How much does culture and lifestyle affect behavior?

There are some things that simply come with you and the culture into which you are born is one of those things. You have no control over the culture into which you are born, they are a "given" to you. The lifestyle of your parents and/or caregiver becomes the constant influence in your existence. Your perception of life is greatly influenced by the culture and lifestyle of your caregiver. Your behavior will directly correlate with their influence upon you. You are imprinted in your thinking and consequently in your behavior by those who care for you.

This is the core influence upon how our personality and character begins to develop.

The culture into which you are born is the first determinate on how you see the world. We gain understanding of our personhood because it influences our communication processes with the rest of society. The culture into which we are born defines how we disseminate and process the world around us. It affects how we see ourselves "fitting" in the world around us. We are influenced in a negative or positive manner by the lifestyle of our environment. We learn to cope in our personal surroundings, using the same coping mechanism we see demonstrated in our immediate environment. Society and family "cue" us to how we are accepted by the larger community in which we are introduced to interact and develop our personal concept as to our behavior in this larger setting. We begin to define ourselves in the culture to which we are born in our moral system, our way of interacting in social relationships and other human endeavors from consumer goods to art, music, language, and science. Our lifestyle is our choice of how we refine or fine tune our behavior and make it our personal choice. There is no choice as to the culture into which we arrive on earth, is concerned. You are born into a particular situation, without your consent.

How the larger society perceives your culture is a part of your inheritance at birth. How you accept yourself and how you choose to be perceived is a part of your personal choice and acceptance of your own personhood. You adapt to the circumstances under which you become a viable participant. You can choose those aspects of your culture that are most positive to you and make them a part of character and abstain from the more negative aspects of your culture. You can choose to define yourself and not be defined by your circumstances, culture or lifestyle into which you are born. Goal oriented people are not limited by how they are defined by culture or lifestyle. You can change your behavior.

There are cultures of people who are identified by their aggressive and warlike nature. There are cultures of people who are passive and less aggressive. The aggressive culture will influence individuals born into it's system to have a mindset to acquire those things you need by what ever means necessary. This is normal. The passive culture will influence an individual born into their system to avoid confrontation or to find resolution to problems without engaging in conflict. This become a basic part of their personality. Culture and lifestyle can affect your behavior to a degree, but it does not necessarily dominate you. You have choice and choice makes change possible.

Learn more about this author, Ann Nurse.
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