WHAT IS SOCIAL BEHAVIOR? - ARTE - 2025

The social behavior is defined as any conduct directed to society and is being studied mainly from the perspective of psychology, biology or sociology. There are terms that from Ethology or Biology should clarify.

Few animals exist that are as social as humans. We need others to know ourselves, maintain balanced mental health, and even survive. We are completely gregarious beings.

There are animal patterns of behavior that are also purely social: while bees form a web of relationships, communication and hierarchy with other members of their species, rats literally get depressed if they are alone in a cage (not being so if they have another with whom to interact).

Social behavior occurs within the same species, that is, it is only about intraspecific behaviors or relationships. On the other hand, other behaviors, such as predation or parasitization, involve members of other species (interspecific relationships) and, therefore, are not considered social.

Since ancient times, and from the hand of philosophers as influential in Western thought as Aristotle, the relevance of social behavior and society for people's lives was already being drawn.

For the polymath, the human being was a social animal whose private sphere was indivisible from the social one, since it is in society that people are morally formed, being citizens and relating to the environment.

Today, modern Psychology drinks from points of view such as cognitivism or the study of personality to address behavior in society. These optics will be precisely what we will talk about next.

We cannot forget a key aspect of the social behavior of human beings: language. This is drawn as the key tool to make this possible. We will also talk about communication and non-verbal language later.

Social psychology and social behavior

Social Psychology is in charge of delving into social behavior. It starts from the basis that psychological (cognitive) processes underlie human beings when it comes to perceiving and behaving around society and that they are decisive in knowing how it works. Similarly, social psychology assumes that we are constantly influenced by society (even when we are alone).

Likewise, social psychology also studies the laws and "behavioral contracts" by which coexistence and the internalization of cultural norms are governed.

Other topics that fit into the study of social psychology and which we will talk about in this article are:

─ Personality, highlighting extraversion and introversion.

─ Shyness.

─ Collectivity and Psychology of the masses.

─ Communication and language.

Social behavior according to personality traits

Without a doubt, one of the champions of the study of personal characteristics and attributes was the psychologist Eynseck, who created a multidimensional system, that is, the following categories that make up a bipolar continuum

Although the intention of this author was not to explain social behavior, it will serve us to enrich our vision of this phenomenon.

Eynseck classified the most important and defining personality traits into three distinct categories that are still taken into account today in numerous tests and inventories. These are:

─ Psychoticism: it is the level of impulsivity that a person shows towards other people or towards specific situations, as well as a tendency to take risk. Although we can associate this dimension with negative attributes, Eynseck promulgated that people with high scores in Psychoticism are also the most creative thanks to being dominated by divergent thinking and transgression of social conventionalism.

─ Neuroticism: marks how emotionally stable a person is. The higher the score on this dimension, the more unstable (neurotic) the individual will be.

─ Extraversion: this is the trait that shows the most interest when explaining social behavior. As we have said, it is a continuum at the ends of which is extroversion, on the one hand, and intraversion, on the other.

This dimension purely defines behavior towards society: either you are open or you are lonely. While the extravert opens up to society, is talkative, interacts with others and likes to be around people, the introvert manifests himself as a reserved person and tends to the loneliness sought.

It is important to differentiate between a shy and an introvert. An introvert prefers not to surround himself with many people. We can say that he is better alone, which does not mean that he does not have social skills. A shy person, however, is one who finds it difficult to surround himself with people and interact with them, despite his desire to do so.

Regarding introversion, Carl Jung, Freud's disciple, defined introversion as an attitude directed more towards our "inner psychic content" rather than the external world.

What is someone socially open like?

Or what is the same, how is an extrovert, according to Eynseck and Jung? how it behaves? As Jung said, extraverts are oriented more towards the "outside world" and, therefore, seek more social interaction than introverts. In this way, they will carry out a range of behaviors that "attract" people.

For example, it is not uncommon to see that more social or more open people tend to decorate their workspaces or offices more, keep their office door open or dress more conspicuously.

We can also turn to other more everyday examples: if we consider ourselves extraverts, rarely when the weekend arrives will we stay at home watching a movie or reading, these behaviors much more typical of introverts.

On the other hand, there are also jobs that relate to extroverts or introverts. Laboratory or research jobs will require more introverted profiles, while other positions, such as project coordinators or supervisors, public relations or tourism sectors are conducive to an extraverted person feeling in their element and developing their abilities.

Although each of us is closer to one pole than another, there is no doubt that human beings have the capacity to adapt to the situation and, therefore, there will be occasions when we behave in a more open or reserved way depending on the circumstances.

Thus, instead of speaking of introverts and extroverts per se, it would be more correct to say "predominantly introverts" or "predominantly extroverts."

Shyness

Other social behavior (although we could well call it «anti social behavior») is shyness, which is defined as the feeling of insecurity or even shame that a person feels when faced with generally new social situations (although shyness can also be experienced in contexts that do not they are new to us)

It can also be a state of mind that interferes with social relationships and that, in certain extremes, can be harmful or pathological, since it prevents the person from enjoying a full social life that, as we know, is essential to maintain a balanced mental health.

As we have already said in previous paragraphs, it is very common to confuse introversion with shyness when the former is just a personality trait that does not pose any problem or influence the social function of the person, while shyness can diminish the development of this.

Shyness, for its part, goes much further and can be linked to various pathologies and conditions; for example, anxiety disorders: more specifically, social anxiety, which can lead to real panic attacks.

However, shyness also has its positive side. Shy people typically have certain traits or attributes that make them especially loyal to their acquaintances, possibly due to an inability to relate to new people or make more friends.

They also stand out for their calm, prudent and not aggressive character. We probably don't know of a shy person who has shown violent behavior or expressed anger.

People collectively and en masse

Another phenomenon studied by social psychology is related to mass behavior or when we form a collective, are forces optimized? Is there a positive synergy or does it turn out to be the opposite?

The study of the Psychology of the masses arises from the psychonalitic tradition mainly. What is attempted is to explain the influence of the actions of large groups on the isolated person; that is, on the identity of the latter, and how these actions have repercussions on political or cultural movements, among others.

If we turn to the sociologist LeBon we can find a very precise definition of the behavior of the masses: human grouping with the traits of loss of rational control, greater suggestibility, emotional contagion, imitation, feeling of omnipotence and anonymity for the individual.

As we can see, in mass behavior there are several behavioral, cognitive and emotional phenomena that can be quickly identified: there is, for example, the diffusion of responsibility and even in social loafing (in the presence of someone or a group people, people tend to decrease their productivity or performance). Also, a very strong group identity is created.

Let's see by what elements the "entity" is characterized, referred to by sociologists and psychologists as "mass":

─ Groups that come together around a common need or common goals.

─ A leader who takes the reins.

─ Feelings of identity and belonging.

─ Cohesion, totality and homogeneity of the members.

─ Its components are malleable and easily manipulated.

After reading these listed characteristics we are sure to think of sectarian groups or even more rugged issues, but the truth is that these phenomena can occur in almost any group or association of people practically without realizing it.

Nor are they negative or pathological elements per se: for example, there needs to be a leader in almost any self-respecting group and, as the group matures, the feelings of identity and belonging will appear stronger and stronger.

Language: the essential tool

We well know that the basis for social behavior to occur is, neither more nor less, language, thanks to which we can transmit complex messages or intentions. Without a doubt, one of the most influential theorists in establishing the principles of language and, therefore, of social behavior was Watzlawick and his group.

He established 5 principles or axioms that underpin human communication, and they are the following:

─ It is impossible not to communicate: even silence can speak. In fact, we only have to think about moments of uncomfortable silences and the sensations that they transmit to us and that surely we have all lived.

─ Communication has a content aspect and a relational aspect: the content aspect refers to what the message, empty (without elements of prosody of the voice, for example) wants to tell us. The relational component refers to the "imposition" of behaviors, such as an order, which can denote a vertical hierarchy (from a superior person to a inferior person in rank).

─ The nature of a relationship depends on the gradation that the participants make of the communicational sequences between them: this, which seems so complex, is simply how the communication flow is structured and how the communicators feed back.

─ Human communication involves two modalities: digital and analog: digital being what is not said; that is, non-verbal communication, and what is analogical is what is properly said.

─ There are two types of communicational exchanges -symmetric and complementary-: in the first case, if, for example, our partner reproaches us for a certain behavior, we will reproach them twice as hard. In the second case, if our father or mother has an authoritarian behavior and we act obediently, we will be complementing our behaviors in a reciprocal way.

Conclusions

As we have seen, social behavior is really a rather intricate amalgam of feedback relationships, since the behavior of one person affects the behavior of another, forming a butterfly effect.

Of course, understanding social behavior in its entirety is a practically endless task, in part because in society we are even more unpredictable than individually.