According to the 8th Edition of Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, psychology is defined as the scientific study of the mind and how it influences behaviour.  In singular term, it means the kind of mind that somebody has that makes them think or behave in a particular way. To cap it off, it is how the mind influences behaviour in a particular area of life.

PSYCHOLOGY

Good and evil work hand in hand, it is left to an individual which one he wants to be predominant. It is very easy to do something bad; in fact the tendency to perform immoral act is higher in people than the one to do good.

There is a beast in every man, and it is his duty to make a stand by striving hard to make sure that he succumbs to his desire to be good, than the urgency to do evil. This could be further understood in the tale by an Indian Grandfather to his grandson about two wolves that lives together, the good wolf and the bad one. When the grandson asked him which wolf emerges as the winner, the old man replied that it is the one that is well fed.

There are two parts of the human mind, the part controlled by Instincts and Emotions and the part controlled by Human Reasoning or Conscience.  There are certain things that come to us naturally, i.e. you don’t need anyone to tell you when you are hungry, dizzy, sad, excited, sleepy or hurt. These things we have no control over them. The conscience is a control tower for our instincts and it is supposed to work together with instincts and emotions.

INSTINCTS AND EMOTIONS

The best access to someone’s mind is through a study of the face. Most people are ‘Open Book’ and it makes it so easy to read the display of emotions on their faces. These set of people find it very hard to hide their feelings as it is obvious for the whole world to see. There are some people that are expressionless and most times we refer to them as being unfeeling and heartless because you find it extremely difficult to know what is going on with them. These people are expert at keeping secrets and they can confuse you since you can’t read their facial expressions. The usual thing to do with such people is to make assumptions, but when it comes to making assumptions you might be wrong, so do not rely on your own opinion, you might want to ask them.

There is a parable of the Sower in the Bible, about a farmer who went out to sow his seed. As he scattered the seed, some fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants (Matt13vs7). There is another one about the weeds. When man sleeps, his enemies came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared (Matt13vs25-26).

Instincts and Emotions represent the weed in this context. It is a weed while Conscience represents the plant, if care is not taken, the weed will choke the plant. This means that if instinct is given prominence then it will have an adverse effect on the plant.

The negative part of the mind is a perpetual slave which obeys the instruction of instincts and emotions. It is not concerned with others: just you, nothing else matters; and this is the highest degree of selfishness. It is so easy to tell yourself that the only reason you steal was because you were hungry and you would not think of doing such if you had enough to eat, but of course you are just lying to yourself. In a situation when you are hungry and have no means to buy yourself any meal, different scenarios run through your mind; should I try to ask my friend for money? Should I endure it or should I steal?

Your mind is in turmoil and you happen to see a certain amount of money on the floor or on an unoccupied seat. You look around to figure who could have dropped the money but you couldn’t see anyone, then you start contemplating. "This is an answer to my prayer," you told yourself, and also that, "I didn’t steal this money, I found it. Besides, there is no one in sight who I could ask if he knows who dropped the money". So, you are self-assured that you didn’t steal it but found it. You get a meal with the money and even gave out of it to a friend who had no idea how you got the money; then you tell yourself "I performed a good act by giving to others". This is you trying to justify the fact that you took something that was not yours by giving out of it to an unsuspecting party. Thetruth remains that you took something that wasn’t yours and this is not a righteous act.

Another scenario, you happened to witness a ghastly motor accident and being human, you were sympathetic with the victim. You rushed there to help but unfortunately, the motorist was dead. You were about to rush back to the road and call for help, at least,for the police to take the body to the morgue, but then his wristwatch caught your attention. Youlooked through his wallet and discovered he had cash on him. What do you do then? Do you leave all and cry for help or do you tell yourself that a dead man does not need a wristwatch or money. Of course, someone who is ruled with instincts and emotions does not care about the dead man because he will tell himself that what remains of the man is just a body, no soul, no life and dead bodies don’t need certain things, so he will help himself to the corpse’s wristwatch and money. What is the justification? A dead man needs nothing.

Two can keep a secret if one is dead. There is nothing wrong with that because you were just trying to protect your secret, and getting rid of a partner is the answer to that.

Similarly, five men were at the hospital with each requiring a certain organ transplant. The Doctor was at a dilemma as the inability to get these organs means the five men will die, and then a healthy young man walks in and wanted to see the doctor. The doctor then realizes that this young man has the organs each of the five patients are in need of. This is the question: if one dies, five are saved, and if one live, five would be lost. What should the doctor do? The man being asked replies, "It is simple mathematics. It’s either one dies and five are saved or one lives and five are lost. It should be obvious that the healthy young man should be sacrificed for the salvation of the five." This is the answer of a psychopath. When an evil person is trying to do something he considered to be good, bad things usually happen.

As humans, we should be considerate of others because the moment you only care about satisfying your wants and desires you are putting the others at a huge disadvantage. A man that covets his neighbour’s things would succumb to his instinct to take it even though he shouldn’t have. Instincts and emotions naturally grow and develop, it is unlimited and you can only suppress it by making sure that you yield to the reasoning part of you. The part that gives into consideration others' feelings and happiness, and not just yours.

HUMAN REASONING/CONSCIENCE

The perfect criminal is the one with no conscience. If you do something wrong and feel guilty about it, then you might be thinking of making reparation; but if you do not see anything wrong in what you have done no matter how heinous it was, then you are on your way to becoming a monster.

As stated earlier, human conscience stands as a control tower and as a plant that should be nurtured daily and given utmost care. Its development in every individual will ensure peace and stability in the society, because apparently, no one would take what is not theirs, kill or mutilate people.  Its absence in a society will definitely be catastrophic.

Give this part of the mind full reign in your life so that you can be an ideal individual the society is proud to produce.

There is a war going on between us anytime we want to do something and eventually what you end up doing either good or bad depends on the aspect of the mind that won this battle. When you find someone else’s thing, you will return it to the owner even if you need that thing desperately and when you come across an accident you would only be concerned about saving a life not robbing a corpse. You will make right choices. You will work hard to acquire that thing your neighbour has and you do not instead of trying to take it away from him.

Humans are not perfect and that is why sometimes we find ourselves leaning towards being ruled by instincts. But the sooner you realise this, the better, so that you can make amends.

The instincts and emotions working hand in hand with reasoning and conscience will create an individual worthy of being presented to the society.

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●  Yetunde Lois Ogunshola is a Nigerian, living in the city of Ilorin.She is a University undergraduate of the prestigious University ofIlorin, Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria where she is studying English,with her specialty in Literature. She is an author and has publishedsome stories online.