently on their back with your hand. Consoling is partly made up of your arm and hand, as well as the other person’s back. And speaking involves the mouth, tongue, lungs, and vocal cords.
Environmental processes refer to how aspects of the physical environment contribute to what people do, including air quality, the availability and quality of water, conditions for growing or otherwise procuring food, temperature, altitude, terrain, natural resources, and climate change. The physical environment also includes the physical structures that human beings build, such as highways, bridges, buildings, and playgrounds. During World War II, some people helped Jews by hiding them in their homes. Some who wanted to help, were not able to because of food scarcity or lack of physical space in their homes (Fogelman, 1994/1995). The physical layout of a classroom can potentially support or hinder different ways of learning, as well as different ways of acting between and among students and teachers. The physical layout of office space can potentially support or hinder different ways of acting between and among co-workers, as well as productivity. We can think about ways of acting that might not be occurring if climate change were not happening. For example, people in various parts of the world may not be seeking asylum or jobs elsewhere.
Not only do these processes all contribute to human functioning simultaneously, but they are interrelated. They are inseparable constituents of what people do that occur in relation to each other. From a systems perspective, we can say that they are parts of the wider whole of what a person is doing at a given moment (e.g., telling a story, consoling someone, buying a present for someone, thinking about the world’s complexities, wearing a mask—or not, applying for a job, working at their job…). As such, there are part↔part and whole↔part interrelations to consider. For example, cultural processes shape individual processes as a person chooses to act in ways that reflect cultural beliefs, values, and norms. At the same time, individual processes affect cultural processes as individuals interpret and use cultural beliefs, values, and norms in individualized ways. Sociologist Margaret Archer (2003) explains how individuals actively reflect upon cultural circumstances and act in ways that may conserve or change them. As people reflect upon cultural circumstances together and act with others to conserve or change them, social processes are also involved. Marching in a rally or protest is a way for individuals to act with others to change or conserve cultural circumstances, pointing to interrelations among individual, social, and cultural processes.
Part-whole influences mean that different ways of structuring individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes influence how different wider modes of action emerge. For example, you may console different people differently because those people are reacting differently to your attempts at consoling them. Thus, different ways of structuring social processes contribute to different ways of structuring the wider whole of consoling. The same goes for arguing with different people. Also, in different cultures, consoling and arguing may be structured differently.
Whole-part influences mean that wider modes of action influence how individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes are played out. For example, you may use different cultural ways of speaking when you are consoling someone, in contrast to when you are arguing with someone. Or, bodily processes may be played out in different ways when they constitute different wider modes of action. When you are consoling someone, you may pat them on the back with your hand, but when you are arguing with someone, you may pound your fist on the table. Any way of acting is constituted by individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes, but those processes may be structured differently within different ways of acting. As such, ways of acting partly constitute how the part processes are structured, at the same time that the part processes partly constitute ways of acting.
Individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes are also all dynamic, and thus understanding someone’s action involves thinking about stability and variability in the structuring of individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes for a particular person. Sometimes a person’s individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes are structured or played out in the same ways and sometimes they are structured or played out in different ways. Sometimes we stay the course, but sometimes we change course mid-stream. Sometimes, we may even do a 180. A person may act in varied ways in relation to continuously emerging dynamic individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes. A person may act differently in relation to different people in different physical environments, for different purposes, and also in relation to how stressed, tired, or hungry they are.
Sometimes, the variability is stable, meaning that it is expected and can be predicted. You know that your friend is quiet at work and talks non-stop around you and a few others. But sometimes, we are surprised when someone acts differently. We might say that it is “uncharacteristic” or even “inconsistent.” Variable functioning seems to need more explaining than stable functioning. However, from a systems perspective, variability is just as systemic as stability, and is considered to be integral to system functioning. Insofar as action involves ongoing systemic processes that can be played out in varied ways, varied ways of acting can always emerge. Thus, people do not always act in the same ways, even if they are engaging in the ostensibly same mode of action, such as consoling, arguing, or cooperating. You console Marcia differently than you console Greg; you argue differently with a colleague at work than with your siblings. You console and argue differently because the processes that constitute what you are doing are played out differently.
Action processes can be played out in varied ways that are often unpredictable. In other words, it depends. It depends on what is going on as it goes on. After all, sometimes stuff happens, especially in the heat of the moment. Saying that stuff happens means that you cannot predict what will happen. Sometimes, we are swept away or overcome by what is happening, as it is happening. Sometimes you have to play it by ear and go with the flow of ongoing and variable individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes. Never say never! You might end up doing what you once vowed never to do because individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes were structured in unpredictable ways.
As dynamic processes, individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes can change in varied ways over different time frames. From moment to moment, as well as from conception until death, a person’s body changes. From the beginning to the end of an identifiable social event, the event and its social processes can change in unpredictable ways. Have you ever been to a party that seems like a dud at first? It may start off slowly, but who knows what might happen? You stay a while anyway, and then it starts to pick up and it ends up being one of the best parties you have ever been to. What you did at the end of the party may be quite different than what you did at the beginning. Climate change is an obvious example of major environmental change over years and decades. Cultures have certainly changed over the course of history and continue to change as I write and as you read.
Knowing and Understanding Each Other
Personality psychologist, Dan P. McAdams asks: What do we know when we know a person? https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1995.tb00500.x Knowing someone includes knowing why they do what they do. Think about some of the people you know and understand pretty well. What do you know about them? You probably know about how individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes are and have been structured or played out for them. If someone else asks you to tell you about a person you know, what would you say? You could talk about how individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes are and have been structured for them.
To understand ourselves and each other, we can think about why we do what we do in terms of interrelated and dynamic individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes. Whether it is someone you know or someone you do not know personally (but heard or read about), you may be puzzling over what they did or trying to figure out why they are doing what they are doing. Think about how these processes are structured or played out for them in some moment. You could also discern how these processes have been played out over stretches of the person’s lifetime, including how they have changed. You could think about how the person could change—perhaps for better or perhaps for worse. By thinking systemically about someone’s action, you can understand where they are coming from and you may find that still waters run deep. People are more than a few superficial facts, and they are more than how they fill out a demographic questionnaire. The world is a complex place in part because people are complex. And people are complex in part because what people do is complex. And why people do what they do is complex because it emerges continuously through interrelated and dynamic individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes.
I readily recognize that it is quite the mouthful to always invoke individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes. But it is a mouthful that befits the complexities of human beings who cannot be reduced to a single essence. It may sometimes be difficult and time consuming to know people in terms of individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes. But it befits the complexities of why people do what they do, which cannot be reduced to a single cause or characteristic. Thinking about people in terms of these processes befits the complexities of the whole person, or rather the whole systemic person who is constituted by, emerges through, and lives in the midst of interrelations among dynamic individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes.
P. S. On April 17, 2022, I noted an article in The New York Times that gets at some of the issues just presented here. It is about trying to explain why Russian soldiers are committing atrocities in Ukraine. Why does anyone commit atrocity? It’s disturbing, but the article gets at some multidimensional, connected, and dynamic reasons. Check it out: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/17/world/europe/ukraine-war-russia-atrocities.html
Some Questions to Think and Comment About
What do you think? What interested you, what surprised you, what struck you?
Why do you do some of what you do? How are individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes played out for you?
Why do some people you know do what they do? Have you ever wondered why in the world someone did what they did? How were and are individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes played out for them?
Have you heard or read about someone’s puzzling behavior—in the news or on social media? Think about how individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes were involved.
What questions do you have about any of this?
Non-Electronic References
Archer, M. S. (2003). Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Fogelman, E. (1994/1995). Conscience and courage: Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. New York: Anchor Books.