“Man has an eternal longing for companionship.”

With that line I begin my analysis of friendship. Indeed, my views are not entirely common, and it is my disagreement with the views of others that motivates me to write this philosophical examination of close relationships. In the following text, I will cover at least these topics:

• What is friendship?
• Motivations
• Influences
• Characteristics vs. causes vs. effects

Let’s get started. Visit page 2 to continue reading. EDIT: paging removed.

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I promised to finish the previous Analyzing Shifts in Human Behaviour article, so here it is. Actually, this Part II post doesn’t even come close to completing any analysis of human behaviour, but at least I can finish my talk about ‘variables’.

Anyhow… previously:

Additionally, some examples show that religious/ideological/theological values are often applied to other aspects of life:

• Use of time — I have rarely encountered a person devoted to their faith who does not spend considerable time developing or spreading their faith; however, if one’s values are much less religious in nature, and more ideological — for instance, if one is supports abortion on scientific grounds — it is nevertheless possible that one does not devote much of one’s time to promoting one’s cause

It should be irrefutable by now that these variables are demonstrated visibly in every person’s external behaviour. Now let’s analyze how these variables gain their values, and what impacts those variables.

Three Main Types of Influences

I believe that every person’s personality is developed with these three influences:

1. Environmental — the circumstances in which a person develops is a crucial influence on the shaping of one’s values and one’s personality.
2. Intrapersonal — one’s values are all interlinked, and strong values (like religion) can shape the development of other variables (like music preferences).
3. Interpersonal — it is evident that one’s close friends and family all play roles in the development of one’s character.

Let’s take the example of musical preference and see how these three types of influences affect one’s musical tastes:

• Environmental: suppose a child grows up in a Chinese ethnic enclave. The result is inevitably that the child becomes accustomed to various aspects of Chinese culture, including music. Now, suppose another child grows up in a higher-class family in a mostly Caucasian neighbourhood and goes to a school that is not racially diverse. This child is not likely to appreciate world music, or specifically appreciate Chinese music.
• Intrapersonal: many devout Christians listen to music with lyrics that reinforce and resonate with their beliefs. Those with substantial musical education are also more likely to develop a special appreciation for professional musicians; those that study classical music are also more likely to develop a classical taste.
• Interpersonal: teens that spend a significant amount of time together experience the curious phenomena of ‘bonding’, ‘persuasion’, and ‘conversion’. Bonding establishes the rapport that is needed for someone’s persuasion to be taken seriously, leading to the conversion. For instance, a teenager whose best friend is a fanatical listener of heavy metal may learn to accept, if not like (over time), similar genres.

What is immediately evident is that there must be a fine balance of these three types to lead to a certain result in the variable. It is impossible to predict which type takes precedence if two or three clash, but it is possible to ‘engineer’ (as it were) the influences to generate a certain desired variable. (One blog reader and commentator correctly predicted this.)

It is sometimes easier to generate certain variable values than others, and it is often easier to influence someone at an early age.

Let’s see what it would take for deeply devout, Christian parents to influence a child’s religious values:

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Analyzing Shifts in Human Behaviour

This is supposed to be a private journal entry for a small audience, but since it doesn’t contain too many personal details, I suppose it can be declassified.

Variables in Personality

I suppose it should seem obvious that everyone changes. Every person does change over time, influenced by many factors in their environment, the people with which they frequently interact, the shifts in society, and undoubtedly countless other factors.

For the sake of argument (or, rather, for the sake of this journal), let’s call each personality trait, or characteristic, a variable in personality. For instance, we could then label “music preferences”, “religious/ideological views”, and “political views” as three of the many variables in personality. (Actually, let the term variable take the place of variable in personality, just for the ease of typing this.)

Once we see that these things are indeed variable — in the true sense of the word — we can then understand how one’s behaviour depends on those variables. Perhaps we can even analyze the things upon which those variables depend…

Variables’ Effects

Let’s take the three examples above, of music preferences, religious/ideological/theological views, and political views as the three variables in the personality of person A.

The first observation may be that the second variable, religious/ideological/theological views, can influence both of the other variables. Since this ties into what affects variables, I’ll leave this for the next section.

All right. Music preferences are sure to influence these things in one’s behaviour:

• Use of time — those who are dedicated to their music are likely to listen to it in multiple occasions (while working, in spare time, etc), and;
• Use of money — many who are loyal to certain artists or groups end up purchasing multiple works from those artists or groups.

Additionally, some generalizations (with exceptions) may show that musical preferences also influence:

• Physical appearance & fashion — in some cases, not all, and not most, musical preferences can lead to adaptations in fashion, such as with die-hard fanatics of certain sub-cultures. In other cases, physical appearance & fashion may reflect the same cause as one’s choice of music, such as in the case of “refined” or “cultured” individuals.
• Thoughts and ideas — once again, this intrudes into the next section about “what influences the variables?”, but it is nevertheless often true that the ideas from a musical piece — such as hip hop, or rap if you consider that to be music — permeate into one’s psyche over time; prolonged exposure to such ideas has a definite impact, unless the person is totally incapable of comprehending the lyrics (if they were in a different language);
• Actions — in some cases, musical preferences will influence physical actions. For instance, a person who deeply appreciates the saxophone from an early age may grow up to play the instrument. Likewise, a person who deeply appreciates dance music is likely to devote some attention to “dance”. In other cases, it is possible that lyrics of an angry nature can provoke: a) a similar emotion in the listener, or possibly; b) an emotion of the positive nature, where the angry lyrics are a vent for pent-up emotions.

When something as seemingly insignificant as music preferences can influence so many aspects of a person’s life, just imagine what religion does.

Religious/ideological/theological values are sure to influence:

• Thoughts and ideas — actually, this is a bit of a misleading effect, since those values are thoughts and ideas. In any case, one’s other thoughts and ideas are sure to derive some logic from their beliefs;
• Actions — if one’s values include non-aggression, surely one’s actions will be controlled by those thoughts; if one’s values consist of the propagation of their values, it is likewise likely that one will attempt to convince others of their beliefs; if one is a devout evangelical Christian, it is very likely that they will lead lives as dictated by the Bible (or those who interpret it)

Additionally, some examples show that religious/ideological/theological values are often applied to other aspects of life:

• Use of time — I have rarely encountered a person devoted to their faith who does not spend considerable time developing or spreading their faith; however, if one’s values are much less religious in nature, and more ideological — for instance, if one is supports abortion on scientific grounds — it is nevertheless possible that one does not devote much of one’s time to promoting one’s cause

EDIT: Visit the Part II article to read more.