Human Nature & the Evolutionary Process, Part 3

Learned Behavior
Although competitive behavior has been with us for thousands of years, much of this behavior has been consciously programmed into us from childhood on by our parents, schools, athletics programs, governments, even our churches, and many other respected institutions. To paraphrase Alfie Kohn, competition has been a part of the subtext of almost every lesson we have learned. No wonder it seems natural. Having something reinforced and promoted over thousands of years deeply ingrains it in our nature. But the examples in this chapter support the view that some of this programming is learned; and suggest that it is possible to unlearn it, and evolve to a less destructive and more productive way of being.

In 1937, in one of the largest studies on competition in its time, psychologists Mark A. May and Leonard Doob concluded: “Human beings by original nature strive for goals, but striving with others or against others are learned forms of behavior. Neither of these two can be said to be the more genetically basic, fundamental or primordial.” To this we can add the thoughts of sports psychologists Thomas Tutko and William Bruns: “People are not born with a motivation to win or to be competitive. We inherit a potential for a degree of activity, and we all have the instinct to survive. But the will to win comes through training and the influences of one’s family and environment.”
Clearly, competitive behavior has been programmed into us, and become part of our human nature. Now let’s consider the possibility that we can alter this deep programming.

Human Genetics Research
Cellular biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton, in his research on human genetics, provides evidence that our genes do not ultimately control our behavior. This evidence goes against one of the popular beliefs about biology, that our genes determine our traits and behaviors, which are therefore largely predetermined. For over fifty years, many scientists, with the assistance of the media, have presented as scientific fact this idea of our fates being written in our genetic code.

As a result, many people do believe that we are genetically preprogrammed, and therefore have little control over our behavior. This view is the scientific Nature side of the classic Nature versus Nurture debate. The Nurture side believes that human behavior is mostly determined by conditioning. The truth likely includes a mixture of both.

Cutting-edge cellular biologists like Dr. Lipton now recognize that our environment and, more importantly, our perceptions of our environment strongly affect the activity of our genes. We have tendencies toward certain behavior, but these tendencies aren’t immutable. Even if the potential for aggressive, competitive behavior is encoded in our DNA, it isn’t necessarily our destiny.

This new research indicates that, rather than being at the mercy of our genes, our behavior is also influenced by what we perceive to be our environment. Our genes are turned on and off by our perceptions and beliefs, whether these perceptions and beliefs are true or false. As we saw earlier with regard to scarcity, what we perceive as real doesn’t have to be real to affect our behavior. Experiencing fear doesn’t mean danger is present; yet we feel and may even act as if we are in danger. Believing something is true doesn’t make it objectively true, yet it does seem to make it appear real subjectively. This new research suggests that cells respond to our perceptions by triggering either growth, or protective behaviors. If our perceptions are accurate, the resulting behavior is generally beneficial to us. But if we are operating from misperceptions, our behavior will likely be inappropriate and lead to undesirable results.

Learned perceptions, especially those derived from parents, peers, academic education, advertising, religion, or propaganda, may be based upon incorrect information or faulty interpretations. We often run into problems with religious, political, or philosophical beliefs, since people may act on these beliefs as if they were fundamental truths despite valid and even overwhelming evidence to the contrary. People tend to become dogmatic around their beliefs. The good news is that perceptions and beliefs can be relearned. We can alter our behaviors by retraining our consciousness.

This understanding of what influences our behavior has deepened with the completion of the Human Genome Project. In 1990, the Human Genome Project undertook an ambitious goal, to map the entire human genetic code, a project finished in 2003. Before scientists completed mapping the genetic code, there was general agreement that an organism as complex as a human would have approximately one hundred thousand genes. By comparison, a microscopic organism such as a roundworm has eighteen thousand genes. To their surprise, and probable dismay, the geneticists of the Human Genome Project found that humans had only about twenty-five thousand genes, far too few to control our biology and behavior. Genetically, we are not much more complex than a microscopic roundworm! Talk about humbling. Because of the relatively small number of genes found, we can’t attribute our individual character to genetic programming.