Human Behaviour and Performance Are the Result of Multiple Influences

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'Human behaviour and performance are the result of multiple influences.' Examine and assess this assertion, drawing on examples from Chapters 1, 6 and 7 of Discovering Psychology. There are many theories and approaches on why humans behave in a certain way and what factors have an influence on their actions. As with behaviour human performance also is influenced by multiple influences. In order to examine this assertion we have to look into some of the theories and findings from different areas in psychology that allows us to understand the importance of these influences. The examples used in this essay are based on general influences that determine human behaviour; personality, friendship and brain function. Personality is considered to be one of the important factors in influencing human behaviour as it can be described in many ways and can be applied to almost any situation involving human behaviour and actions. Generally personality is defined as “a set of stable and enduring individual characteristics or inner dispositions that lead people to behave in a steady way over time and maintain a consistent orientation to other people and the world around them.” (McAvoy Jean, p19). Because personality can be defined in so many ways psychologists had to find a way to categorise and measure personality with individual differences in personality in mind. The most influential approach to dividing personality into categories was developed by Lewis. R. Goldberg in 1981 called the “Big Five” personality factors (Goldberg 1981). This divides personality into 5 dimensions; Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional stability and Intellect. This way we are able to tell which category a person fits in and at what scale. For example if two persons, one extrovert and one introvert, both are placed in an identical situation we can expect a difference in actions
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