The reason for writing this blog is because I wanted to understand the choice that we make everyday. I wondered what drives us to make such decisions or rather choose from a given list of options, what’s the driving factor behind all this? After researching and reading articles I came across various theories that explain the human behaviour and how we make choices. Hope it makes sense to whosoever is reading this blog.
Choice theory explains us that outside events never "makes" us to do anything. What drives our behavior is internally developed notions of what is most important and satisfying to us. These internal notions are related to the basic needs which are built in every structure of every human being.
The basic needs which provide the foundation for all motivation are
- To be loving and connected to others.
- To achieve a sense of competence and personal power.
- To act with a degree of freedom and autonomy.
- To experience joy and fun and
- To survive.
To explain that behaviour is not externally triggered, consider this example. "We answer the telephone because it rings and stop the car because the traffic light goes red". People or events outside us never stimulates us to do anything. Rather, our behaviour always represents the choice to do what we believe most satisfies our need at the time. We answer the phone because we choose to do so in order to communicate, not because we react to the ring. We stop at a red light because we choose to avoid risking a traffic ticket or an accident, not because the light turned red. Even a quick action is chosen and not automatic.
All individuals live their lives which are driven by genetically transmitted needs. All needs are equally important and all must be reasonably satisfied if we are to fulfil our biological destiny. We are in pain when a need is not satisfied and in pleasure when its satisfied. When any need goes unsatisfied, there is a continual urge to behave. This urge is as much a part of the human genetic instructions as in eye colour. Instructions related to survival, such as hunger, thirst are relatively distinct. The non-survival, or psychological needs are challenging because often they are less clear. Psychological needs, like biological needs have their source in the genes, even though they are much less tangible and the behaviour that fulfil them are more complex than the physical behaviours used to fulfil the survival needs.
Even though human needs are essentially the same for everyone, the behaviours through which individuals choose to satisfy it might be quite different. Beginning from birth, we have unique experiences that are either pleasurable or painful. Through these experiences individual learn how to satisfy their needs. Because individual have different experiences, the things that they learn to satisfy their needs will be different as well. Each individual have memories of need fulfilling behaviours specific to his or her unique life experiences. These pleasurable memories constitute the individual's quality world and become the most important part of the person's life. For most this is composed of pictures representing what they have most enjoyed in life. These perceptions have become the standard for behavioural choices. Unlike the basic survival needs, which are the same for everyone, the perceptions in each person’s quality world are very specific and completely individual.
To satisfy the basic needs, a person must behave. This means acting, thinking, feeling and involving the body of all which are the components of the TOTAL behaviour. Whenever there is a discrepancy between what one wants and what one has, the internal behavioural system is activated. The motivation is always to behave not only to fulfil the present need but consider the future need as well. People innately reject being controlled by others because they are capable of fulfilling only their own needs. Loss of control to another is dysfunctional and runs counter to the fulfilment of needs.
To satisfy needs, people must be able to sense what is going on both externally and internally and then act accordingly based on the information. If we examine the total behaviour, it can be composed of four components, which occur synchronously
- Doing (eg. walking, talking)
- Thinking (eg. reasoning, fantasizing)
- Feeling (eg. anger, depression)
- Physiology (eg. sweating, headache)
Consider you failed in an examination, which you thought would pass. How would you behave? Let’s take a subject "Mr. X" who failed the examination.
All of Mr. X senses are busy informing him of the bad news that he flunked. In this case, what makes immediate sense is to go home, sit in the chair, drink a few beers and avoid the classmates. Probably he will be depressed, irritated, somewhat resentful, anxious, tensed and fearful a whole series of emotions will be running. He may be suffering from headache which adds to the misery.
In most situations people are more tuned in to their feelings than their actions, thoughts or physiology. It is unlikely that an individual would mention all the components described in this passage if asked how he or she was doing after failing an examination; most likely the person would talk about the feeling component – being upset or depressed about the situation. By recognizing that the feeling component is just one of four that make up total behaviour, people can be in more control of their lives. When people begin to think in terms of total behaviour, they can see that they choose these behaviours and have the option to change them. The most direct way to change a total behaviour is to change the behaviour’s doing and thinking component.
We have almost total control of the doing component of behaviour and some control over the thinking component; we have less control over the feeling component and very little control over physiological phenomenon. When we change what we are doing, we will notice that our thoughts, feelings and physiological responses change as well.
So how do we deal with the problem of Mr. X who has failed the examination. Instead of sitting at home and being miserable, he can call up his friend an arrange a game of any sport. He may not play the best of the games at that moment, but still he plays. Once he starts to play he will start feeling different thoughts, feel different feelings and experience a different physiology. The stress starts to go away.
If what we do gives us greater control, it will be accompanied by better feelings, more pleasurable thoughts and greater physical comfort. To get out needs met effectively, we need to realise what we always have a control over the doing component and can choose to do something more effectively than being miserable.
Well to summarise, If we have better control on ourselves and the TOTAL behaviour we can choose what is best for us and fulfil the basic needs.
