Human Behavior Theory

All things considered, I had a great weekend. I went out to visit my friends Joe and Anita. They have a dream house on three acres next to a pond in northern Illinois. The lot is part of Joe's family farm that has since been parceled off and sold to developers.

Two or three times a year I'm invited out to relax on their mammoth deck, where I'll sit and read. This trip I took my computer and got a little work done on a new piece. Joe holds a masters in literature, and while I can hold my own in a discussion of authors I know, I'm nearly as wide read as Joe. I like conversations with Joe. Politically we're almost completely opposed, but he doesn't seem to hold that against me, nor do I hold it against him.

Conversation took an interesting turn. Joe made the unequivocal statement that after the age of thirty people are incapable of change, that behavior is pretty much encoded in DNA. As he explained this he seemed to become frustrated with Anita and me, who were not accepting his theory.

Joe's feeling is that behavior can be modified, but if impulses are not modulated a person is who he is at the age of thirty. And in times of stress, when behavior is less likely to be modulated and modified, person is more likely to revert to familiar behavioral patterns.

I have to say that the theory stings a bit. I'm an imperfect person, one under stress. In the past I've reacted emotionally to this stress and in one case succumbed to a pretty deep depression as a result of stress. I've spent the better part of the last five years trying to change myself -- and now I find myself in a stressful situation. If Joe's theory is correct I should begin sinking into a deep depression very soon.

I don't like that thought at all. But nothing challenges me like proving a universal statement wrong.