Understanding the 10 Most Destructive Human Behaviors
By Live Science Staff |
Why we do stupid stuff
Compared with most animals, we humans
engage in a host of behaviors that are destructive to our own kind and
to ourselves. We lie, cheat and steal, carve ornamentations into our own
bodies, stress out and kill ourselves, and of course kill others.
Science has provided much insight into why an intelligent species seems
so nasty, spiteful, self-destructive and hurtful. In this presentation, you'll learn
what researchers know about some of our most destructive behaviors.
Editor's Note: This list was first published in 2011 and was
updated in March 2016 to include the latest studies and new information.
A short list will be introduced and then details on each of these areas of distructive human behaviors will be expanded.
[1] We lie
[2] We crave violence
[3] We steal
[4] We cheat
[5] We cling to bad habits
[6] We bully
[7] We nip, tuck, plump and tattoo our bodies
[8] We stress out
[9] We gamble
[10] We Gossip
Now we expand on each of these areas of behaviors.
[1] We lie
Nobody knows for sure why humans lie so much, but studies find that
it's common, and that it's often tied to deep psychological factors.
"It's tied in with self-esteem," says University of Massachusetts
psychologist Robert Feldman. "We find that as soon as people feel that
their self-esteem is threatened, they immediately begin to lie at
higher levels."
Feldman has conducted studies in which people lie frequently, with 60 percent lying at least once during a 10-minute conversation.
It's a whole other matter whether people really mean to lie in many
instances. Figuring that out requires coming up with a complicated definition of lying.
"Certain conditions have to be in place for a statement to rise to the
level of a lie," explains philosophy professor James E. Mahon of
Washington and Lee University. "First, a person must make a statement
and must believe that the statement is false. Second, the person making
the statement must intend for the audience to believe that the statement
is true. Anything else falls outside the definition of lying that I
have defended."
Animals are also known to be capable of deception, and even robots have learned to lie, in an experiment where they were rewarded or punished depending on performance in a competition with other robots.
[2] We crave violence
The oldest evidence of human warfare
dates back 10,000 years ago. Skeletons of 27 people show signs of
projectile wounds and blunt force trauma. And so it has been ever since.
Some researchers figure we crave violence, that it's in our genes and
affects reward centers in our brains. However, going back millions of
years, evidence suggests our ancient human ancestors were more peace-loving than people today, though there are signs of cannibalism among the earliest pre-history humans.
A study in 2008 concluded that humans seem to crave violence just
like they do sex, food, or drugs. The study, reported in the journal
Psychopharmacology, found that in mice, clusters of brain cells
involved in other rewards are also behind their craving for violence. The researchers think the finding applies to human brains.
"Aggression occurs among virtually all vertebrates and is necessary
to get and keep important resources such as mates, territory and food,"
said study team member Craig Kennedy, professor of special education
and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. "We have found
that the reward pathway in the brain becomes engaged in response to an
aggressive event and that dopamine is involved."
Many researchers believe violence in humans is an evolved tendency that helped with survival.
"Aggressive behavior has evolved in species in which it increases an
individual's
survival or reproduction, and this depends on the specific
environmental, social, reproductive, and historical circumstances of a
species. Humans certainly rank among the most violent of species," says
biologist David Carrier of the University of Utah
[3] We steal
Theft can be motivated by need. But for kleptomaniacs, stealing can
be motivated by the sheer thrill of it. One study of 43,000 people
found 11 percent admitted to having shoplifted at least once.
"These are people who steal even though they can easily afford not
to," says Jon E. Grant of the University of Minnesota School of
Medicine.
In a study in 2009,
participants either took a placebo or the drug naltrexone — known to
curb addictive tendencies toward alcohol, drugs and gambling.
Naltrexone blocks the effects of substances called endogenous opiates
that the researchers suspect are released during stealing and which
trigger the sense of pleasure in the brain.
The drug reduced the urges to steal and stealing behavior, Grant and colleagues wrote in the journal Biological Psychiatry.
Theft may be in our genes. After all, even monkeys do it. Capuchin
monkeys use predator alarm calls to warn fellow monkeys to scatter and
avoid threats. But some will make fake calls, and then steal food left by those that scattered
[4] We cheat
Few human traits are more fascinating. While most people would say
honesty is a virtue, nearly one in five Americans think cheating on
taxes is morally acceptable or is not a moral issue, according to a
survey by the Pew Research Center. About 10 percent are equally
ambivalent about cheating on a spouse.
People who espouse high moral standards are among the worst cheats,
studies have shown. The worst cheaters tend to be those with high
morals who also, in some twisted way, consider cheating to be an
ethically justifiable behavior in certain situations.
Cheating on spouses by celebrities and politicians thought to be moral leaders has become rampant. The behavior has a simple explanation,
experts say: Guys are wired to want sex, a lot, and are more likely
than gals to cheat. The behavior may be particularly likely for men
with power.
"People don't necessarily practice what they preach," says Lawrence
Josephs, a clinical psychologist at Adelphi University in New York.
"It's not clear to what extent people's ethical values are actually
running what they do or don't do."
Experts say there are two main reasons people cheat on their spouses: Either they bored with their sex life or they are unhappy with their relationship. A 2015 study
found that a person who is economically dependent on their spouse is
more likely to cheat than those in a financially equitable relationship
[5] We cling to bad habits
Perhaps everything else on this list would be far less problematic
if we were not such creatures of habit. In fact, studies have found
that even when the risks of a particular bad habit are well-known,
people find it hard to quit.
"It's not because they haven't gotten the information that these are
big risks," says Cindy Jardine of the University of Alberta. "We tend
to sort of live for now and into the limited future — not the long
term."
Jardine, who has studied why people cling to bad habits,
cites these reasons: innate human defiance, need for social acceptance,
inability to truly understand the nature of risk, individualistic view
of the world and the ability to rationalize unhealthy habits, and a
genetic predisposition to addiction.
People tend to justify bad habits, she says, by noting exceptions to
known statistics, such as: "It hasn't hurt me yet," or, "My grandmother
smoked all her life and lived to be 90."
Studies have found that half or more of grade-school children experience bullying. A European study found that children who bully
at school are likely to also bully their siblings at home. That led a
researcher involved in the study to speculate that bullying behavior
often starts at home.
"It is not possible to tell from our study which behavior comes
first, but it is likely that if children behave in a certain way at
home, bullying a sibling for instance, if this behavior goes unchecked
they may take this behavior into school," said Ersilia Menesini of the
Universita’ degli Studi di Firenze, Italy.
But bullying is not just child's play. One study found that almost 30 percent of U.S. office workers experience bullying
by bosses or coworkers, from withholding of information critical to
getting the job done to insulting rumors and other purposeful
humiliation. And once it starts, it tends to get worse.
"Bullying, by definition, is escalatory. This is one of the reasons
it’s so difficult to prevent it, because it usually starts in really
small ways,” says Sarah Tracy, director of the Project for Wellness and
Work-Life at Arizona State University.
Why do we do it? To gain status and power,
psychologists say. And
for some, it may be hard to resist the behavior. Researchers have seen
bullying behavior in monkeys and speculate that the behavior may
stretch way back in our evolutionary tree.
[7] We nip, tuck, plump and tattoo our bodies
Americans spent a record $13.5 billion on surgical and nonsurgical
"aesthetic procedures" in 2014, the latest year for which data is
available. Some 17 percent of U.S. residents now get cosmetic
procedures, the industry estimates. Some would call it self-edification,
of course, or art, or a way to kill time or perhaps rebel against
authority. But in general, and given that people have died from
cosmetic surgery procedures, what makes so many people so intent on
artificially remaking themselves?
First, it's worth noting that while options at the body shop have
never been more varied, the practice is ancient, often tied to cults
and religions or power and status, and in fact much of the modern nip,
tuck, paint, poke and plump procedures are benign compared with some
ancient practices. People have reshaped their heads, elongated their
necks, stretched their ears and lips, painted their bodies or affixed
permanent jewelry for thousands of years.
Perhaps the strongest motivations nowadays are to be beautiful,
however one might define that, or simply to fit in with a particular
group.
The lure of beauty can't be denied as a prime motivator to nip and tuck.
Studies have shown that shoppers buy more from attractive salespeople;
attractive people capture our attention more quickly than others; and
skinny people have an easier time getting hired and promoted.
"There's this idea that if you look better you'll be happier. You'll
feel better about yourself," says psychologist Diana Zuckerman,
president of the National Research Center for Women & Families.
"And logically that makes so much sense, because we live in a society
where people do care what you look like."
A sign of the times, as Baby Boomer age:
While cosmetic surgery sales sagged during the Great Recession a few years back, wrinkle-blasting laser treatments skyrocketed. In 2015, the industry said cosmetic procedures for men were up 43 percent over the past 5 years.
[8] We stress out
Stress can be deadly, raising the risk for heart problems and even
cancer. Stress can lead to depression, which can lead to suicide — yet
another destructive behavior that's uniquely human (and glaringly not
on this list).
But exactly why we stress is difficult to pin down. These truths will resonate with many, however: The modern workplace is a source of significant stress for many people, as are children.
More than 600 million people around the world put in 48-hour-plus
workweeks, according to the International Labor Organization. And
advances in technology — smartphones and broadband Internet — mean a
blurring of the lines between work and free time. About half of
Americans bring work home, according to a recent study.
"Many older workers are empty-nesters," says researcher Gwenith
Fisher, an organizational psychologist at the University of Michigan's
Institute for Social Research (ISR).
"They don't have the same
work-personal conflicts that younger and middle-aged workers deal with,
juggling responsibilities to children along with their jobs and their
personal needs."
Health experts suggest exercise and adequate sleep are two of the best ways to battle stress.
[9] We gamble
Gambling, too, seems to be in our genes and hard-wired into our
brains, which might explain why such a potentially ruinous behavior is
so common.
Even monkeys gamble.
A study that measured monkeys' desire to gamble for juice rewards found
that even as potential rewards diminished, the primates acted
irrationally and gambled for the chance to get a wee bit more.
A study published in the journal Neuron last year found that almost
winning activates win-related circuitry within the brain and enhances
the motivation to gamble. "Gamblers often interpret near-misses as
special events, which encourage them to continue to gamble," said Luke
Clark of the University of Cambridge. "Our findings show that the brain
responds to near-misses as if a win has been delivered, even though the
result is technically a loss."
Other studies have also shown that losing causes gamblers to get carried away.
When people plan in advance how much to gamble, they're coldly
rational, a study last year found. But if they lose, rationality goes
out the window, and they change the game plan and bet even more.
[10] We Gossip
Gossiping is a social skill, not a character flaw, argues psychology researcher Frank T. McAndrew at Knox College in a 2016 op-ed article.
We humans are evolutionarily set up to judge and talk about others, no
matter how hurtful it might be, researchers say. Here's how Oxford
primatologist Robin Dunbar sees it: Baboons groom
each other to keep social ties strong. But we humans are more evolved,
so we use gossip as social glue. Both are learned behaviors.
Gossip establishes group boundaries and boosts self-esteem, studies have found.
In many instances, the goal of gossip is not truth or accuracy. What matters is the bond that gossiping can forge, often at the expense of a third party.
People are mostly likely to spread a story if it's about someone
familiar to them, and if the story is particularly "juicy," according to
a 2014 study. "When two people share a dislike of another person, it [gossip]
brings them closer," says Jennifer Bosson, a professor of psychology at
the University of South Florida.
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