Place Affects Behavior

Place plays an important role in one’s behavior. One may act happy in one place, sad in another. One may fight in one place, but not another. Place effects behavior in three ways. The three ways that setting, or place, effects one’s behaviors are physical setting, authority, and the people present.

Physical setting effects behavior because of objects and restrictions. Objects have an effect on behavior because it may let one do something, or stop them from doing something. For example, one in a store would have a wallet. The item, wallet, would allow the person to buy something. Without the object, a person would browse, and not buy, thus affecting the behavior. But objects can also not allow one to do something. If a robber was in a bank at night, he would rob it. However, if there was a security camera, the robber probably wouldn’t. The object makes the difference between robbery and not, therefore having an effect on the robber’s behavior. Physical setting effects behavior because of restrictions, too. Restrictions from the physical setting, like an enclosed space or a pit of lava, prevent one from doing something. For example, a skateboarder at a ramp in the front of a building would skate down the ramp. However if the ramp were stairs instead, it would be a restriction to the skateboarder, and they would walk down the stairs. The physical setting poses a restriction on the skateboarder, and changes their behavior. Thus, physical setting affects one’s behavior.

Authority also plays a big role in the way setting affects behavior. For example, if one was at a parking lot, and wanted to vandalize a car for some reason in the middle of the night, and the owner of the lot was there, but no one else was, they would do it if they knew the parking lot was owned by a 3-year old kid. However, if the parking lot was owned by the Police, they would not touch the car. This would be so because they would think the 3-year old wouldn’t remember what he looked like, nor know him, nor be able to hurt him. Thus, nothing bad could happen to him if he did it. The Police would remember him, or handcuff him and take him to jail. The authorities would be able to do this. If the authority was the culprit’s parents, they could ground him, or turn him in.  Therefore, authority has an effect on one’s behavior.

People present also affects behavior.   For example, if one was going to make a silly face to make a baby laugh, they wouldn’t if the President was there. If they’re little sister was there, they wouldn’t be embarrassed to do that, so they would. So one would act differently if different people were present so they wouldn’t be embarrassed. However, if the baby wasn’t there in the first place, than the person wouldn’t make the face in the first place, thus effecting behavior. If one was on a walk with their coach, they would most likely talk about sports. However, if the person was talking to their teacher, they probably wouldn’t. In this case, people present affect what the person is talking about. If the second person (coach/teacher) wasn’t there at all, the first person probably wouldn’t talk at all. Therefore, people present affects behavior.

In these three parts of setting: Physical setting (objects, restrictions), authority (power over the person), and people present(being embarrassed, subjects of conversation); setting affects the things one would do. Thus, one’s setting definitely affects that person’s behavior.