Essay On External Influences

External influences are all around us, and whether we realize it or not they affect how we think and act on a daily basis. This is the concept of the priming effect. The priming effect is when something happens to us, and influence our behavior after the experience. This usually happens subconsciously without the person knowing. There is also a phenomenon with the priming effect called ideomotor effect. This is the influencing of an action by the idea. What this all means is that if you were walking down the hallway with your friends, without you even realizing it, your body either slows down or speeds up depending on the pace your friends are walking at. That shows how the external influences, like your friends, can affect and change your behavior. Some external influences have influenced my behavior in many different ways. The school community has changed my thoughts and

From kindergarten to eighth grade, we learned the procedures for a fire drill and evacuation. When I heard the alarm, my brain automatically thought fire or fire drill. My body reacted as it was trained to do. We would get in line, make sure we were quiet, head out the nearest exit to our class spot where we waited for the ok signal to return to the building. Coming back to today, with the recent fire drill we had at school, that wasn’t my body's response. My brain instead of thinking, “It’s a fire drill, time to follow procedure”, thought, “What if it’s not a drill or a fire, and someone is about to start shooting.”. My mind isn’t as calm, and trained as it used to be. Now my mind panics and tries to find the right information to help me get through the situation. This shows how a national tragedy like the school shooting in Florida, still influenced my thought process from 1,500 miles away. Even though I physically wasn’t impacted by the tragedy, it still changed my behavior and