People's behavior is largely determined by forces not of their own making.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting

Nobody is born with characteristics of their own, with time they grow certain traits which defines their personality. The speaker claims that a person’s behaviour is largely influenced by outside forces. A lot of characteristics of an individual and his nature can be attributed to his surroundings and where he was brought up. Therefore, I agree with the speaker’s assertion.

One may find that people from different parts of the world behave differently to different situations. Were they born with such traits? No, not necessarily. Their behaviour can be attributed to their society and their way of upbringing. For example, a person brought up in poverty and slums turns out to be a tough guy at handling situations and is not afraid to face any worse conditions. On the other side if a person is brought up in an affluent family where he has never faced any kind of trouble may have different attitude towards the same situation faced by the former guy. Now these are the results of different upbringing.

Another example of forces defining one’s behavior is that people in India on meeting one another greet each other by folding their hand and saying “Namaste” on the other hand people in America simply say “hi”. People living in warring nations like Afghanistan are brave and forthcoming while people living in nations like Canada are much humble and peace loving. All such differences in behaviour can only be attributed to the culture where a person is brought up.

But this is not always the case. In places with varied surroundings which provide both tough and easy life; peaceful and warring conditions. In such cases, it narrows down to the individual on what conditions are suiting him more and his choice can be attributed to something that he was born with. It is not necessary that all the people in Canada would be peace loving and humble and same applies to all the people living in warring nations. Sometimes a person picks his own choice and this is picked by him because it suited him the best and there was a trait inside him favouring those actions.

In sum, while it can be argued that it is not always the case when a person’s actions are largely influenced by surroundings but in most cases it is. Therefore, I agree with the speaker and support his statement.