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63 Examples of Social Behavior

John Spacey, November 09, 2020

Social behavior is the way that people interact with one another. The following are common examples.

Communication

The process of conveying information to others with a verbal, written or sign language. It is also possible to communicate visually or with body language and eye contact.

Community

Humans crave social interaction and inclusion and form together in groups to enjoy a sense of community.

Listening

The practice of consuming communication. This can include a bunch of listening strategies such as filtering out uninteresting information.

Cooperation

Humans can cooperate as very large groups using structures such as societies, organizations and projects.

Politics

The complex and contentious process of deciding how to act as a group.

Culture

Culture is the emergence of shared meaning and expectations amongst groups based on their experiences. Conforming to culture helps people to get along with a sense of common identity.

Norms

Norms are expectations for behavior in the context of a community or culture. For example, rules of politeness in a particular city.

Tolerance

The ability to get along without shared culture and norms.

Acceptance

The act of accepting people as unique individuals as opposed to requiring strict conformance to a group identity of them.

Tradition

Tradition is the continuation of the culture of the past. This provides cross-generational shared experiences and stability in a world of constant change.

Rites of Passage

A rite of passage is a type of tradition whereby a group marks the milestones in an individual's life.

Comradery

Comradery are feelings of respect for those with whom you have endured shared challenges and stresses. Humans can form stronger relationships based on comradely in the most difficult of situations.

Loyalty

The ability to treat someone well and to unselfishly defend their interests.

Love

Unconditional respect and affection for another person.

Altruism

The ability to selflessly act in the interests of people, animals or planet often at a cost or risk to yourself.

Charisma

Charisma is the ability or tendency to act in a way that others find appealing.

Play

The pursuit of joy for the sake of joy. This is often social and is considered important to the process of developing social skills.

Humor

The ability to create joy with thinking and communication.

Wit

The ability to respond to social situations quickly in the moment in some intelligent way. A cognitive ability that is the basis for high level social skills such as charisma and humor.

Leadership

The ability to get others to follow you to unite the actions and thinking of groups.

Influencing

The process of trying to change what others think.

Motivating

The process of trying to get others to act.

Following

The practice of following a leader. This may make you a member of a group such as a team or movement.

Herd Behavior

The tendency for humans to look to others for clues on how to act in a situation. For example, people tend to follow each other to find an exit in a fire even if they have knowledge of the layout of the building themselves. This can lead to crowding of one exit with other exits unused due to herding driven by fear.

Gossiping

The practice of talking about other people, often with little regard to evidence and accuracy.

Status Seeking

The process of trying to gain social status based on perceptions of things like wealth, appearance, youth and authority.

Signaling

Signaling is the process of trying to communicate your strengths to others. This can include visual communication such as fashion designed to communicate a strength such as wealth.

Countersignaling

The practice of downplaying your strengths in order to show off your strengths. For example, a corporate executive who dresses informally to countersignal their authority as a communication of their strength.

Mediocrity

Mediocrity is pathetic behavior where an individual clings to a group for safety, comfort and benefits but minimizes their contributions to that group.

Social Loafing

Social loafing is a tendency to contribute less to group work than individual work. This often results from poorly structured group activities with unclear roles or where too many people are involved in solving a problem. Not to be confused with mediocrity.

Conformity

Strict adherence to the expectations of others.

Shyness

Feelings of mild anxiety in social situations whereby you feel constrained in your responses.

Reservedness

An individual who doesn't feel like engaging with someone socially but isn't shy.

Unaffectedness

An individual with high self-awareness who doesn't depend on validation from others.

Alienation

Alienation is a feeling of disengagement and estrangement from groups to which you belong.

Independence

The ability to transcend social processes to be yourself without feeling alienated.

Antisocial Behavior

Antisocial behavior is when an individual breaks the norms of groups to which they belong or generally disregards the well being of others.

Malevolence

Highly antisocial behavior whereby you wish or cause harm to others.

Deception

Lying and other types of deception such as strategic omission of the truth.

Manipulation

Aiming to influence the thoughts, emotions or behaviors of others in some deceptive or negative way.

Misbehavior

Failing to conform to the reasonable expectations of others without any intent to harm anyone.

Discipline

The process of admonishing and penalizing others for their behavior.

Taking the High Ground

The practice of maintaining high standards of behavior for yourself even when dealing with people who behavior poorly. For example, an accomplished individual who refrains from arguing with antisocial people in the street even if insulted.

Tit for Tat

Tit for tat is the strategy of matching the negativity of others but not escalating things.

Social Comparison

The tendency to evaluate yourself by comparing yourself to others.

Competition

A drive to outperform each other. Humans enjoy competition so much that they create it with games and sports. The forces of competition may serve to bind people together with a sense of shared identity and purpose.

Fear of Missing Out

Fear of missing out is a motivation driven by negative social comparisons whereby you feel that others are doing better or getting ahead of you.

Groupthink

Groupthink is a tendency for groups to try to force all members to pretend that they think the same.

Abilene Paradox

The abilene paradox is when groups make decisions that each individual member of the group views as irrational. Group thought process often reflect the politics of the group as opposed to rational and coherent thought.

Devil's Advocate

Devil's advocate is the practice of saying something you don't really believe in hopes of breaking static thinking.

Civility

Civility is the practice of following the rules of a society and resolving disputes peacefully.

Argument

The process of resolving differences with words. An essential component of civility.

Protest

Producing creative tension as a means of exercising rights such as freedom of speech and democratic participation. This is one of the things that distinguishes civility from mere conformity.

Conflict

The process of resolving differences with hostile action. This violates civility and can result is serious consequences such as destruction and misery.