You listened to me a year ago talking about choice theory, but I know I never explained what choice theory was. Choice theory is actually an explanation of all human behavior developed by Dr. William Glaser.
There are five basic components to this theory - basic human needs, the world of quality, the world of perceived, comparative place and holistic behavior. I will give a brief overview of each, starting with the five basic human needs.
Basic human needs
We are born with five basic human needs - survival, love, possession, power, freedom, and pleasure. We are all born with this need, but we experience it to varying degrees. One person may have a high need for love and belonging, while another person may have a high need for freedom. We are born with these needs and we are biologically driven to fulfill these needs in the best way available to us.
quality world
It is a place within all of us where we store images of things that fulfilled one or more of our basic needs in the past or things that we think will satisfy them in the future. These things do not have to fit into society's definition of quality. Alcohol falls into the world of quality car alcohol, stealing cars in the world of quality of car thieves, and domestic violence in the world of quality of beaters. The only two conditions for entering the world of quality are fulfilling one or more of our needs and feeling good.
Feeling world
There is a lot that could be said about the perceived world but for the purposes of this article, what I want to say is that we each have our own perception of the world. Our sensory systems take in information through sight, touch, sound, taste, and smell, but we all have unique ways of processing that information based on our life experiences, culture and values.
The main thing to remember about the perceived world is that if you find someone else whose world of perception doesn't match yours, that doesn't mean either of you is wrong. It just means that you are different. Remembering this simple statement will reduce the many quarrels and quarrels that occur in people's lives. Accepting this fact means we can let go of the need to convince others of our point of view. We can only accept the fact that we see things differently and move on.
place of comparison
The place of comparison is where we weigh what we want from our quality world against our perception of what we think we are actually getting. When these two things match, all is well.
However, when our perceptions and our good world are out of sync, in other words, we realize that we don't have the things we want, then we are compelled to act to get the things we think about. People generally don't make much progress or change things they are currently doing unless they are in a certain level of discomfort - the greater the pain, the greater the motivation to try something different.
This is where conventional wisdom tells us that if we want the best for other people in our lives, it is our responsibility to raise the bar for pain so that they do things differently because we generally know what is best for them. Well?
wrong. We can only know what is best for ourselves. Remember that our imaginary worlds are all different. We have unique values and experiences. How can we know what's best for other people when we're not in their skin or living their life? We can only know what is best for ourselves.
overall behavior
There are two main things about behavior. The first is that all behavior has a purpose and the second is that all behavior is total. Let's start with the idea that all behavior is inclusive. There are four inseparable components of behavior - action, thought, feeling, and physiology. All of these are present simultaneously during certain behaviors that we perform. The first two components - acting and thinking - are the only ones we can directly control. That is, if we want to change how we feel or something that happens in our body (physiology), we must first consciously change what we do or think.
For all purposeful behavior, all behavior is our best effort to get something we want. We never act in response to some external stimulus. We always act proactively to get what we want. This means that when I yell at my son to clean his room after I gently ask a few times, I'm not yelling because my child "drives me crazy". I screamed because I was still doing my best to make him do what I wanted, which was to clean his room. It sounds like I'm splitting my hair, but this is an important distinction to make when you're trying to move from a victim role to an empowered role.
Archeology
Choice theory largely dispels the idea that people "behave badly." Everything a person does is their best effort to get something they want. Of course in the process, they may break the law, except respect the rules and hurt others but that's really a side effect of doing the best they know how to meet their needs. We all do our best—some of us just have better tools, resources, and behaviors than others.
If we adhere to the concept of Choice Theory, then our function should be to educate and help others evaluate the effectiveness of their own behavior. Know that often times they will continue to do things exactly the way they were doing because it is a habit and/or because what they are doing is actually getting them something they want. It is not our job to stop them, nor is it our job to save them from the consequences of their own behavior.
We can only do our best to help others evaluate the effectiveness of their behavior and choose another method that may not violate the rules or hurt the person or people. Then, we have to step aside and let the situation run its course. This may seem difficult to do—like you're not doing your job as a parent, teacher, counselor, or supervisor, but, I ask, what are the alternatives?
When you try to coerce or coerce or bribe another person to do things he or she doesn't want to do, you may succeed. You may be able to find the right reward or create consequences that are painful enough to get the other person to do what you want, but by doing so you breed hatred and contempt. Your relationship will suffer. If you believe, as I do, that relationships are the root of all influence, then you lose the ability to influence others by using external control.
Post a Comment for "Overall behavioral choice theory"