by Olufemi Oyedele

Created on: March 21, 2009   Last Updated: March 25, 2009

Among the various factors that affect human behaviour in life like climate, religion, culture, experience, education and training, and lifestyle; culture and lifestyle have the greatest impact. Culture and lifestyle are the major factors affecting how we talk, dress, relate with and treat people, how we eat and live. According to Tylor in 1871, "culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, moral, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of a society". Culture is the full range of learned behavioral patterns of a group of people. We have family, ethnic culture, state culture, corporate culture and national culture. On the other hand, lifestyle can be described as the way a person lives. It includes the way he or she eats, dresses, thinks, talks, behaves etc. It is the imbibed or adopted culture of a man from the society at large. For example, the lifestyle of New York or London is the mixture of the different cultures of the inhabitants. Lifestyle affects culture and culture affects lifestyles in the society. Lifestyle is a result of culture, climate, socialisation and technology. The two, culture and lifestyle, are the major determinants of human behaviour.

Social values, norms and beliefs have impact in the way we live as well as on the societal lifestyle. Religion, experience and education may change the influence of culture and lifestyle in our behaviour slightly but not totally. For example, most children who are born into a family of cigarette smokers do smoke at early age. This is a behavioral trait from culture. These children learn smoking through intuition and grow to imbibe it as a lifestyle. Societal lifestyle in America and Europe where affluence in the society means that eating three square meal a day is not a problem means that residents can afford to buy drugs despite all laws and control. Excessive controls may lead to inquisitiveness and later addiction. In a survey of druggists in a rehab carried out by the writer, thirty per cent of sample said they entered into drug addiction through 'inquisitiveness', wanting to know why people say it is not good, research or curiousity. They sell drugs in third world countries on the street, yet majority of the people are not addicted to it as in Western world.

Scientists have showed that through genes individuals are most likely to behave like their parents even when they do not share the same culture for a very long term, but culture and lifestyle

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