Why Peoples Do What They Do? Naming, Understanding, and Navigating Behavioral Patterns

[H4run]

Venting and bickering about what people do has its merits. For some, it may validate their frustrations when dealing with people, and for others, it may actually save them from insanity. However, complaining alone will not lead us to better understand and become smarter and wiser in dealing with the same behavioral patterns. We keep experiencing the same set of disappointing behaviors, but they seem to come out of nowhere, without reason or warning. It's like we are navigating our life in the pitch-black night with no lights, and we keep bumping into obstacles along the way.

I've created this thread for us to share negative or even positive behavioral patterns that we've experienced from others. We can discuss, name, or even provide better insight into these patterns, so we can understand the behavior better and reach a greater understanding of others.

 

[H4run]

Let me start:

I always find one recurring behavior. It's so common that I've started to think people tend to behave like this until proven otherwise. I can't define it properly, so let me share some of my experiences.

When I was in University, my motorcycle tire was punctured by a sharp object. So, I pushed it to a small workshop for repair. The method they used was quite traditional. First, they dipped it into a basket filled with water to locate the leak, then they covered the puncture with hot rubber. After that, they charged me an exorbitant fee. I didn't want to argue, partly because I was at fault for not asking the price beforehand. However, I predicted that his small workshop would not survive.

My University was quite far from the city, and whenever I needed money, I would take my bike to the city center to visit the ATM (my campus didn't have my bank's ATM at that time). I kept passing this small workshop, and as I suspected, no one went there, and it eventually closed down. It's astonishing how people can be shortsighted when there's an immediate benefit, failing to calculate the long-term benefits they could gain by conducting themselves ethically.

Another instance involves a close friend. We looked out for each other in the office, and he had my back several times, which made me trust him. But whenever we conducted a business deal together, it always failed because he wanted the upper hand. For example, he would mark up the price he got from a vendor and then pass it on to me. After I increased the price for OUR shared profit, of course, the buyers rejected it because it was too expensive. This happened 2 or 3 times, and it became ridiculous. If he had only been transparent about his expectations and his desired profit share, we could have offered a better and more competitive price and actually earned some money. But because he was impatient and wanted a bigger share, neither of us earned anything.

Another case involves a highly successful individual who gathered scattered and unusable hardwoods in the jungle and processed them into charcoal. I had a client in Germany who was interested. Yet, once again, this man swapped good wood (halaban) for inferior wood (hapadan) and tried to convince me that the quality was pretty much the same, that people, especially Arabs, were just charmed by the brand. Not only that, but I later found out that he also set his capital quite high. So, after I sent the charcoal to Germany, the clients found it not only expensive but also of poor quality since the charcoal burned out quickly. I was quite irritated, wondering how he could succeed in conducting a business with such short-sighted calculations.

I find this pattern recurring so often that I've begun to assume that the majority of people are like this. I seldom find people who are able to see beyond the immediate and calculate five moves ahead. If they were fish, they'd always take the bait. It's like they slaughter the hen for the meat and miss out on all the eggs they could get.

What would you guys name this pattern of behavior? Is it greed? Or is it sheer stupidity? Do any of you have other experiences to share here? Please feel free to do so.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Greed is the most apt word. There's a phrase about "trying to make the rent in one transaction."

That's why I kept my prices lower than most other typists, when I had my home business. I charged by the page (my pages, not the client's pages), and when people asked why I didn't charge more, I said that I wanted long-term clients who would spread my name around (word-of-mouth advertising means less hustling for me). There were some clients who came to me for all 4 years of their program, and many of them passed my name and number around to their friends and classmates. One year I ended having an entire nursing class as my clients.

I didn't undercut to a ridiculous degree, though. I still wanted minimum wage+, and people tend to be suspicious of someone who undercuts too much. What weren't they doing for their clients that I was doing for mine?

Well, I found out when someone phoned and said, "I tried someone cheaper than you, and they didn't do a very good job. It was full of mistakes and they didn't seem to care. So can I come back?"

I told them of course they could come back. When people thought that this sort of job would be easy, they didn't realize that it's more than just typing. I had to learn my clients' preferences, something about their instructors, had to be willing to learn a variety of manuscript styles, be available at some truly absurd hours for the people with early morning classes... and also be a listener. I'd read over their rough draft to make sure I could read all their writing, and discuss any formatting issues that might come up. Sometimes I'd catch a problem with references and bibliography if something was missing. This would give them the chance to figure out what needed to be added.

And while this was going on, some of them would talk about their classes, or their jobs, or in one case one guy would vent about his ex keeping him from seeing his kids. He carried on about dads not being allowed to see their kids, complaining that everything always went to women (I did not remind him at that point that he was venting all this to a female typist). But I did tell him that back in the early '70s when my parents divorced, it was my dad who got custody. So while it wasn't common (at that time), it wasn't impossible.

At one point he told me, "Talking to you is like talking to my bartender." When I told my dad about this later, he said, "Take it as a compliment. He means you're a good listener."

When that client eventually transferred to U of C (University of Calgary), he phoned me up and said, "I'm coming to Red Deer on the weekend with a term paper. This is worth 50% of the final mark and I'm not trusting it to anybody but you!"


So what my anecdote comes down to is to learn how to care about what matters to the client. They will feel some loyalty to people who can do this, their good will and willingness to recommend you/your business means that you can still charge a bit less but make it up with more/more loyal clients.

 

[Narz]

What would you guys name this pattern of behavior? Is it greed? Or is it sheer stupidity? Do any of you have other experiences to share here? Please feel free to do so.

Good thread, will post more later when not w kids

I'd call that shortsightedness. People who would rather have a bird in the hand than even a hundred in the bush.

And also a bit of malice, some people get off on tricking others even if it's unnecessary.

On a different point, one thing that annoys me is people using a diagnostic label as an excuse. For instance a family member of my partner explaining another's behavior as a "bi-polar flare" when it's clearly a deep character issue that can be worked on (but the person chooses not to). A psychiatric label is not an excuse for a bad temper. Of course everyone wants this person to "take his meds" so he is less annoying to deal with but this doesn't solve the deeper family structure issues, resentment, etc.

 

[Gorbles]

On a different point, one thing that annoys me is people using a diagnostic label as an excuse. For instance a family member of my partner explaining another's behavior as a "bi-polar flare" when it's clearly a deep character issue that can be worked on (but the person chooses not to). A psychiatric label is not an excuse for a bad temper. Of course everyone wants this person to "take his meds" so he is less annoying to deal with but this doesn't solve the deeper family structure issues, resentment, etc.

People can absolutely use whatever they're suffering from as an excuse for various actions, but that doesn't change the fact that things people suffer from inevitably affect their actions.

 

[Narz]

It's weird people these days love to talk about problems being systemic but when it comes to mental illness it's always one person with a specific "disease" and the rest of the family/society is fine and that person just need to take their drugs.

 

[Mise]

Good thread. I'd recommend the book Games People Play by Eric Berne. Here's an example of the "Why don't you / Yes But" game from the official website:

White: “My husband always insists on doing our own repairs, and he never builds anything right.”

Black: “Why doesn’t he take a course in carpentry?”

White: “Yes, but he doesn’t have time.”

Blue: “Why don’t you buy him some good tools?”

White: “Yes, but he doesn’t know how to use them.”

Red: “Why don’t you have your building done by a carpenter?

White: “Yes, but that would cost too much.”

Brown” “Why don’t you just accept what he does the way he does it?”

White: “Yes, but the whole thing might fall down.”

Such an exchange in typically followed by a silence. It is eventually broken by Green, who may say something like, “That’s men for you, always trying to show how efficient they are.”

The book goes on to analyse this in more detail, but essentially (from memory), "White" doesn't really want a solution to the problem -- in fact, they want the satisfaction of knowing that there is no solution to the problem. The people offering solutions are also, by the end of it, playing a game, wherein they get to feel slightly superior to White.

Kurt Vonnegut recommends to book to writers as it describes how people actually behave in real life. Bear in mind it was written in the 1960s so is not particularly sympathetic to women/wives. In fact I would read a lot of it (and particularly the games describing how women behave) as a historic text that showed what people thought at the time, as opposed to a true account of how people behave. The book nevertheless provides a lot of insight and it's easy to learn a lot from it, if you read it judiciously.

 

[Narz]

Kurt Vonnegut would be a cool bloke to hang out with, sad he's gone

 

[Gorbles]

It's weird people these days love to talk about problems being systemic but when it comes to mental illness it's always one person with a specific "disease" and the rest of the family/society is fine and that person just need to take their drugs.

Someone wanting to talk about (other, completely unrelated) systemic issues doesn't mean they need to engage with this kind of strawman. I agreed that people can use things they're suffering from as an excuse for their actions. I'm just saying that that isn't necessarily the case, and as usual you're projecting your well-known and deep-seated dislike of "taking your meds", which I don't really care about or want to touch with a barge pole. Even if it is a behavioural pattern.

Hope that clears things up.

(side-note: this thread shouldn't be confused with behavioural patterns as defined in software engineering, though that's more my wheelhouse )

 

[AmazonQueen]

Kurt Vonnegut would be a cool bloke to hang out with, sad he's gone

Maybe to hang out with but not to live with.

https://unherd.com/2022/11/was-kurt-vonnegut-a-nice-man/

He had some of those mental health problems you're so dismissive of.

 

[Narz]

Someone wanting to talk about (other, completely unrelated) systemic issues doesn't mean they need to engage with this kind of strawman. I agreed that people can use things they're suffering from as an excuse for their actions. I'm just saying that that isn't necessarily the case, and as usual you're projecting your well-known and deep-seated dislike of "taking your meds", which I don't really care about or want to touch with a barge pole. Even if it is a behavioural pattern.

Hope that clears things up.

(side-note: this thread shouldn't be confused with behavioural patterns as defined in software engineering, though that's more my wheelhouse )

That whole paragraph was about your reaction to your theory of who I am. This is something I notice about you, 90% is about the other person and what frame you imagine they're coming from w 10% actual opinion on the subject matter.

If you think I'm wrong state your interpretation rather than psychobabble about where I'm coming from.

 

[Narz]

Maybe to hang out with but not to live with.

https://unherd.com/2022/11/was-kurt-vonnegut-a-nice-man/

He had some of those mental health problems you're so dismissive of.

Often creative people are be a b**** to live with but fun to hang out with.

Where did I dismiss that mental problems are an issue exactly?

 

[Senethro]

On a different point, one thing that annoys me is people using a diagnostic label as an excuse. For instance a family member of my partner explaining another's behavior as a "bi-polar flare" when it's clearly a deep character issue that can be worked on (but the person chooses not to). A psychiatric label is not an excuse for a bad temper. Of course everyone wants this person to "take his meds" so he is less annoying to deal with but this doesn't solve the deeper family structure issues, resentment, etc.

Here.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Often creative people are be a b**** to live with but fun to hang out with.

Where did I dismiss that mental problems are an issue exactly?

people using a diagnostic label as an excuse. For instance a family member of my partner explaining another's behavior as a "bi-polar flare" when it's clearly a deep character issue that can be worked on

Presumably based on your qualifications and research in the area and not prejudice.

 

[Gorbles]

That whole paragraph was about your reaction to your theory of who I am.

psychobabble

Ironic

But anyway I related your fixation on folks with mental health issues as "having to take their meds" to being a behavioural pattern. You likewise believe you've identified what you think as a pattern of mine.

But given how both of these things are on-topic, I don't think your 10% estimate is correct at all. I said I didn't want to touch it with a barge pole - the only reason I did is because you were compelled to strawman about people talking about systemic issues.

You're the one attributing poor behaviour to people with mental health issues. You're the one who couldn't agree with the clarification that I provided. I didn't make it at all about you, until you decided to snark about "systemic issues" (i.e. about me; my post). That's on you, take it or leave it. I'm not going to drag this out further.

 

[Hygro]

Let me start:

I always find one recurring behavior. It's so common that I've started to think people tend to behave like this until proven otherwise. I can't define it properly, so let me share some of my experiences.

When I was in University, my motorcycle tire was punctured by a sharp object. So, I pushed it to a small workshop for repair. The method they used was quite traditional. First, they dipped it into a basket filled with water to locate the leak, then they covered the puncture with hot rubber. After that, they charged me an exorbitant fee. I didn't want to argue, partly because I was at fault for not asking the price beforehand. However, I predicted that his small workshop would not survive.

My University was quite far from the city, and whenever I needed money, I would take my bike to the city center to visit the ATM (my campus didn't have my bank's ATM at that time). I kept passing this small workshop, and as I suspected, no one went there, and it eventually closed down. It's astonishing how people can be shortsighted when there's an immediate benefit, failing to calculate the long-term benefits they could gain by conducting themselves ethically.

Another instance involves a close friend. We looked out for each other in the office, and he had my back several times, which made me trust him. But whenever we conducted a business deal together, it always failed because he wanted the upper hand. For example, he would mark up the price he got from a vendor and then pass it on to me. After I increased the price for OUR shared profit, of course, the buyers rejected it because it was too expensive. This happened 2 or 3 times, and it became ridiculous. If he had only been transparent about his expectations and his desired profit share, we could have offered a better and more competitive price and actually earned some money. But because he was impatient and wanted a bigger share, neither of us earned anything.

Another case involves a highly successful individual who gathered scattered and unusable hardwoods in the jungle and processed them into charcoal. I had a client in Germany who was interested. Yet, once again, this man swapped good wood (halaban) for inferior wood (hapadan) and tried to convince me that the quality was pretty much the same, that people, especially Arabs, were just charmed by the brand. Not only that, but I later found out that he also set his capital quite high. So, after I sent the charcoal to Germany, the clients found it not only expensive but also of poor quality since the charcoal burned out quickly. I was quite irritated, wondering how he could succeed in conducting a business with such short-sighted calculations.

I find this pattern recurring so often that I've begun to assume that the majority of people are like this. I seldom find people who are able to see beyond the immediate and calculate five moves ahead. If they were fish, they'd always take the bait. It's like they slaughter the hen for the meat and miss out on all the eggs they could get.

What would you guys name this pattern of behavior? Is it greed? Or is it sheer stupidity? Do any of you have other experiences to share here? Please feel free to do so.

This kind of irrationality drives me insane.

 

[H4run]

That's why I kept my prices lower than most other typists

I understand. But I think this is difference with someone who may openly rate or values themselves high, there's no element of manipulation within that context, but this one is more like "over-smarting" your partner and customer to get the better deal but instead you shot both you and your partner legs in the end.

I'd call that shortsightedness. People who would rather have a bird in the hand than even a hundred in the bush.

And also a bit of malice, some people get off on tricking others even if it's unnecessary.

I also think so, the funny thing is I always try to tell my friend/ex-partner about it by giving examples of others and I was hoping he can catch it and change, and he still doesn't get it and did the same mistake, I guess he is a kind of peoples who always mark-up or take more for himself from here and there and get satisfaction in doing so, so yes there's an element of malice.

But the thing is, we are a good friends in the sense that when I was in trouble he was willing to help and I'll be there to help him tackle a problem that's not completely my job desc as well, but when it come to money there's an element of greed, malice and shortsightedness.

Good thread. I'd recommend the book Games People Play by Eric Berne. Here's an example of the "Why don't you / Yes But" game from the official website:

A very interesting book. I really looking for a book like this, if I can't understand this issue clearly, I will have a serious problem with trusting others, and that's tiring.

This kind of irrationality drives me insane.

This has happened quite a lot. For instance, there's a new doner seller near my place, an older man. Once, I ate there and he served a very good Arabian durum (not the Turkish one).

So, I decided to help him. I bought lots of his durum to be eaten with my family, and spread the word to my neighbors by sharing it with them. Unfortunately, the durum he provided had meat that smelled off, indicating that it was days-old meat. Of course, after that, no one wanted to go there. In order to cover his loss he is doing a disservice to his own business by allowing me to distribute his near or already rotten products so everybody know how bad his products are. The last time I passed his store it was still open but the doner machine was empty. He essentially had nothing to grill there and no customers were coming in. It's actually a longer story, but I've shortened it. I mean, shouldn't he have expected that?

We also bought clothes in Turkey from a wholesale vendor. My sister and my wife previously picked the products themselves through a video call/conference, and they sold well. So, for the second time, I asked my in-law to go there to pick up products for us and asked them to give us their best items. However, they gave us products that were hard to sell. These were mostly clothing items with the text "Prada" or "Gucci" written on them, while my customers wanted authentic Turkish clothing, not fake look-alikes. So, yes, we couldn't sell those, and in the end, we also stopped buying from them. I mean, I'm really amazed. You can be a crook and aim only for your own interest and profit, not caring about others, but if they had used their reasoning, they wouldn't have harmed their source of income.

I suspect it's like this, there's a believe that other parties profit cutting your profit, so in order to maximize the profit you should minimize others profits.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Good thread, will post more later when not w kids

I'd call that shortsightedness. People who would rather have a bird in the hand than even a hundred in the bush.

And also a bit of malice, some people get off on tricking others even if it's unnecessary.

On a different point, one thing that annoys me is people using a diagnostic label as an excuse. For instance a family member of my partner explaining another's behavior as a "bi-polar flare" when it's clearly a deep character issue that can be worked on (but the person chooses not to). A psychiatric label is not an excuse for a bad temper. Of course everyone wants this person to "take his meds" so he is less annoying to deal with but this doesn't solve the deeper family structure issues, resentment, etc.

My mother would sometimes use the word "Alzheimer's" as an excuse if she said something that was a little odd, or if she forgot something.

Thing is, she didn't have Alzheimer's at that time, or if she did, it wasn't noticeable as anything more than her usual snarkiness or lack of tact. When she'd twirl her finger beside her head (the gesture many people use to indicate the word "crazy"), grin, and say "Alzheimer's, I honestly felt like slapping her. This wasn't long after my grandmother died - who DID have Alzheimer's. My mother and grandmother (her ex-mother-in-law) did not have a good relationship, and my mother was cracking jokes about her death even the day we brought her ashes home from the funeral home.

So that's why I have NO sense of humor about Alzheimer's or dementia. My grandmother had Alzheimer's, my dad had dementia, so that makes two successive generations. Every time I forget something or find myself doing something odd, it scares me. I just turned 60, so I'm not too young to start worrying about this.

It's weird people these days love to talk about problems being systemic but when it comes to mental illness it's always one person with a specific "disease" and the rest of the family/society is fine and that person just need to take their drugs.

"Take your meds" is a common phrase now that often has nothing to do with the person actually being sick. I get told that several times a week if I'm posting on one of the political pages on FB and post something that the conservatives there don't like. I've shared a lot more about my medical situation here than I ever would there.

Good thread. I'd recommend the book Games People Play by Eric Berne. Here's an example of the "Why don't you / Yes But" game from the official website:



The book goes on to analyse this in more detail, but essentially (from memory), "White" doesn't really want a solution to the problem -- in fact, they want the satisfaction of knowing that there is no solution to the problem. The people offering solutions are also, by the end of it, playing a game, wherein they get to feel slightly superior to White.

Kurt Vonnegut recommends to book to writers as it describes how people actually behave in real life. Bear in mind it was written in the 1960s so is not particularly sympathetic to women/wives. In fact I would read a lot of it (and particularly the games describing how women behave) as a historic text that showed what people thought at the time, as opposed to a true account of how people behave. The book nevertheless provides a lot of insight and it's easy to learn a lot from it, if you read it judiciously.

I suppose there's a lot of mansplaining in it?

"Why don't you"-type questions usually serve to make me angry. I actually do have reasons why I do or don't do things a certain way, and only part of it has to do with some of the OCD tendencies I have (which are thankfully nowhere near as bad as some people's tendencies). I'll admit that there are some things in my life that have to be THIS WAY ONLY or I feel uneasy and have to fix it ASAP. These things don't always make sense to the people who sometimes come here (ie. home care people). This is why I don't let other people do dusting here, for example, unless it's something I can't reach. I'd have to spend time putting stuff back in precisely the right place, and if I do the dusting myself, that won't be a problem.

Other reasons can fall into "because that's the way I prefer it" (for aesthetic reasons), or "that's the most practical way to have it - for me/the cat." Or it could be for safety reasons.

These were mostly clothing items with the text "Prada" or "Gucci" written on them, while my customers wanted authentic Turkish clothing, not fake look-alikes.

So you received counterfeit items?

I remember browsing the website for Chapters (book chain that also sells gifts and toys) and noticed some Star Trek items. One of them was an action figure of "Doctor Spock".

Well, anyone with at least a passing interest in Star Trek (Original Series) knows that Spock is not a doctor, and his proper term of address is "Mr. Spock". I realized this must be a knock-off, as I'd never heard of the company listed on the packaging. I contacted Chapters and told them that they were offering fake Star Trek merchandise - no reputable company would sell something like that.

They didn't care. I don't know how many fake Spocks they sold, but none of them were to me.

 

[Narz]

Here.

No.

Taking mental health as a family and societal issue is taking it more seriously not less.

Saying mental health issues are a symptom of modern society =/ mental health issues don't exist and everyone is fine.

 

[Narz]

Presumably based on your qualifications and research in the area and not prejudice.

Research in the area? I'm relying something that happened and was said to me.

I don't have any research about what other people say behind closed doors about their families. That's not a researchable topic.