Society, referring to the entire world populace, places a label on and defines human nature as an instinctive set of characteristics not learned through written or spoken words, but instead simply understood by all members of a particular society who must follow these unspoken rules to be accepted and considered normal. Human nature can be most fundamentally described as a mask of acceptable behavior with regards to the other people with whom one chooses to interact.  As I began to look at the history of different cultures, I found similarities between each society’s unique ideas of human nature and how they can each relate to the basic needs of all animals.  Animal instinct refers to standard behavior of all animals in order to fulfill their own basic needs.

Humans are not exempt from these same natural survival intuitions and at the foundation of life’s essential needs, wants, and desires, a subconscious animal instinct is the driving force for every action of a human being.  Some of the most basic animal instincts I have identified include safety, food, and sleep and the emotions of love, pleasure, anger, and fear which all seem remain consistent among all animals.  “Human nature is directly related to animal instincts in that all societies develop their own standards of behavior typically based on the best possible way to fill each member’s essential needs.”

“Our own animal instincts, our unique human nature if you will, can often lead us to form bonds with a variety of other people who share our interests, each uniquely involved in a behavior influenced percentage of our lives.”  The better someone is at successfully interacting with others; the more likely he will be to have a large portion of his life and behavior influenced by the opinions of his peers.  Equally important to note is that the opposite is just as true.  Without the skills of interacting well with others, people displaying unattractive, dull characteristics often fail to reach their intended goal of mutual, emotional satisfaction with others. 

Factors that determine the charisma of a person can range from physical, to security, to entertainment types of attractions.  Just as the standards of both communication and self presence become more competitive and complicated over time, the human race is increasingly more concerned with products designed to develop and flaunt these traits.  These products are notorious for having shaky credibility at best, and are commonly sold on late night television and in the ever growing bookstore self-help sections.  Teeth whiteners, anti-aging surgery, and books on how to successfully earn millions in the stock market all appeal to an audience that feels his or her own social interaction skills are not proficient.  Unfortunately, from personal experience and the opinions of others, consumers of the quick fix phenomenon often find themselves happy only for a short time but quickly realize that in the end they are the same person as before.  Although these products are often bogus and overpriced, company owners can easily make a quick profit when the marketing team understands how to appeal and sell their specific product to the consumer’s emotions. 

The variety of positive and negative emotional feedback that each human can offer one another is determined by compiling the many individually based interpretations from every single interaction with another human and valuing the “worth” of each.  Interactions that cause both people to feel strong positive emotions, be they pleasure or love, could likely result in a friendship and an establishment of trust or at least a social treaty with a “hello’s in passing” style acquaintance.  Contrary to the previous, successful, emotional response, if one or both people involved in the interaction lack a solid understanding of the social skills needed to evoke positive emotions in one another, the event is likely to leave both parties with feelings of neutrality toward one another or even the conflict stirring emotions of anger and fear. 

One of the most common and arguably most hazardous forms of worldly dangers is human disagreement.  Always emotionally fueled to some extent, often with anger and fear, every human disagreement, regardless of the severity, always changes the perspectives that every person involved has on one another.   Imagine a small disagreement that involves a boy taking a baseball from a smaller kid.  The child whose ball was stolen will most likely see an increase in his frustration and a fairly lousy opinion of the thief child for his blatant disregard for the victims wants and desires.  The thief is therefore probably creating negative emotions in anyone who saw him steal towards himself.   But…The thief, with a much different sense of correct behavior than the child he stole from, who seems to be focusing on his own personal instinct of pleasure, will also think worse of the victim because he overpowered him and proved him to be a weaker, less deserving person.  Although children don’t entirely understand the reasons deep down for the emotions they feel, they still generally exhibit the same “normal” characteristics of human nature.  A current large scale group of altercations that has involved much of the world in some way are the governmental disagreements of the U.S. and Middle East.  Both countries have developed their own animal instincts in such different and conflicting ways that the acceptable human nature of the “enemy” countries resulted in war.  Although completely different conflicts entirely, both the thieving child story and the Iraqi Wars share the similarity of human conflict.   

Throughout history, every war of every nation or group can be attributed to an immense amount of differences between acceptable human nature.  Every fight between any animal can be broken down and derived, no matter how significant, to conflicting interests.  As simple examples can often be best, assuming that humans share the same animal instincts with all other animals, consider two starved lions fighting each other for rarely found piece meat.  Each lion has a shared interest in a singular piece of meat which causes a conflict thus resulting in a fight.  This seems vaguely familiar to the international fight for power of the oil industry as this limited resource is ever closing toward its inevitable extinction.  Possibly more closely related to the lion story, the classic, comedy-inspired fight of two women fighting for the last Christmas ham at a supermarket on December 24 highlights the theory that humans are consistently involved with conflict, but, in general, have to ignore, cope, and accept this conflict to maintain sanity as a whole and preserve life satisfaction. 

As each human develops his relationships with others, first impression connections start to become a group of “beneficial relationships” or friends.  The animal instinct of survival can often be dependent on protection of life, liberty, and property (thank you some old guy from the Revolutionary War).  Humans, as with all animals, often increase their chances of survival with protection, by surrounding themselves with a group of other humans.  Each has the intention, whether consciously intentional or not, of building the strongest group possible whether by brawn, large numbers, or an infinite possibility of other defensive characteristics.  This theory would give a possible explanation for at least, if nothing else, the subconscious desire for human acceptance; the idea of the secretive but still present popularity contest.  As a man seeking friendship gains acceptance and alliances with other members of his population, who additionally have many other friends, and therefore a high level of popularity, his growing friendship collection or social network further expands and, with respect to the animal instinct of safety, improves his protection from worldly dangers.

A common assumption when evaluating friendships and alliances with others, is to believe that the memories of interactions classified as either good or bad, are what cause humans to feel certain ways about others.  I have to disagree with this idea, however, and propose a theory arguing that a person’s opinions of others are primarily determined, not by memories specifically, but by the brains perception of the quality of these memories.  In other words, the brain first analyzes the experience, decides which memories deserve which specific emotions, and finally releases the proper chemicals needed for the recognition of each specific emotion.  For the purpose of this theory, ones present interactions can actually be considered memories because they are responsible for creating the initial imprint in the mind and produce the same chemical releases in the exact same way.  As with all friendships over time, as each relationship develops uniquely, the emotional feelings recalled from successive memories become uniquely intertwined to create overall personal opinions of our fellow humans.