Human Behavior and Spiritual Environment
Introduction
The social environment plays an important role in shaping human behavior. Several aspects, such as psychosocial and spiritual dimensions, impacts individual lives at various stages and levels, leading to behaviors that are influenced by culture, norms, attitudes, genetics, as well as ethics. These factors determine how people live with others and be productive in society. This paper seeks to explore human behavior in a spiritual environment and its impacts on developments and livelihoods.
Spiritual dimensions tend to be the main domain relating to the existence of humans, involving their core relationship to universal power. The human relationship with the super being, God is termed as divine that enables individuals to make sense of their lives as well as have purpose and directions in life. Religion tends to form beliefs such as dogmas, different rituals, denomination identity, as well as creeds that people associate with, thus denotes subjectivity to the superpower. Spiritual guidance offers guidance and inspiration to human beings in their respective activities, whereby sacred books such as the Bible or Koran contains the behavioral expectation for individuals associating with specific faiths.
Christians ought to assume life like Jesus Christ as inscribed in the bible, thus expected to assume and live life in the best ways possible as per God’s wishes. The bible and Koran expound and give examples of actions indicating various actions deemed good that relates to life situations. According to Ashford et al. (2001), the spiritual dimension in relation to the supernatural being is considered a strengthening domain of the biopsychological aspects of human behavior.
Spiritual dimension tends to invoke immediate action in a model of a cause- consequence linking particular actions to various rewards. For instance, every spiritual consideration in life promises eternity to individuals following the teachings of the holy book. For this reason, the bible motivates individuals to act in a reputable way in society. According to Bruce et al. (2008), the holy books like the bible and the Koran rewards individuals’ eternal happiness, golden crowns for good deeds among the Christians, Buddhists, and Islam. On the other hand, bad deeds are linked to condemnation and eternal harm linked with torment in hell. However, various spiritual consideration has different impacts on people, as some thought to be good might turn out to harm others. For instance, the Islamic Jihad is regarded as holy to some according to the Koran teachings but proves to be harmful to others on the receiving end, especially individuals who are victims of the ‘holy war.’
Impact of Spiritual influence on human behavior
Spirituality is essential as it helps to achieve correct behavior. It helps build self-control, clear conscience, as well as develop positive behavior. Spirituality is arguably an important factor to instill empathy in an individual. At the same time, it enables individuals to control emotions as well as help to release tensions. Spiritual influence is vital to help control oneself whenever aggravated by a situation to have rational thought. Besides, spirituality helps to build a clear conscience. Human conscience has the ability to inform individuals of the right decisions and stresses the need for indulging God in our decision-making processes. Human sensitization to God helps people be sensitive; thus, the need to check their respective feelings before acting. It is important to be careful since the first impulse coming from the intellect tends to be a wrong suit to follow, thus the need to consider having a clear conscience. It is vital to center human conscience upon God and truth to help make rational choices (Jordan, 2014 ). Clear conscience often enables individuals to judge themselves, and others and through conscience, humans are able to know God and His teachings. Through listening and heeding to God-given conscience, individuals are able to adjust their respective thoughts and actions, which consequently have an impact on human behavior. For instance, individuals who are internally free finds it unnecessary to be prideful, arrogant, insecure, guilty, and fearful. Besides, the human conscience tends to know the quality of our thoughts, acting as best judges to detect insincere and evil thoughts that ought to be changed.
However, spirituality has gained vast setbacks, especially in nations with different cultures. In the United States, there has been discrimination against some religious organizations such as the Jehovah witness. Members of these religious organizations usually act out of their spiritual connectedness preaching from doors to doors, which some members of the society feel is being annoyed and intriguing. The United States president in 2002, Mr. George W Bush signed an order that prohibited the prevalent discrimination against organizations based on their religious beliefs.
Spirituality in social work
There tend to be various elements of spirituality in clinical practice as people tend to share and understand religious views and meanings differently. The social work profession has played a vital role in spirituality and diversity, showing a commitment to human diversity and oppressed population issues. History shows that a section of organized religions has had adverse roles in social justice work among various groups. They include using religious policies, practices, and texts to violate human rights, especially rights, to equal access to healthcare among the LGBTQ persons (Bruce, Karen, &Catherine, 2008). On the other hand, organized religions have shown to be involved in social justice movements advocating for equal rights movements, the abolition of death penalties, deep ecology movements, women movements as well as peace movements. Spiritual or religious beliefs tend to be woven into individuals’ lifestyles, whereby they affect individuals’ reactions to stressful situations as well as coping abilities in moments of personal crises. Spirituality in social work enables healthcare providers to offer service delivery that aligns with patients’ belief systems. Spiritual affiliation among social workers affects the way situations are handled, including practices relating to birth, diet, death, moral issues including organ transplants, birth control, abortion, as well as other life issues that are of primary importance.
Importance of spirituality on human behavior
Spirituality enables individuals to be gracious, which is associated with several positive emotions, including optimism. Besides, people tend to be compassionate and be empathetic while also enables people to flourish in having high self-esteem, optimism as well as having a positive meaning in life. Moreover, spirituality enables people to self-actualize as it entails one focusing on internal values and to work on bettering oneself.
In conclusion, the spiritual environment has proved to nurture positive attributes in individuals and promote positive behavior among members of society. There are various benefits that the spiritual environment provides as it fosters equality as well as respect for human rights. The spiritual environment has impacts on social workers too in their profession and practices enabling them to engage patients and clients in making rational choices concerning life situations according to their respective cultures and religious beliefs.
References
Ashford, J., & LeCroy, C. (2009). Human behavior in the social environment: A multidimensional perspective. Nelson Education.
Bruce, A., Karen, M. & Catherine, N. (2008). Comprehensive Handbook of Social Work and Social Welfare: Human Behavior in the Social Environment. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Jordan, D. T. L. (2014). Human Behavior and the Social Environment.