Page 9 - Flipbook: Sociology Shortcuts Issue 3
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Or Culture?
Sociologists are sceptical about the idea of Adaptation: We live in a vast, complex,
instinct as the basis for human behaviour, constantly-changing world and people
for three main reasons: need to be able to adapt to such changes. A
simple example here is the recent and rapid
Choice: Instincts, by definition, involve a development of computer technology that,
lack of choice: their purpose is to create through things like the Internet, has
order by explicitly removing choice from changed the way people both see and
the agenda. Human behaviour, on the other interact in the world.
hand, involves an almost limitless set of
choices, some of which are fairly banal Fifty years ago the idea we’d be carrying
(“Should I do my Sociology homework or hugely-powerful computers around in our
watch TV?”) and some of which aren’t pocket and using them to connect to people
(“Should I buy this very interesting book around the world did not exist outside the
or steal it from the bookshop?”). world of science fiction.
Diversity: The fact we can make Now computer technology is everywhere
behavioural choices, contributes to the and embedded deeply into our social
diversity of human behaviour. One of the behaviour.
fascinations of Sociology (there are others,
but none actually come to mind) is that Instinctive behaviour is something that
people develop different (diverse) ways of does not and cannot change. If human
doing things. If our behaviour was simply behaviour was guided by instinct, we
instinctive we’d expect to see much the would find it impossible to either initiate or
same sort of behaviour wherever we were adapt to change…
in the world - and while there are
numerous similarities and continuities in
people’s behaviour, there are also a vast
range of differences that stem from our
ability to make choices.
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