# Importance of behavior

**URL:** <http://discourse.iapct.org/t/importance-of-behavior/5565>\
**Category:** CSG1993\
**Created:** [April 13, 1993, 6:11pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/importance-of-behavior/5565 "1993-04-13T18:11:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![William\_T\_Powers2](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@William\_T\_Powers2](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/William_T_Powers2)\
**Post date:** [April 13, 1993, 6:11pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/importance-of-behavior/5565/1 "1993-04-13T18:11:24Z")

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[From Bill Powers (930413.1100)]

Dan Miller (930413.1200) --

> I have always considered the insistence that behavior  
> is not important as having an unstated escape clause -  
> except when it is important. That is, it is true that  
> outcomes can be achieved through variable methods, but  
> there are many times that those behavioral methods are a  
> source of error - embarrassment, humiliation, deviance.  
> Some attention to behavior is common with reference signals  
> of group conformity, obedience, rule-following, accomodation,  
> or of not being embarrassed/humiliated a la Goffman.

The "importance" of behavior can be assessed from two points of  
view: that of a third party looking at the behavior of one party  
as it affects a second party, both outside the observer, or that  
of the actor, for whom behavior is known ONLY as perception of  
it. The observer in any case knows of behavior only in the form  
of a perception, but in the first case it is part of a perceptual  
model of the behavior of others, so the role of the observer's  
own perceptions is somewhat concealed.

PCT constantly reminds us that our own behavior, the behavior of  
others, and the behavior of objects in the world are known to us  
only AFTER they have been created in our own perceptions by our  
own perceptual systems. Forgetting this can lead to confusion in  
applying the model. Remembering it reminds us always to evaluate  
the behavior of another person from the point of view of that  
person. When we see another person behaving, all we observe are  
the movements of limbs, expressions on faces, sounds made by  
voices. We do not see what the other person is primarily  
concerned with: the perceptual effects of creating these visible  
acts.

When we act to control our own perceptions, our acts (and their  
effects) become perceptions in others, or disturbances of  
perceptions. As the others act to oppose any disturbances we  
cause, we perceive their actions as their "response" to our own  
efforts at control. If those responses indicate that we have had  
an unintended effect, we can become embarrassed or humiliated, or  
conclude that we have not created the expected effect.

Embarrassment and humiliation are words describing the internal  
states of the actor. They are names for kinds of error conditions  
and the way we act internally when those conditions occur. To  
understand them in PCT terms, we must get beneath the words to  
the goals and errors that are implied, rather than simply  
treating the emotion-label as the end of the quest. To say that  
one is humiliated is to say that one is made humble; furthermore,  
the implication is that feeling humble constitutes an error, a  
difference from the way one intended to feel. To feel humiliated,  
one must have wanted to feel in some different way -- the  
opposite of humble. Perhaps -- triumphant? So humiliation reveals  
a goal, and the frustration of attempts to reach that goal. The  
complex of bodily states and that particular kind of error  
relative to that kind of goal is what we sum up with the word  
"humiliation."

So when one's behavior results in a humiliation (as we casually  
put it), a great deal more than that is going on. Our attempts to  
control certain perceptions result in actions from other people,  
and our perception of the relationships between our control  
behavior and their ensuing actions results in a large deviation  
from some internal goal of our own, and a physiological reaction  
accompanying that error. In the rather vague shorthand of verbal  
communication, we say "I was humiliated by his reaction."

What is important is always perception and our attempts to  
control it.

> **···**
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------  
> Best,
> 
> Bill P.