Do we and should we study human behavior objectively? - Paula Soares

This prompt is composed of two separate questions. One is if we actually use objectivity to study human behavior, and the other is if we should be objective when studying human behavior. It is necessary to define and explore the concepts of objectivity and the study of human behavior in order to achieve a concrete and reliable analysis to this prompt.

Having objectivity during a scientific study means that the observer is not letting his/her bias cloud the judgment of the research. Since perception varies greatly within each individual, it is impossible to get rid of all bias. However, an observer can choose to minimize bias by first acknowledging them. An objective researcher, for example, studies the facts of a culture without any judgment of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ applied to the habits and components of the culture. The ethical concept of good vs. bad is not objective during a study because it relies on the perception of the observer, and not on what is being observed.

The study of human behavior lies most prominently in the social sciences, which are mainly anthropology, psychology, sociology and economics. All of the previously mentioned human sciences study aspects of human society, behavior and culture. They use both qualitative and quantitative methods to do so. It is important to note this because qualitative data tends to be more subjective, while quantitative tends to be more objective. Yet both are valuable and useful resources.

My knowledge issue with this question is that I grew up in a culture where not much importance was ever given to the study of the human sciences. It was often regarded as non-scientific at all and archived alongside tarot due to that fact that it was regarded as not provable and completely subjective. I have grown to educate myself better on the regards of the human sciences, and do not follow the exact same train of thought as my parents, for example. However, I do still tend to perceive the human sciences as quite subjective due to the bias I was exposed to when I was younger.

The first question of if we do study human behavior objectively can be simply answered with no. The final answer may seem simple but there are several reasons why that is the case. The researchers and scientists conducting the studies of human behavior are, as far as we know, human. Human beings possess individual perceptions of the world that are shaped by their past experiences and their senses. Whether we all share the same reality and look at it differently, or we all have completely different realities altogether, does not matter in this case. What matters is that, whatever reality there is, every single different human being will have their own personal version of it. Constructivism and existentialism both explain how if we put 100 different human science researchers in one room analyzing the same qualitative or quantitative data of human behavior, they will reach 100 (even if slightly) different conclusions. How can a human being ever study anything objectively then? Their perception will always be engaged in the conclusion they draw from a study.

Evidence for this can be found in studying the brains of two different people who have learned different languages in their lifetime. The way their brans are structured is different from one another, because their different linguistic experiences affected the entirety of their thinking minds, and therefore their perception as well.

The Stanford prison experiment is an example of how a human science experiment turns subjective. Professor Zimbardo set up an experiment at Stanford University where people would volunteer to act as either prisoners or guards for 2 weeks. He wanted to test if the volunteers would start taking their role of either prisoner or guard seriously when put in a prison environment. The conclusion of his experiment was that yes, a human being’s environment affects their actions tremendously. The prisoners and guards literally took on the roles of such. The interesting thing was that Zimbardo, who was supposed to be the ‘objective’ and observant researcher, also took on the role he was playing of prison administrator. He recalls that near the end of the experiment, he was acting more like a prison administrator than a Stanford professor. Did that hinder his results? No, he was still able to conclude a lot about human behavior, especially since he personally went through the effect that an environment has on human behavior. We can see from this example that studying human behavior (as studying anything else that relies on perception) is not objective, but also that being subjective is not necessarily a prejudicial aspect in human science research.

In fact, having individual perceptions is part of human behavior, and so is being subjective. We can never know for absolute certainty if what each of us observes is what someone else is observing, but the differences are not so enormous or else we would probably not be able to co-exist at all. Trying to minimize bias is advantageous when trying to analyze data (such as human behavior), and easier done with quantitative than qualitative data, but trying to expunge the intrinsic human trait of perception to study humans is ironic, not really necessary, and counterintuitive.