[vinnomot] Humanism and Psychology: (Basic 4): Implications of Genes, Learning, and Trauma

 

Understanding Ourselves and Our Universe: How Psychology Can Turn the "Mysteries of Human Nature" into Useful Tools for Self Improvement and Success in Life

 

Part 4: Humanistic implications of the 3 natural psychological determinants

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At this point, you should have a good, clear, basic understanding of each of the three natural determinants of human psychology, all the basic terms and concepts, and how they affect the development of a person's psychological repertoire. If you don't, you may want to review the previous three lessons. They are all prerequisite to your developing the kind of understanding of yourself, other people, and how people understand other people and their universe, that this discussion is designed to achieve. Two other important aspects of this discussion are to enable you to apply this knowledge to benefit you in your life, and also to use these natural principles of psychology to be a better human and better humanist (and, thus, benefit others and your world). This last lesson of the Basic Module, although brief, is intended to help guide you in that important task. The better you understand human genes, learning, and trauma, the more critical information you have to explain and predict any human thought, feeling, or behavior, including humanistic components of anyone's psychological repertoire. Now all you need to do is to develop your skills at applying that knowledge successfully to real world issues, and the best way to develop those skills is to repeatedly practice them. That's one of the core purposes of this course, too, so let's get to it! As you refine or update your knowledge about how and why people think, feel, and act, as they do, you should constantly be testing these principles against your own experience and what you've observed in others, and applying them to your own experience and the principles and values of humanism. Read again the "fundamentals of humanism"posted earlier under the title : « What is Humanism » I,II.. Humanism is a human philosophy which based on the faith that human are able to solve their problems with their human potential without any fictional supernatural interference. Some core humanistic principles are that humans should be self-reliant, self-responsible, socially responsible, well educated and versed in the arts and sciences, and motivated to use their talents and abilities for the betterment of humankind. As you study the SciPsy approach to understanding human psychology, you should continuously ask yourself how genes, learning, and trauma affect the development of such humanistic attributes. Let's analyze one example first, and then you'll have a chance to generalize what you've learned here to other similar issues and attributes in humanism. For example, how does one become self-reliant? To answer that question scientifically, one must first be analytical in identifying and prioritizing the key elements of the question. Then one must synthesize the specifics into generalizable principles and themes with wider applications. (What exactly is self-reliance? How is it operationally defined -- i.e., what thoughts, feelings, and behaviors constitute self-reliance? Under what conditions do those desirable self-reliant thoughts, feelings, and behaviors develop, or not develop? And if one is not self-reliant, how can that be developed?) As your study here continues up through the more advanced modules, the specifics of exactly how the various components of self-reliance -- and every other human trait -- should become more evident, but even here, at this relatively early level of study, you should have some general ideas of which aspects (if any) of self-reliance are genetically pre-programmed, which are programmed by learning, and if and how trauma can influence the development of self reliance. Let's address those one at a time, and then see what broad principles -- consistent with this study - we can derive: First, we'll operationally define self-reliance as having three main components: 1.  self-competence (being able to successfully solve most problem situations one encounters) 2.  self-understanding (accurately keeping track of one's success and failure ratio in problem solving) 3.  valuing and enjoying being self-reliant (being motivated to solve problems by oneself, and finding problem-solving enjoyable, and failing to solve a problem by oneself deflating or embarrassing) Now how do we decide whether each of these components is most likely genetic, learned, or due to trauma? Well, we can inform this decision in two ways: our lifetime of experience with ourselves and others. Is self-competence genetic? Based on what we've learned thus far, it should be clear that one's skill-development potentials are genetic, but the specific problem-solving skills for each situation must be learned from experience. Thus, barring any unusual evidence that trauma has actually aided our problem-solving skills, self-competence is partly genetic but mostly learned. If one suffered brain damage due to genetic flaws or early trauma, one might well not develop self-competence in one or more areas of problem solving! For example, a close friend of mine has a very poor sense of direction that has not proved amenable to training or experience. That lack of competence, and consequent lack of self-reliance in finding her way around in strange locales, is almost certainly due to a genetic flaw and/or pre-natal trauma. It's very difficult to imagine how one could be systematically reinforced for getting lost, being afraid, and feeling incompetent, which would mean it might be learned. Using the same process of matching the current question's elements with our best information, we can also deduce that accurately monitoring one's problem-solving history and keeping track of what works and what doesn't is mostly learned. We can't be certain that there's no genetic component of "competence motivation," but we know for sure that that attribute can be trained and reinforced (thus producing both motivation to be a good problem-solver, and to be reinforced by success). Thus, we can conclude that barring any significant evidence of trauma, and the general principle that self-reliance may well have major genetic underpinnings, the specific instances of problem-solving successes (or failures) without significant assistance from others is the main factor in developing self-reliance, and that is mostly learned. And since anything learned can be modified or even un-learned, one can modify one's own or someone else's self-reliance by effective training and reinforcement. We can also deduce that people who are not self-reliant, and are not limited in their self-reliance by genetic or traumatically induced disabilities, must have learned to be that way. That means that either they have not had many successful problem-solving learning opportunities on their own, or that they haven't been taught or learned good problem-solving knowledge and skills, or that they've been non-reinforced for trying -- perhaps even succeeding -- in self-reliant problem solving. While these are clearly instances of pathogenic (problem-creating) learning experiences, you shouldn't have to think very long or very hard to recall instances in which you've observed exactly that kind of deficient conditioning demonstrated by overly protective parents, dominating spouses, strictly fundamentalist religious families, authoritarian teachers, and/or members of anti-achievement "entitlement" subcultures. Right? Such instances of genetic abilities/disabilities, adaptive/maladaptive learning experiences, and dysfunctions due to trauma, are all around us every day of our lives. In fact, if we're honest, each of us can recall examples of all these determinants which have enhanced/inhibited our own development as successful adults and effective humanists. To take full advantage of this study, you must conscientiously operationalize, analyze, and apply these SciPsy principles to your daily life and humanistic issues throughout your studies. You and your world will be much better for the experience if you do!

 

 

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