Is human behaviour largely determined by social factors?

Question

This is an IGCSE As level topic. Let your answers be as exhaustive and as relevant to the students as possble.

Answer 1

Social factors heavily shape our lives, and yet their impact tends to be undervalued in the United States.  Americans prefer to believe that the individual is the master of their destiny, and that social factor have little to do with one's success and direction in life.  Ironically, this "cult of the individual" is itself a social phenomena - only in the U.S., where many of the European settlers escaped from various forms of oppression in Europe, did a social reality emerge that said: "the individual is mightier than society."  Other countries that faced a different social reality have a different interpretation of life.

Race, class and gender are three social forces that shape our lives.  They are social "creations" in the sense that they are only a big deal because people, socially, have made them a big deal. But, just because they are social creations does not mean that they are "imaginary" in the sense that they don't have real effects on people. Race, class, and gender are powerful social forces that affect such things as our worldview, behavior, lifespan, health, dress, earning potential, and everything else about our lives.

Biology and free will do have an impact on our lives as well. But social factors have an enormous impact on our lives.

These are just rough notes - not an exhaustive analysis.

Answer 2

one fourth part of human behaviour is determined by social factors, the other 3/4 part of human behaviour is what we as a person determine to do and follow

Answer 3

well yeah if you think about it lets say im living in town A which is a kip dive scum area whatever you call it im obviously going to adapt to the loacal dialect and clothing do the trends others would do

if i lived in town B which is basically the rich town im hardly going to be speaking with the dialect of town A as it is seen as in this case lower class

then you got peer pressure youve probably seen it yourself. One of your old friends like from when you were a kid goes off with a different group ye fall out etc etc you start to notice he changes to fit in with his group wears a mask of his former self so to say