The Nature of Human Behavior and Judgment

(Eskine, Kacinik & Prinz, 2011) 

Research carried out by different people attempted to link moral judgments of individuals to a number of physical factors. For instance, Hume claims that moral judgments of human beings are strongly influenced the different tastes they experience. The researchers including Blair, Turiel, Killen, and Haidt all suggest that emotion is the main element required for moral judgments as well as moral development (Eskine, Kacinik & Prinz, 2011). According to Liljenquist, Zhong, and Galinsky, moral purity is greatly dictated by the nature of scent present in a particular room. Schnall and Haidt even had their own modification on this issue of physical factors affecting moral behavior. They come to a conclusion that the stinking conditions of sprays somehow directly related to the levels of moral thoughts of individuals. They explain that stinky conditions provoked individuals into having a rather harsh judgment. All these research studies were of the opinion that the way people expressed their moral judgments has a strong relation to their sensory system. This research study and the different suggestions seem to be having very interesting opinions that make me seek more clarifications. For instance, in situations where a judge grants an offender a rather harsh sentence, does it mean that the physical senses may have been affected or he is making judgments purely based on law? Assuming the judge took some kind of drink that had a bitter taste, will this affect the way he or she can interpret the law and pass judgments?

There are certain situations where I wonder whether these research applications apply, especially in relation to how taste affect development of moral thoughts. For instance, I have a cousin who has to take bitter medications so that he or she can ultimately feel better in an unpleasing hospital environment. Will the patient refuse to take the medication in the hospital simply because he or she will develop immoral thoughts? This makes me wonder whether the moral behavior of a patient will be affected by bitter medications and not the sweet ones.

(Rentfrow & Gosling, 2006) 

This very interesting research study came to a conclusion that people tend to reveal their personalities to others in a number of ways. These mainly involve interactions based on a number of topics. Such topics include movies, sports, music, politics, and books among others. People will get to express their thoughts, feelings, and values by engaging in different levels of discussions on given subjects of discussion (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2006). Other researchers including Kenny, Borkenau, Berry, Gosling, and Burroughs did differential studies in attempts to come up with a notion that physical appearance, nonverbal behavior, facial features, bedrooms, and clothing can reveal a person's details. Of all these methods or topics discussed, it was shown that music was the most common way in which people expressed their behaviors and generally everything about themselves. This was based on a study conducted on ten dating websites out of which nine showed positive results. (Rentfrow & Gosling, 2006). The information about the music preference is shown to be the most common way in which unacquainted strangers get to know each other. Music has been shown to create a strong impression of other people's personalities as well as values. An interesting discovery was made from the research on how music preference can be used as a conveyor for expressing other people's interests and personalities. There was a claim that people who mostly preferred country music had rather stable emotions, those who liked jazz were perceived as intellectuals while people who liked music full of vocals were taken to be extraverted (Boer et al., 2011). So if I like country music or I have a friend who has a special craving for this type of music, does this automatically mean that either of us is emotionally unstable? I know some of my friends who like country music and they are not emotionally stable as the study findings imply.

The research focused mainly on music preferences of young adults. There are some types of music one may stop listening to when the person becomes older and attains a certain age bracket. I mean our tastes of certain music types may change with time. Does this mean that the personality will change as the person grows older? It makes me create an impression that when an extraverted person one day decides to change his or her music preferences, his or her outgoing nature suddenly withers away simply because he or she has changed the type of music.

(Fowler, Linienfeld & Patrick, 2009) 

The research study attempts to explain the characteristics of individuals who are psychopathic. Psychopathy is described as maladaptive functioning in personality mainly defined by the individual's deficits in interpersonal and affective nature hence his or her antisocial tendencies. Psychopathic people are associated with certain characters or behaviors. (Fowler, Linienfeld & Patrick, 2009). Cleckley defined these individuals as having good intelligence in addition to being manipulative and pathological liars. Psychopathic individuals lack the element of guilt in their deeds and generally live an antisocial lifestyle. They are also said to be irresponsible, have poor control of impulse and likely to experience boredom. Hare, Harpur, and Hakstian carried out an analytical study which demonstrated that psychopathy comprises of two factors. Factor one comprised of symptoms which affected the interpersonal and affective nature of the individual such as having a superficial charm and lacking empathy, while factor two comprised the deviant and antisocial tendencies seen in psychopathic individuals such as poor control of behavior and lacking meaningful long-term goals. The psychopathic behavior as is being shown by the study can be detected by what is known as thin slices (Fowler, Linienfeld & Patrick, 2009). Thin slices are brief collections of an individual's behavior within a very short time, usually less than five minutes. The researchers claimed to accurately rely on thin slices of human behavior based on adequate accuracy and reliability. They come to a conclusion that the first impression is crucial in determining a psychopathic character which is said to have a strong interpersonal impact. The research has very interesting findings that give rise to questions about their truthfulness in relation to our day to day normal experiences. The rater method as defined by this research makes me wonder if an individual's behavior can be defined by a few seconds of observation. Since it is based on a short-time assessment of the human behavior in less than five minutes, it tends to raise a lot of controversies. Is a few seconds observation enough to judge a person's overall character? Well, a person may exhibit certain behaviors based on the prevailing circumstances. For example, if a person who has always been known by his friends or relatives to be peaceful suddenly decides to express this anger after some sort of disagreement, it would certainly not be wise to judge such a person as psychopathic after observing his behavior for only a few seconds.

Secondly, the impression that Cleckley creates by describing psychopathic individuals as usually pathological layers and manipulative makes me wonder if anyone who shows these behaviors are definitely psychopathic in nature. Also interesting is that psychopathic individuals lack empathy or have an unrealistic sense of superiority are psychopaths. I was always of the opinion that any person who is out-going and readily socializes with other people can sometimes show some sense of superiority regardless of whether they are unrealistic or not. If this person comes from an advantaged background compared to his peers or he is the brightest student in the class, he may have a sense of superiority but does this mean that he or she qualifies as a psychopathic person?

References

Eskine, K. J., Kacinik, N. A., & Prinz, J. J. (2011). A bad taste in the mouth: Gustatory disgust influences moral judgment. Psychological science , 22 (3), 295-299.

Fowler, K. A., Lilienfeld, S. O., & Patrick, C. J. (2009). Detecting psychopathy from thin slices of behavior. Psychological assessment , 21 (1), 68.

Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2006). Message in a ballad: The role of music preferences in interpersonal perception. Psychological science , 17 (3), 236-242.