An analysis of the various theories on the topic of human nature

I NQUIRY Fundamentally, the various scientific disciplines are alike in their reliance on evidence, the use of hypothesis and theories, the kinds of logic used, and much more. Nevertheless, scientists differ greatly from one another in what phenomena they investigate and in how they go about their work; in the reliance they place on historical data or on experimental findings and on qualitative or quantitative methods; in their recourse to fundamental principles; and in how much they draw on the findings of other sciences.

Emotion Emotion is one type of affect, other types being mood, temperament and sensation for example, pain.

Emotions can be understood as either states or as processes. When understood as a state like being angry or afraidan emotion is a type of mental state that interacts with other mental states and causes certain behaviors. Understood as a process, it is useful to divide emotion into two parts.

The early part of the emotion process is the interval between the perception of the stimulus and the triggering of the bodily response. The later part of the emotion process is a bodily response, for example, changes in heart rate, skin conductance, and facial expression.

This description is sufficient to begin an analysis of the emotions, although it does leave out some aspects of the process such as the subjective awareness of the emotion and behavior that is often part of the emotion response for example, fighting, running away, hugging another person.

The early part of the process is typically taken to include an evaluation of the stimulus, which means that the occurrence of an emotion depends on how the individual understands or "sees" the stimulus. For example, one person may respond to being laid-off from a job with anger, while another person responds with joy—it depends on how the individual evaluates this event.

Having this evaluative component in the process means that an emotion is not a simple and direct response to a stimulus. In this way, emotions differ from reflexes such as the startle response or the eye-blink response, which are direct responses to certain kinds of stimuli.

The following are some of the features that distinguish emotion from moods. An emotion is a response to a specific stimulus that can be internal, like a belief or a memory.

It is also generally agreed that emotions have intentional content, which is to say that they are about something, often the stimulus itself. Moods, on the other hand, are typically not about anything, and at least some of the time do not appear to be caused by a specific stimulus.

Emotions also have a relatively brief duration—on the order of seconds or minutes—whereas moods last much longer.

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Most theories agree about these features of the emotions. Other features will be discussed in the course of this article. There is much less agreement, however, about most of these other features that the emotions may or may not have. Evolutionary Theories The evolutionary approach focuses on the historical setting in which emotions developed.

Typically, the goal is to explain why emotions are present in humans today by referring to natural selection that occurred some time in the past. It will help to begin by clarifying some terminology.

Evolution is simply "change over generational time" Brandon,p. Change to a trait can occur because of natural selection, chance, genetic drift, or because the trait is genetically linked with some other trait.

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A trait is an adaptation if it is produced by natural selection. And a trait is the result of natural selection only when "its prevalence is due to the fact that it conferred a greater fitness" Richardson,p.

However, a trait can enhance fitness without being an adaptation. One example, noted by Darwin in The Origin of Species, is the skull sutures in newborns: The sutures in the skulls of young mammals have been advanced as a beautiful adaptation for aiding parturition [that is, live birth], and no doubt they facilitate, or may be indispensable for this act; but as sutures occur in the skulls of young birds and reptiles, which have only to escape from a broken egg, we may infer that this structure has arisen from the laws of growth, and has been taken advantage of in the parturition of the higher animals p.

In this case, the evidence from non-mammals indicates that this trait was not selected because it aids live birth, although it later became useful for this task.

In order to know that a trait is an adaptation, we have to be familiar with the circumstances under which the selection occurred Brandon, ; Richardson, However, often the historical evidence is not available to establish that a new trait replaced a previous one because the new trait increased fitness.

This is especially true for psychological traits because there is no fossil record to examine.The argument of the essay is human growth and development is affected by different factors. These are natural or man-made. The thesis statement of the essay appears to be “There are various theories that have been put forward in order to help people understand the life cycle development and the human behavior.”.

Human nature is a bundle of fundamental characteristics—including ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—which humans tend to have naturally.. The questions of whether there truly are fixed characteristics, what these natural characteristics are, and what causes them are among the oldest and most important questions in philosophy and .

North South University is the first private university of Bangladesh, It was established in Approved by the University Grants Commission (UGC) of Bangladesh. Since both of these are theories, neither of them can be proven, but comparing and contrasting them can give one the means to decide if human development is based upon nature or nurture.

Nature refers to an individual's innate qualities or nativism. Human Nature in Minority Report - Human nature is the characteristics, feelings and behavioral traits of humankind.

Humans are capable of expressing different kinds of emotions such as joy, frustration, despair, remorse, and other forms of emotions depending on the situations they are encountering.

Human being - New World Encyclopedia

Social theories are analytical frameworks, or paradigms, that are used to study and interpret social phenomena. A tool used by social scientists, social theories relate to historical debates over the validity and reliability of different methodologies (e.g.

positivism and antipositivism), the primacy of either structure or agency, as well as the relationship between contingency and necessity.