Home

An Overview on the Three Kinds of Human Behavior

A Grand Wedding 

A few days ago, my aunt celebrated her wedding anniversary. I was looking at pictures from the wedding, admiring the beautiful dresses, flowers, and smiling faces. The diversity of weddings had always intrigued me. My parents, for example, hosted two weddings, each in accordance with their culture. Upon flipping through my aunt’s pictures, I found myself asking different questions. Why do weddings look so different across cultures? Why does a simple ring carry so much meaning? Why do people follow traditions that have been passed down for generations? It came to me that a wedding is much more than a celebration. Rather, it is a window into how humans think, interact, and learn. Weddings, along with many other traditions, reveal fundamental aspects of human behavior. They embody symbolic meaning, social organization, and cultural transmission, the same three forms of behavior that anthropologists use to understand human societies. These behaviors are especially evident in medicine, where beliefs, relationships, and shared knowledge shape how people understand health and healing.

Since the beginning of civilization, medicine has been a crucial part of society, not only practically but also behaviorally. The Ju/’hoansi San people are an indigenous society that lived in southern Africa. Their belief was that physical illness is caused by spirits of the dead, and illness is cured by an all night healing dance, known as n/um tchai. The entire village participates in the healing dance, making medicine a shared social responsibility and an essential part of their behavior. Contrastingly, in the ancient Maya civilization, health was viewed as a reflection of life forces, and illness was due to an unbalance in these forces. In this civilization, medicine was directly tied to political power, and the strongest healers would take control of the kingdom. Healers would use herbal remedies and were believed to have the highest connection to the gods, reinforcing their position as king. In both cultures, medicine is the basis for the social hierarchy and different kinds of human behavior. However, human behavior is more than simply how humans interact with each other. Rather, “human behavior” is an general term for three different kinds of behavior: conceptual, social, and learning behavior, all of which have an application in medical anthropology. 

Types of Behavior

Conceptual behavior can be defined as the ability to think using abstract ideas and symbols. Examples include flags and money. The two objects do not hold any inert meaning, but through culture, humans understand that flags are more than simply cloth and money is more than simply paper. In the world of anthropology, assigning symbolic meaning to objects is referred to as symbolic thought, which is a defining characteristic of homo sapiens that separates humans from other mammals. Conceptual behavior shapes how humans think about the world, including scientific reasoning, mathematics, and religion. For example, the way death is viewed among different peoples varies due to conceptual behavior, with some religions believing in reincarnation and others believing in eternal life on a different plane of existence. 

Social behavior is defined as the interaction between humans and how people organize themselves into groups. Through social behavior, humans learn cooperation, leadership, and conflict resolution. Additionally, humans learn what kind of social behavior is and is not acceptable in their society, which can vary based on location. For example, eye contact is seen as a sign of respect and confidence in the United States of America. However, in the country of Japan, eye contact is understood as a sign of disrespect and rudeness. Neither behavior is inherently correct nor incorrect; rather, both behaviors are learned as a part of social behavior. Social behavior molds how humans interact with each other, creating the foundation for different groups in society, including how society organizes kinship. Social behavior determines how humans select a spouse, raise a family, and organize their families. A straightforward example is the closeness of one with their cousins. Some cultures treat cousins as close as siblings, while others have more of a separation. Social behavior also has a strong role in the organization of government.  Whether it be a tribe, clan, or nation, social behavior is what determines governmental structure. It also is the basis of cooperation, allowing societies to be built. Architectural projects, such as schools and hospitals, rely on cooperation for their creation, leading back to social behavior. The reason cooperation is possible among these peoples is due to the shared language, beliefs, and culture developed from social behavior. 

Learning behavior is commonly defined by anthropologists as inherited culture, or enculturation. Unlike a majority of animals, homo sapiens are born knowing relatively nothing. Learning behavior, through cultural transmission, is what allows humans to develop skills and values in accordance to society. Cultural transmission, similar to human behavior, is also an general term for three different types of transmission: vertical, horizontal, and oblique transmission. Vertical transmission is the passing of cultural and societal knowledge from parent to child, including values and traditions. Horizontal transmission is the passing of cultural and societal knowledge from peer to peer, including slang and the arts. Oblique transmission is the passing of cultural and societal knowledge from an older generation, such as teachers and coaches, to a younger one, excluding parents. Learning behavior determines how humans acquire culture, from basic behavior and interaction between peoples and belief in religion and tradition 

Working Together

It is clear that the three are critical in the upbringing of a person; however, how do the three interact together? A wedding is the perfect example. A wedding is an example of conceptual behavior, as the tradition inherently has no meaning, but is given meaning by humans. Wedding rings, additionally, are bands of metal, but humans are the ones that provide symbolic meaning through symbolic thought. The wedding ceremony is an example of social behavior, as humans are organizing themselves in society by creating new bonds within people. In a wedding, people gather together in accordance to cultural traditions, and the creation of a new family is taking place. Weddings are also an example of learning behavior, specifically vertical and oblique transmission. Children learn about cultural traditions through the experiences of their elders, creating the foundation of what weddings mean in their culture. 

How does this tie back to medicine? In my opinion, human behavior is the basis of medicine. Identification of illness is always the first step in medicine. Conceptual behavior determines how different cultures identify and define health, illness, and healing. For example, a fever can be seen as an illness caused by an infection, but it can also be viewed as an imbalance of body energies or divine punishment. Treating the illness is the second step in medicine, which is an example of social behavior. Social behavior is the foundation of healthcare systems, with modern medicine consisting of administration, nurses, and doctors, it and determines how social inequalities affect health outcomes. The third, and arguably most crucial step, in medicine is bringing practices to the new generation. Learning behavior, specifically transmission, determines how people learn about health beliefs stated previously, and how to practice medicine through caregiving practices and enculturation. Medicine may be the flame, but human behavior is the spark that ignites it, the fuel that sustains it, and the torch that carries it forward.

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/human-behavior

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11570560

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/social-learning-theory

https://www.wgu.edu/blog/guide-social-learning-theory-education2005.html

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9733593

https://www.simplypsychology.org/cultural-transmission-theory.html