Aspects of Human Behavior

External and Internal Human Behavior

These two categories also coincide with other groupings of human behavior, but do not contain them.

Homeostasis is a vital part of how organisms survive, and is a key feature of all life.
It is the process of maintaining stability within the body.
For humans homeostasis applies both physically, such as thermoregulation, osmoregulation and chemical regulation and mentally, such as regulating our thoughts and emotions.

External behavior is everything that is observable by an outsider.
For example if you're smiling, crying, laughing, sweating etc.
External behavior can also be measured, such as heart rate or brain activity.
Thus external behavior can be examined objectively, and without bias.
For example if someone is frowning, then they really are frowning. Reasons for it might differ but the external behavior is objective.

In psychology, terms such as mental processes and mental functions are used to describe internal behavior.
Internal behavior can range anywhere from thinking, emotions and motivation.
Others cannot fully know your internal behavior.
The main difference between internal and external behavior is that internal behavior can be somewhat hidden.
Internal behavior can affect external behavior for example. For example if you feel happy you might smile or laugh, letting others at least somewhat understand your internal behavior as well, through external signs.
However sometimes different internal processes can cause the same external behavior, such as laughing (albeit awkwardly) when you're nervous and crying when you're very happy.
People can often try and adjust their external behavior in order to hide their internal behavior, usually depending on the scenario.
For example you might not care about showing all your emotions to a close friend or family member. However, you would likely act more reserved and calm when talking to your boss for example (as getting angry or lashing out for example could get you fired).

Human behavior is adaptive to the environment.
This adaptability shows on many levels.
This is due to our biological characteristics and stems from our quickly-triggered fear response which has helped our species to survive.
The fear response has helped us avoid danger, thus it is a characteristic of all people.
Thus biological regulation ensures that our senses and behavior are always aware of and adapting to the environment.
Having a good learning capacity increases the possibilities to adapt and act adequately in changing environments.
People act in different ways with different people and in different environments.
For example you might act formal when at a fancy restaurant and more laidback when at McDonald's with your friends.

Psychology considers all human behavior to be intentional.
No matter what we do, it is always to reach some sort of goal or for a certain reason.
Intentionality does not mean that you are always aware of your motives.
This means that even if you aren't thinking about what you're doing, such as walking or sleeping.
People have learned that certain behaviors have allowed them to reach particular goals.
Even if people may not appear to act rationally or with a conscious goal in mind, their behavior is generally sensible and intentional.

People can behave either consciously or unconsciously.
Conscious behavior means that someone is acting voluntarily and are in control of their behavior.
In conscious behavior you can recognize your reasoning and your goals.

Unconscious behavior can occur in numerous ways and it is when you aren't aware of your goals or reasoning.
In psychology 'unconscious' means that a person isn't aware of their motives or isn't paying attention to their behavior.
Examples of unconscious behavior could be things done from impulse or habit.

Over a century ago, Austrian doctor and research Sigmund Freud developed the psychoanalytic theory.
According to Freud, the unconscious mind contained all our rejected feelings, primitive needs and distressing experiences.
The unconscious mind would supposedly be the main underlying reason for our behavior.
Freud also said that although people weren't aware of the unconscious mind, it would reveal itself in dreams or Freudian slips (for example referring to someone by the wrong name would be your unconscious mind revealing that it thought of the two people in a similar way).
However this theory has been scrutinized heavily and there isn't much evidence to prove the existence of an unconscious mind.

Nowadays the cognitive view is a more widely-accepted theory.
It explains unconscious behavior as automatic processing and behavioral automatization.
The many processes that take place in our brain without us paying attention to them is explained as unconscious behavior.
For example when you're typing on a keyboard, you can write without paying attention to where your fingers are because you're used to typing and can perform it unconsciously.
Behavioral automatization is necessary due to our limited memory capacity.
You can only do so many things at once before you start forgetting or making mistakes.
Thus if we had to constantly pay attention to everyday activities, such as walking, we couldn't pay attention to anything else.