Overview of Psychology: Biological Bases of Behavior

Overview of Psychology: Biological Bases of Behavior

Different people have different personality types. Behaviors portrayed by people result from their life experiences and the need to survive. Most of the behaviors exemplified by people are manifestation of psychological implications. The story of ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ is a good illustration of our different personalities. This story is the case study of our discussion. Various psychologists have advanced various psychological concepts to foster understanding of different personalities exhibited by people. The two psychological concepts this paper adapts include, Pavlov’s Behavioral Approach- classical condition and Maslow’s Humanistic Concepts-Belongingness and Love Needs.

In view of these two concepts, personality of Grinch is categorized as temperamental and determination. Temperamental is evidenced in his reactions after a girl he tried to seduce on Christmas refused his advances. He is angered with the embarrassment he gets from his colleagues and carries this in his entire lifetime. He develops a negative attitude towards Christmas day and makes and tries to disrupt the joy of his colleagues. This personality resonates with the Pavlov’s Behavioral approach-classical condition, which holds the views that people behaviors are, learned (Parvene, 2012, p. 5). According to this concept, an exposure to certain stimulus makes an individual to get used to such stimulus and every time the person is exposed to such stimulus, it triggers a certain behavior. Likewise, Grinch experiences during his childhood make him to respond negatively to every Christmas (Suess, 2012). The experiences that he went through on Christmas day always comes into his mind every other Christmas, which makes him to exemplify such behaviors. The Christmas day experiences affected his psychology and this exemplifies her negative attitude towards every other Christmas. Another personality that Grinch showed is that of determination. He is determined in his quest to make the day awful to others who value and enjoy celebrations that comes with the day. His determination is exemplified when he hides the food and other playing instruments of his colleagues. He believes that by doing that, his mates are not going to celebrate and will go through the same experiences that he is going through. Maslow’s Humanistic Concepts-Belongingness and Love Needs is also applicable in this case. According to this concept, individuals aspire to meet their love need. It comes after the physiological and safety needs are met (McLeod, 2007, para. 2). An individual longs to enter into intimate relationships and longs to be loved and accepted by others. They long to have a feeling of acceptance and therefore it involves receiving as well as giving love. Grinch was determined to achieve this –to be loved and to be accepted by his girl friend. However, this failed. This upsets him and he is determined to ensure that other people do not enjoy their love.

There are instances where an individual personality may change over time. This change or modification is attributed to life experiences or exposure to certain stimulus. In this case, Grinch personality changes towards the end. He transforms into a good individual after his strategy fails. He believed that by taking all the things that he believed would bring joy to his colleagues; he would make them not enjoy Christmas celebration. This turns out not to be the case making him to return the things he had taken. Despite the absence of these things, his colleagues sung and rejoiced in jubilation. The reasons for this personality transformation can be accounted through explanation of these concepts in psychology. Pavlov’s Behavioral Approach- classical condition did not apply in this transformation. This is because; Grinch could no more accomplish his goals. Although Christmas day was awful to him and he did not like the day to come because of the ordeal that happened to him, other colleagues continued to sing and rejoice without their presents and toys. Therefore, this transformation went against the Pavlov’s behavioral approach, which requires that, an individual behavior to result from a certain stimuli. On the other hand, Maslow’s Humanistic Concepts-Belongingness and Love Needs applied to this case to certain extend. Grinch felt that there was no need to deny his colleagues their presents and toys and yet they were singing in jubilation. This made him to return the presents and join his colleagues in celebration. This turn of event showed that he felt a sense of belonging and love to the groups. This motivated him to change his mind and return the presents. On the other hand, these two psychological concepts have some differences in relation to this case. Behaviors of Grinch towards the end of the story are against the usual stimuli (Parvene, 2012, p. 5). He however, felt a sense of belonging and love by returning the presents and toys to his colleagues. He was merciful and felt a sense of belonging, which triggered her change in behaviors and reaction. This conclusion has been arrived at due to the behaviors that were manifested by Grinch. He changed his behaviors after finding out that his strategy of making his colleagues to suffer by denying them their toys and presents was not working. Even after taking these things away, they continued to sing and rejoice in celebrations and this surprised and puzzled him making him to change his mind.

In comparison and contrasting Grinch personality and his transformation, the two concepts have some similarities. The first similarity is that Grinch aspired to be loved and have a sense of belonging. He failed to get the love and a group of people to belong to. This makes him to develop a positive attitude towards Christmas. He develops hatred towards his colleagues and this happens in his entire life. He does not want Christmas day to reach because it reminds him of the episode that happened in his childhood. His anger and temperamental is because of the life experiences. Therefore, life experiences and the quest for survival make Grinch to behave in this manner. Therefore, this is one of the similarities. The differences in these two approaches are evident in his behaviors before and after his transformation. Before transformation, his personality was based on experience. His temperamental and attitude towards Christmas resulted to the experience where he was denied love. This affected his entire life. However, after his strategies fail, he changes in personality and accepts the reality. He returns the presents and his love is again restored.

In conclusion, personality of Grinch can be said to be temperamental and determination as explained in the paper. The personality concept that best explains his personality or behavior is the Pavlov, classical conditioning and Maslow’s Humanistic Concepts- belonging and love. These concepts played a crucial role in the behaviors and reactions exhibited by Grinch. Therefore, understanding personality of an individual is an important aspect in understanding people’s behaviors.

References

McLeod, S. A. (2007). Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.htm

Parvene, F. (2012). Behavior Analysis: The Science of Training’, In Exotic Animal Training and Learning, Veterinary Clinics of North America: Exotic Animal Practice, 2(1):1-16.

Suess, P. (2012). How the Grinch stole Christmas. Retrieved from: http://xmasfun.com/stories/Grinch/Text.asp