Three Human Attributes

Abstract

This study represents a beginning step in research that may ultimately show that the multitudes of human behavior that educators currently encounter may be reduced to three broad human attributes: arousal, affect, and cognition. The resulting simplicity should lead to improved understanding and better decision making by practitioners. Four measures were selected to represent each of the three attributes and data were collected for four age groups. In each case, when the data were submitted to principal axis factor analysis, three factors emerged in which the 12 variables were clearly aligned with their hypothesized factors. In each analysis more than 70% of the total variance was recovered (M=75.39%). Across four analyses, each variable had only one salient pattern coefficient, and none of its remaining pattern coefficients approached saliency. Following oblique rotation, factor one (arousal) accounted for an average of 50.00% of the explained variance; factor two (cognition) accounted for an average of 28.25% of the explained variance; and factor three (affect) accounted for an average of 21.75% of the explained variance. The implications of these findings and limitations of the research design are discussed.This article presents the case that human beings possess five general attributes. First, we argue that the five attributes are based in the way that humans evolved. Second, the attributes and their evolutionary functions are described. Third, data are presented to test Eaves' (1993) theory that the central processing of human behavior can be represented by three attributes: arousal, affect, and cognition. Finally, the results of this investigation and their implications are discussed. EvolutionThe Senses and Movement: The Basic Stimulus-Response ParadigmIf a plant species is to survive, it must have a reasonably propitious environment. Although plants are stimulated by adverse conditions (dim sunlight, poor nutrients, sparse rainfall), their ability to respond is limited. Animal species, with their twin abilities to sense environmental conditions and to move from location to location, have a great advantage over plants. For instance, when animals feel the heat emanating from a forest fire, they move to a cooler place. Likewise, when a food source is depleted in a given environment, animals, but not plants, can move to a new environment. All animal species share these two attributes: the ability to be stimulated by changes in the environment and the ability to move in response to such changes.The stimulus-response paradigm is so universal that it is easy to take it for granted, but it should not be. Imagine the implications for the first species that evolved the capacity for movement and thus became the proto-animal. What extant species could compete with a new creature that gravitated toward environments with optimal nutrients and moisture ? The power of this attribute was made explicit by Sperry (1952) when he asserted that the entire output of the human brain goes into the motor system. Similarly, as at ...