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  3. People’s behavior is largely determined by forces not of their own making.Write

People’s behavior is largely determined by forces not of their own making.Write

游客2024-01-12  26
问题 People’s behavior is largely determined by forces not of their own making.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.
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答案     Is people’s behavior largely determined by external forces rather than their own making (i.e. personal preferences and interests)? While some people may emphasize the importance of "free will" and argue that our behavior is controlled by who we are, I would like to offer an opposite view. That is, people’s behavior is indeed primarily the result of external forces over long timescale and via immediate effects.
    To begin with, some would claim that human beings have free wills and can decide for themselves what or what not to do. Admittedly, nobody would be willing to subjugate oneself to the order of others. Instead, out of personal motives or a sense of conscience, people’s behavior will deviate from what the environment or those external factors dictate. For example, soldiers on the East side of the Berlin Wall were instructed to shoot and kill anyone defecting to the West after the end of World War II. Despite such seemingly irresistible forces by the authority, not all soldiers obeyed but they opted to follow their own conscience. Rather, what they did was deliberately missing the target and allowing the defectors to enter West Germany. This example vividly illustrates how, as a conscious human being, people will act in accordance with their personal values and can resist external forces.
    However, people’s behavior may appear to stem from their personal choices not the external forces, this is an illusion. This is because our personality, personal values, moral standards and etc. are fundamentally all shaped by external factors over many decades, or even several generations. In the example of soldiers disobeying direct orders discussed above, the person’s morality is claimed to be responsible for their behavior. Yet, it does not investigate where such a sense of conscience eventually comes from. From my point of view, morality is the product of the long-term evolution of human interactions with each other and the environment in society. For example, the reason why cannibalism is not accepted by the majority of the society is that it violates the fundamental aspects of our values that all men are created equal. Such a value, in turn, results from a century-long debate about human rights and equality, facilitated by the increase in productivity since the Industrial Revolution. As a result, external forces have played a critical role in shaping one’s own making, though implicitly and gradually, and will continue to do so.
    Furthermore, even in short timespan external forces have been proven capable of effectively changing people’s behavior. Thanks to modern-day research in psychology, numerous experiments have been designed to examine what controls people’s behavior. What those experiments essentially do is measure the behavioral outcome after changing certain environmental factors. If people’s behavior is indeed the main result of their free will, their action should largely the same regardless of changes in the environment in which they live. On the other hand, if external forces largely dictate people’s action, this should be immediately observable in those experiment conditions. Based on the results of many psychological studies, it turns out that external forces do play a critical role. For instance, studies on police officers show that when they see a speeding car in bright color (such as red), they are more likely to pull the car over and issue a ticket than seeing a black car speeding, even though parallel studies find no personal preference in colors. Here, the color of the car is the sole determinant of the officer’s behavior. Another example is about people’s perception on climate change, done by Dr. Elke Weber at Columbia University. When two laymen were exposed to news about global warming, the one sitting in a hotter room tends to show greater level of belief and confidence in the news than the one sitting in a cold room. Again, their reflection on the perceived information hinges directly on the environment.
    To summarize, the argument presented above demonstrates that people’s behavior is determined by forces instead of their own making, both indirectly and directly. Importantly, while people’s free wills may often be invoked to explain our behaviors, it is crucial to realize that such free wills are ultimately shaped by our environment. (694 words)
解析     人类的行为由何种因素决定?这在心理学研究上是一个课题，在哲学上也是一个引人深思的话题，应当说ETS将其一直保留在Issue题库中，体现了GRE考试思想上的思辨性。
    这篇文章常见写法是，既承认外界因素的影响，也认可人类自我意志的作用，从而写出一篇“正一反一和”的文章。这样的文章虽然看起来言之有物，但其实没有去深刻挖掘两者之间的关系，只是浮于表面地描述“可以这样”。我们不禁会发问：为什么有的时候行为取决于外在因素?为什么有的时候人们又有所谓的自由意志呢?
    而这篇范文则不同。我们把人类行为从两个尺度来进行研究：短期与长期，并由此指出人类的短期行为可以分别受到个人自我意志(第一主旨段)和外界因素(第三主旨段)的影响，但从长期尺度看来。人的内在品质是由外在因素塑造的。第二主旨段对于环境对人类价值观的塑造进行了深刻讨论，并由此推导出人的行为归根结底是由外界因素决定的。我们要学习这种时间尺度上的拆分，这比泛泛而谈“人的行为既受内在品质也受外界因素影响”要深刻和高明。
    最后，本文的观点其实反映出的就是“人类到底有没有自由意志”这样一个哲学命题。对于这个问题本文显然做出了否定的回答，这听起来似乎有些伤感，但也只是一家之言，大家可以批判性地进行阅读。读者完全可以在考场之外就这个哲学问题进行更加深刻的思考，提升自己的思辨能力。这也是为什么笔者很喜欢这道题目的原因——因为正是这些引人深思的题目，让GRE不仅仅是一门语言考试，更是成为打磨我们思想的工具。
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