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Adam Waytz Analysis

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“Don’t blame me for not participating - Humans are not naturally social”

It is argued that humans are naturally social creatures and that the ability to be social is completely natural. That people are just expected to be able to interact in such a way that is socially acceptable. However, that is not always the case, people are not always openly social; people are not always able to function in social situations. Why is it expected that being a human makes you a social being.

Adam Waytz, a Psychologist as Northwestern University, claims that human beings are naturally social(1). In Waytz argument, he claims that all social processes in a person’s brain, hormones, and cognition must be triggered before a person does anything for another. …show more content…

Sometimes, people can suffer from disorders that makes being in social situations a challenge. These are not by choice, but by a reaction to society around them. One such reason is Avoidant Personality Disorder (AvPD)(2). This is a rare personality disorder that is thought to only occur in approximately 0.1% to 0.5% of the population. It is distinguished by behavioural reserve, including features of being nervous, frightened, and withdrawn in new situations. These are attributes that commonly would be teased out of a person at a young age as they are taught to socialise. So why do they reappear with age? As personality disorders cannot be diagnosed before the age of eighteen, one like AvPD can simply be overlooked as anxiety or shyness. However, after the age of eighteen and towards adulthood, this is when personality disorders can be diagnosed properly. These can be debilitating, causing people to be unable to function in society. An example with AvPD is being hypersensitive to criticism and reactions to criticism ranging from simply blushing or being nervous but can culminate in crying or even cause panic attacks. Due to this, it is known that people with AvPD will not take personal risks in fear of embarrassing themselves. Nonetheless, that is a diagnosis by a doctor and rarely is it ever actually the official diagnosis. Anxiety is more often …show more content…

Children need to be taught to be social. As a young child, they are taught to interact with others and how to get along with other children. They are taught how to be confident and how to talk to other people without being nervous. If being social was such a natural process, would people not be born able to interact without being nervous? If socialisation was natural then it should not be a skill to learn. Admittedly there is the exception with some children being more outgoing than others. However, again there is the situation where being social does not come naturally to most. Due to this, it can be argued that being social is not natural, something that is taught, is synthetic and fake. It is not at all natural to be social. It cannot be reasonable to force people into situations that makes them feel uncomfortable, particularly involving other

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