Social Behavior and Motivation
From this week’s course materials, I gained many insights that are worth noting. The key highlights include but not limited to impacts of culture as well as gender on the behavior of an individual, equity theory of motivation and psychological explanation for eating disorders.
Indeed, from this week, it is apparent that the behavior of a person portrays is the doing of the culture that he/she hails from and cultural expectations of his/her gender. For instance, in most African communities the males have the role of being the breadwinners of the family while the female counterparts tend to house chores. Secondly, the theories of motivation open my mind to the idea that people behave in certain ways because of their state of motivation. Finally, the notion that psychology plays a role in the eating disorders is also a new one because I have never met such persons. The eating disorders learnt included the bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa and binge eating (Rathus, 2013).
One issue that I can relate to in my personal life is the impact of culture on one’s behavior. That is the case since in my experience I have met people from different cultural backgrounds whose ways of doing things may be similar or different to mine. As such, the way they do things is predominantly because of their cultural upbringing, which justifies the notion that culture influences how people behave (Rathus, 2013). Despite this diversity, I have always sought to treat them the same way as I would treat individuals from my culture. Such a practice has resulted in my peaceful coexistence with others, which is of the essence to my persona.
Lastly, the theories of motivation are the ones that I find of significant use in my future work life. Such is the case given that through it an understanding of people’s behavior in the workplace is very clear. Rathus, (2013) is of the opinion that an employee that has little motivation while in the workplace may start behaving in a way that depicts his/herdissatisfaction. For instance, his/her job performance may start to go down. Thus, an observation of such behaviors in my workplace will necessitate questioning the leadership approach, which will facilitate me to come up with solutions for rectifying the precipitating situation.
References
Rathus, S. A. (2013). Psychology: Concepts & connections : brief version. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
