Patterns in psychology and their types - how to work through stereotypical actions

Who among us has not looked at the intricate designs on wallpaper, walls, and fabrics? If you know how to knit, then you are very familiar with the concept of rapport: this is the same pattern that is repeated in the product many times at certain intervals. However, the knitted product itself consists of many loops.

Photo by Katie E: Pexels

Watch your breathing: inhalation follows exhalation. This repeats automatically. You don't think about these actions. If you set a goal and track your behavior throughout the day, you will notice:

• repetitive actions brought to automaticity,
• words, they are called “parasites”, which you repeat in different situations and don’t notice it;
• emotions that arise in response to external influences.

In this article:

Definition of the concept of a patternBasic properties of a patternClassification of patternsReference point Creature of habitGood and badPatterns in communicationHow to change a pattern

Definition of a pattern

All this has a name - a pattern. Pattern, literally translated from English, means pattern, pattern, diagram, model, sample. A synonym for the concept of pattern can be defined as regularity.

If combined, it turns out that a pattern is a scheme or model that repeats itself automatically, thanks to which patterns in nature, society, human perception and behavior are revealed. A pattern in psychology is a set of behavioral reactions or a stable sequence of actions, as well as a combination of sensory stimuli that arise to characterize certain external objects.

Significance in personality psychology

Patterns of behavior that have developed in a person are often a benefit for the individual; they are the core, the basis of the reaction to any external situation.
The psyche and intellect do not need to spend resources on developing a reaction model; it has already been created. In fact, the pattern is a personal resource that helps reduce mental costs. It helps to cope with stress caused by an unfamiliar situation and achieve success in life.

The absence of a pattern of behavior in an unknown situation becomes the basis for the emergence of fear and anxiety, up to physiological reactions, for example, rapid heartbeat.

The structure of creating a behavioral pattern consists of 6 elements:

1. perception of a situation requiring a reaction;
2. formation of a behavior program (from observation, imitation, experience and intuition;
3. action based on the formed program;
4. assessing the result as positive or negative;
5. consolidation of a positively working program.

Forms of human interaction almost always have the character of a pattern; it also turns out to be a means of distinguishing between friend and foe.
In different societies, learned behavior patterns may be different. Different group behavior patterns are also formed among different generations. The individuality of a person as an individual - what is it?

Basic properties of the pattern

Patterns are found in every field of activity, and you constantly deal with them in your daily life. Patterns have certain properties by which they can be easily recognized:

• constant steady repetition;
• the unconscious nature of the manifestation, determined by a clear algorithm that is difficult to correct;
• full or partial manifestation of the repetition algorithm. If the repetition is not complete, then it is called a code, and serves as a trigger for the execution of the entire pattern scheme. The coding method is widely used in psychology to correct psychological reactions to different types of external stimuli;

• in psychology, different patterns rarely exist in isolation from each other. The starting point is considered to be an innate pattern, onto which other patterns are superimposed in the process of acquiring relevant life experience. In this way, behavioral stereotypes and habits are formed, which inevitably influence the formation of a person’s character and his lifestyle;
• constant development and formation of new types of patterns. Pattern algorithms may change as you gain relevant life experience. An example of such a pattern transformation can be a change in the type of your behavior when you start living with someone in a couple. Bachelor habits appear very clearly for a while, but over time they are replaced by new types of behavior.

What is a pattern of behavior in psychology?

What behavior patterns tell us about us and how to use them

The following point is of particular interest: knowing how a certain person behaved in certain situations, what patterns of behavior he has, you will be able to determine his actions and actions in similar situations

.
True, before drawing conclusions, it is necessary to thoroughly study the personality itself and its behavioral patterns. The simplest example is if your friend easily makes promises left and right, but has not yet fulfilled any (or at least few), what is the chance that he will do what he promises you? The same applies to acquaintances who always borrow and do not repay their debts. If patterns developed in childhood change, they do so with difficulty.
That is why a girl choosing a groom should pay attention to his attitude towards his mother. The fact is that several years after marriage, when the stage of falling in love has passed, men often (but not always) display the same behavioral algorithms towards their spouse that they developed towards their mother. It is also important that, as a rule, for close communication we choose people with similar behavior patterns

. That's why they say about some girls that they, for example, have a talent for finding scoundrels. In fact, such ladies are simply looking for a person who fits the implementation of their pattern. And, apparently, in this case we are dealing with a model of behavior in which a man must deceive a woman, disrespect her, he is a king - she is a nobody, and so on. In the same way, it is not a man who is “lucky” with overly flighty girlfriends, but he subconsciously looks for cheating girls. And when one of them leaves him, he will look for another - with the same behavior that fits his psychological pattern. Although at the level of consciousness it may seem to him that he will not be caught again and the next lady of his heart will be completely different.

Pattern classification

In the field of psychology, behavioral patterns have their own classification. Stand out:

• congenital or hereditary;
• acquired or creative;
• positive or comfortable;
• negative or erroneous;

• social and individual;
• communicative.

Each of these classes, in turn, is divided according to the place and quality of its manifestation. Let's take a closer look at the main types of patterns in psychology using examples.

Kinds

There are three classifications, each of which has two types:

1. Congenital and acquired. The first ones are embedded in us at the level of instincts. For example, a cry in a moment of fright, a smile at the sight of loved ones. The second are those that have developed as a result of life experience.
2. Positive and negative. Like any habits, patterns can vary. Some help maintain health, improve relationships, and allow you to achieve success faster. Others, on the contrary, take up time and complicate various aspects of life, for example, the habit of filling work breaks with surfing social networks or focusing on one’s own failures.
3. Individual and social. The first category includes personal behavior patterns. This is the way we stir sugar in a cup of tea, drive a car, hold a toothbrush. The second category is our communication habits. Some make cutting jokes, others are polite and careful in their choice of expressions. A greeting hug, a nod, a bow - all these are social (cultural) patterns.

Good and bad

In fact, all other classes of behavioral patterns are varieties of acquired ones. It’s no secret that every person develops a large number of bad and good habits and skills. They significantly affect your quality of life, and some are very difficult to get rid of.

An example of a negative pattern is smoking. You start to feel nervous or feel relaxed and want to smoke a cigarette. Anyone who has had experience fighting this bad habit knows well how difficult the process of giving it up is.

Acquired patterns also include behavioral patterns. It is very difficult for a shy and reserved person to have open communication with other people, and this leaves an imprint on the development of his personality and interferes with social realization.

Overcoming such behavioral stereotypes requires outside help, and it is better to turn to an experienced specialist. It will help to identify the reasons that served as the beginning for the formation of the pattern, and, with the help of certain methods of psychological correction, the pattern will be changed towards a more comfortable psychological reaction.

Definition

The definition of a pattern is a stereotype of behavior, a model of reaction, developed in the process of upbringing, training, observing the behavior of parents, friends, employees and even opponents.
They are most actively formed in childhood, when the child is most receptive to everything that helps him grow. Pattern formation is an instinct that comes from the Stone Age, when observing and repeating the successful behavior of other members of the tribe helped to survive. Patterns can be personal, or they can be group, characteristic of a particular social community.

Patterns can be speech patterns - like a standard reaction to a standard phrase: “Good morning!” - "Kind". Patterns can be mental - templates, generalizations, distortions. In NLP (neurolinguistic programming), the latter, called presuppositions, are used to influence human psychology.

A simple behavioral pattern is to ask who is last in line at the store or hold the door for the stroller. These patterns of behavior seem extremely simple, however, this is a classic model of a pattern, that is, a learned behavior, missed by one's own experience and constantly repeated.

Auditory learners are people who love to listen and talk.

Patterns in communication

If you observe the behavior of people in their ordinary, everyday life, you can note that each of us, in the process of interacting with other people, uses a wide range of facial expressions, a system of gestures, and a set of standard phrases. When you meet, you say hello, a corresponding emotional mask appears on your face. These are communication patterns. Based on them, we can draw conclusions about the emotional state of the interlocutor, his inclinations, and even his personality type.

Negative communication patterns include gestures or words that are difficult to get rid of, and you have to constantly be in a state of conscious communication for some time, which causes certain inconvenience, since there is internal emotional, and sometimes physical, tension.

The implementation of communication patterns can be observed when two hearing-impaired people communicate. They talk using certain gestures, each of which has a semantic meaning.

How Behavioral Patterns Work

People, in principle, are characterized by stereotyping behavior: we develop certain ways of interacting with the world around us. This is explained by the principle of rationality - instead of inventing new ones every time

ways to respond to a particular phenomenon, it is easier to use a ready-made model. This applies to all patterns - thinking, verbal, behavioral, and many others.

Patterns of behavior are formed in the process of training, education, and observation of others. This process starts from childhood and is most active in childhood. We look at what patterns other people use in different situations and we adopt (or don't adopt) those patterns. We inherited this rather convenient and effective method of learning and socialization from our ancestors, for whom it was one of the means of survival (it should be noted that copying behavior is used not only by humans and is very common in the animal world, but this area is beyond the scope of our article) .

Returning to modern man, we note that in childhood patterns are often simply copied almost unchanged (this is why they say that the best way to raise a child is to demonstrate to him certain behavioral characteristics by example). As we get older and our behavior patterns become more complex, the patterns are borrowed less obviously and less actively. In addition, they, as a rule, are not taken in their original form, but are modified to “fit” into our character, other behavior patterns, etc. Perhaps the best reflection of the whole process will be the saying: “Whoever you mess with, you’ll gain from it.” And here we are not only talking about negative qualities - you can also “acquire” positive models.

Pattern: what is it?

A pattern is a special behavioral reaction, a patterned action used by a person in everyday life on an ongoing basis. The origin of the concept is from the English concept “pattern”, which in translation means sample, stereotype.

Patterns concern not only daily rituals and household behavior. Patterns are used in all areas of activity where there are automatically performed actions.

For example, a musician automatically opens the case and takes out the instrument, tunes it, sits down on a chair, taking a normal position.

Friends, when meeting, exchange handshakes or hugs also instinctively, out of habit. A chemist usually arranges test tubes and reagents in the laboratory, sets up scales and instruments, and establishes a procedure for conducting experiments.

The writer automatically places the necessary books and articles on the table, and even the usual, automatically prepared coffee in this case can act as a pattern.

How to change patterns?

The transmission of behavioral patterns from generation to generation makes it difficult for a person to get rid of one or another accepted stereotype. But this can all be fixed. A person's conscious and subconscious minds are powerful forces that can help us think and behave in new ways. Thinking plays a huge role and can be both an obstacle to liberation from ineffective patterns and a helper.

How to change thinking patterns?

What does it mean - a destructive pattern? These are the thoughts and attitudes that prevent you from successfully solving any life problems. To develop new effective thinking patterns, you can try to follow the recommendations of a psychologist:

1. An experience or situation, upon closer examination, appears to be negative, but if you change your perspective and try to look at the positives, a new solution to the problem may be born.
2. Only one way and not another, either black or white, good and evil - all this can be called polarized or extreme thinking, characteristic of many people brought up in strictness, perfectionists, but life is more multifaceted, and not everything can be fit into a framework.
3. Inflating the problem to catastrophic proportions. Stop! It's time to stop, breathe out and not go deeper into panic, but think: “What can I do now, what is the next step to solve the problem, do I need help or can I handle it myself?” This method helps to get out of a state of helplessness and develops creative entrepreneurship.
4. Self-fixation or personalization. Many people seriously think that all the problems in their close circle are related to them. “I made him angry again,” “She feels bad because of me!” The important thing to understand here is that people have a right to their feelings, and it is their responsibility.

How to change behavior patterns?

Changing behavior patterns is difficult and time-consuming work on yourself. To do this, you need to start tracking your thoughts and reactions to events happening around you. What causes fear or stupor, and what causes aggression. Analyze: “How can I react differently?” All these primary reactions are patterns that need to be reviewed and replaced. It is important to remember the following:

• established reactions are not the only correct ones;
• apply a different reaction to the event, it is better to sit down and write in detail how “I will react differently”;
• when the opportunity arises, repeat a new pattern of behavior to reinforce it, watch how it works, change the nuances (a new habit is consolidated within a month).

Are patterns good or bad?

We can summarize by forming the positive and negative aspects of behavior patterns. On the positive side:

• relieves stress from an unfamiliar situation, minimizes neuroses;
• reduces reaction time;
• may change and improve;
• serves as a means of socialization;
• helps to achieve success;
• minimizes the consumption of psychological resources.

From the negative:

• can be used as a manipulation tool;
• makes it difficult to communicate with people with different behavior patterns;
• simplifies reactions, making a person less competitive in a difficult life situation.