Science tackles many issues behind factors involved in material reactions, but what about human reactions? Psychology is the study behind human choices and behavior, so psychological science is simply the connection between our reactions with our surroundings. I’ve seen multiple commercials for energy supplements, such as 5 Hour Energy , that mention the afternoon blues, but what about the afternoon impulses that, according to this article, exist as well?
Harvard and University of Utah paired together to create the means to test this hypothesis. In their results, it seemed that participants lost integrity and honest feedback by the end of the day. I personally think that a lot of people like to start their day off on a good note and after being subjected to bad luck, or being a witness to unmoral actions, they are either frustrated and lose willpower, or they seek other means to reinstate their dominance in a different way.
While reading, I couldn’t help but think of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde . In this well-known story, a righteous, do-good doctor lives during the day, but at night, his reckless, manipulate counterpart, Mr. Hyde comes out at night. In today’s world, one could relate this to bipolar disorder , or more commonly a split personalitysituation. It’s interesting to look into why people act as they do. Are we really who we think we are, what we’d like to be, or what the day happens to make us?
Nevertheless, it’s research like this that aims to answer these questions. With further understanding, we could start to find remedies to decisions that lack morality. From teaching a child right from wrong, to making an adult remember that right is better than wrong, society may not be so inclined to hide from Mr. Hyde, and to accept help from Dr. Jekyll. My only concern is those that are evil from the start of the day to the end. Hopefully more research will come out to tackle that, but for now, we can understand what hits the masses.
Picture Source: (http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/moral-control-0330.html)
Danielle, the funny thing is I thought about nature vs. nurture thing before I started writing this blog, I thought about individual bad choices and how it could be link to lack of good parenting? However, I couldn’t really say that because I know a few people that were brought up in some very bad situation but they turned out good and I viewed them as as good role models that I could look up too for guidance.
Jonathan, thank you so much man, I appreciate the complement. I was just curious about what makes people tick and at times I just wondered why people didn’t pick the right path when they had an option(or choice) to do so but just neglected the right path and made bad decisions that had long negative effect, I mean I am not perfect and I too fell into the categories of making bad decisions and I just was curious because I was just always interested by individual’s decisions to pick the wrong choice.
Hi Jefferson! I enjoyed reading your well written blog post, and found it to be very insightful. I never truly thought about this topic before, but your post got me thinking and I would completely agree with you that people (myself included) do begin to lose care as the day goes on. I would consider myself a good person, but my mood and willingness to lend a helping hand is usually much better at the start of the day rather than at night. However I also feel as though this theory can work in the opposite way as well, for instance if I wake up on the wrong side of the bed I will be more inclined to make bad decisions, but as the day goes on and good things begin to happen to me such as class getting cancelled, receiving a good test grade, or finding 5 bucks on the ground, my mood could easily be turned around which would in return make me more likely to do the right things. I wanted to share an interesting article I found from Forbes with you that talks about incentives that dictate whether or not we chose right from wrong. Take a look and enjoy!
I think nature vs nurture has a big role in the decisions we make every day. I believe parents are supposed to teach the difference between right and wrong. They are supposed teach you morals and guide you into the right direction. But nature also plays a role because maybe a friends group leads you into the wrong directions and causes you to make wrong decisions. Though if you had a strong nurturing family a person should be able to know what is right and wrong. Here is a link that I found where scientists believe they have found the part of the brain that helps us make decisions. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131124200554.htm