Just a random thought....

A recent article in the newspaper about a schoolgirl, who was subjected to brutal rape by a group of men, drove me towards writing this piece. When I read the article, several thoughts passed my mind and one of them were “why do people behave differently?” Why do a small proportion of us indulge in such barbaric acts? What drives them towards such instinctive provocation, which causes more damage than just physical abuse?
At the risk of digression, lets think about the statements we make to describe people’s behavior. Some of them I can think of are: He’s heartless! He’s a nice guy! He’s a liar! He’s a nerd! He’s an animal! He’s a sadist! He’s so cool! He understands! He is weird! The bottom-line here is that our expression of human behavior differs from one person to another. Why? The simple answer to this question may be attributed to the DNA of the person or the external environment, which determines his actions at that point in time.
However, I have tried answering this question differently; I believe Humans are driven by three factors:

1. Animal instinct – Animal instinct forms the core of a human’s behavior. The three characteristics that govern animal instinct are Fear, Sex and hunger.

2. Human Instinct – The next layer comprises of human instinct that is governed by logical reasoning, intuition, love (not sex)

3. Spiritual instinct - The spiritual instinct is very abstract, this layer is highly subjective and is governed by three factors again Belief, Persistence & patience

Every human being will have all the three instincts as part of his behavior.

Human behavior = function (AI, HI, SI)

Let me try building a simple mathematical model now assuming a linear function

Human Behavior = X * (AI) + Y * (HI) + Z * (SI)

Where X, Y, Z are integers and signifies external environment variables that takes different values at different times for different people.
AI – Animal Instinct
HI – Human Instinct
SI – Spiritual instinct

This model* according to me explains why people behave differently at different situations. A different value gets applied against AI, HI & SI and hence gets multiplied in the respective proportion that determines human behavior at that point.

* I have no data to back this model; it’s just a random thought expressed in mathematical form.

PS: I have used “He” throughout this article for my convenience. Please replace with “she” as appropriate