Just-Because Answers

I’ve been listening to my interviews and trying to figure out what I am seeing here. I’ll warn you right now that this post is a work in progress. I don’t promise that it will make sense.

“Just because” is one of the most common and most frustrating answers a research can receive. “Why do you belong to your religion?” “Umm…well, because it’s my religion.” “But why is it your religion?” “Because it’s true.” “But how do you know it’s true?” “Because the prophet said so.” “But why do you believe that?” Blank stare. “I just do.”

Just because.

I used to hate that answer. After my trip to Talas, I don’t hate it anymore. I think the reason I used to hate it (and the reason most researchers don’t think it is a real answer) is because, as a researcher, I like to think that life is a bit more complicated than that. I like to think that things have reasons for happening, and that people are not just doing random things for no discernable reason. Just because answers make it look like people are just doing things because…well, just because they are. It’s a question begging to be answered.

There are basically three ways social scientists respond to just-because answers. The first way is what I’ll call the psychological tradition: people do things because of deep-seated, largely unconscious mental processes that affect their behavior. When you say you do something just because, it’s actually because something inside your brain is telling you to do that. You don’t have to know about that that thing in order for it to affect you--as long as it can affect your brain, your brain can affect you and you will do that behavior.

The second way is the sociological tradition: you do things because there are social institutions and processes that coerce you into doing what you do. When you say you do something just because, it is actually because people of your gender are socialized to do that thing or because there are institutions that create power relationships that make you feel like you have to do that thing. You don’t have to know about these things either. They can affect you without you being aware of them.

The third way is the ecological tradition. There are resources in the world around you, and these resources are often instinctually motivating, mostly because they were resources that were important throughout human evolutionary history. You do things to get these resources, even when you don’t know you are doing them to get those resources. Your body knows that it wants certain things and if it needs to trick you into thinking that you are in control in order for it to get them, then so be it.

Now, all of these things are true to a certain extent. The ecological tradition has the largest amount of evidence in it’s favor, but the sociological and psychological traditions have a respectable amount of proof on their sides as well. Each of these three things can cause human behavior, including just-because behavior. I’m just starting to think that there is a fourth reason as well.

I generally like to think that people (myself included) are pretty smart. Yes, we can be simple at times, but still smart. All three of the traditions I’ve outlined state that we do things because there is stuff in the world that makes us do things without us knowing it. There aren’t too many social researchers (anymore) who say that we’re total puppets, but a large amount of coercion is generally assumed. While coercion is a fact of life, I just like to think we are a little bit smarter than these theories give us credit for.

What if just-because answers are accurate, at least some of the time? What if people do things for simple reasons because they live in a social setting that allows simple reasons to be successful? What if you go to mosque just because you’re supposed to because you live in a town where almost everyone else is Muslim, where most of your good friends go to Mosque with you, where you feel included and welcomed when you live your religion, and where you feel a little more sure about your standing before God? In that kind of a setting, why do you need a better reason than just because? It feels good to live your religion, would probably feel a little bad not to live it, and it doesn’t get in the way of the other things you do.

I think researchers like those three traditional explanations because it makes sense that simple things happen because of more deep-seated, more complicated things. But I think we make a mistake by trying to find one-to-one connections between cause and effect. In order for a just-because explanation to work, you need a few things from the psychological tradition (ability to recognize aspects of your religion), the sociological tradition (institutionalized values and practices that show that you are a part of your religion) and the ecological tradition (resources like social standing acceptance that come from being a part of the religion). But no one of these traditions provides a satisfying explanation of the behavior.

And it won’t do to say that they all just interact to produce the behavior. That’s like saying that a car runs because the gas, the engine, and the driver interact to make it run. While on one level that’s true, it doesn’t really fully explain how a car runs. It’s a cop out. People ideas, social institutions, and resources interact in a way that explains just-because behavior. The complexity that explains the behavior isn’t in any one of the three explanatory factors--it’s in how the three factors interact. If we can figure out exactly how those things interact, we could potentially have a powerful way of understand what people do and why they do it.