What my Journal says.....

In "Personality and Coping" the journal talked about how the well being of a person can be determined by looking at the stress, personality, and ability to cope. There are some aspects of each person that are the same and some aspects that are very different and individul to that specific person. There are models and examples that show the differences and similarities that have to do with an individual person and how the handle stresses and how their physical and mental well being is determined or seen.

Different Views of Different People

The New York Times had a very interesting opinion piece in it a year ago about Human Nature in Today's Society. The car you drive, the movies you watch and even the way you carry yourself has something to do with how you are perceived by the people around you. Even if what people think of you is a generalization, that picture stays in their head until something prompts them to change it.

The author of this article, David Brooks, says that "teenage girls may cut themselves as a way to demonstrate their ability to withstand infections." This generalization is one that I have never really thought about nor really agree with, I have never known a teenage girl that wanted to prove that she could withstand an infection so badly that was willing to cut herself. Most of the time when I hear of a girl trying to cut herself it is either to get attention or because she is too stressed out to deal with anything.

I do like Brooks' view of how our personalities form and how it is not predetermined to us but that our surroundings shape us and make us who we are as people. The person that a baby may grow up to be can not be determined by a human just because of a study or a hypothesis. Brooks say that people go through a "never-ending process of creating and discovering who they are" and I would have to agree whole heartily with him. Of course I do believe that God knows the exact person we are going to become before we are even born, but no human has that power.

We all generalize and think that we know a person just by the way that they appear to us, but really that is never the entire story. That person could have been driving that car temporarily until their car is fixed, that man could have just spent his last five dollars to his name trying to show off by giving the waitress a nice tip, or you could be watching that movie because it was the only thing on TV. There are so many factors that have to be worked in in order to really find out what a person is really like, so we just need to get to know the person instead of generalizing them into a category.

Christianity

Popular Science Monthly printed out an article called "The Study of Human Nature", which talks about how Christ makes Christians look at the world through a new "mental philosophy". The article talks about what sin is and how we look at it through and the questions that we ask about it. The article is very though provoking and in depth as to the types of things that we should think about during our journey to understand people and the reason people do the things that they do.

There is also a section of the article that speaks strictly of human nature and how important divine faith is to continuing on the right path towards God's plan. The articles goes very in depth as to the problems that go on when people are trying to follow God's will and their sinful nature gets in the way and they "shut their eyes" to God and what he wants them to do.

I really like this article and it brings up a lot of very compelling points about human nature and the "mental philosophy" that we all have in our heads about life and sometimes that philosophy is good and sometimes it is misdirected.

A History Lesson

"The Study of Man", is all about how this study came about and the different ideas that have come from this study. Through the years the study oh humans has evolved and has been tweaked and defined according to different religious teachings and practices.
The study of humans evolved from what the Ancient Greeks observed as well as what came to be some of Socrates' teachings. Through the years, the study of human nature has become more and more defined. Like when a scientist makes a discovery, there are always other scientists that wants to dig deeper and find something even smaller inside of the cell and call it a nucleus. In that same respect, there is always going to be that person that digs deeper to answer the question of "Why do people do the things that they do?", and then comes out with the discovery of a guilty conscience.
This website takes us through history and describes the developments that have come about because of how complex we are as humans.

Human Nature Is All About Perception

No matter what you say, everyone wonders what the point of an inkblot test is. I think that is can be seen as a way for others to know how you see the world. Some people may say that this inkblot is some sort of insect or bug, that is what I personally see. Other people may see an angry face starring back at them, it is all about how this image is perceived by different people. In this same respect, some people get along better with one group of friends rather than the other; there is no way to really explain it but to say that they are more compatible on a mental as well as personal level. Everything that you come across in life deals with some sort perception and the ways in which you see and understand the world around you; as well as how you want other people to see you. Sometimes perceptions are fair and other times they are not. The unfair times maybe when you see the inkblot and think of an angry man, but you yourself are not angry and have no reason to see that particular image, you just do. So, the perceived thought that anyone that sees a angry man while looking at this has some sort of aggression inside of them, but this is not always the case.
Human Nature is and always will be a complex thing to analyze and study, for the simple reason of there are no two humans that are exactly a like. There will never be one set answer as to why people act the way that they do, there will only be theories and experimental conclusions that only simply give us an idea of the answer.