Behaviour.

摘要

The regulation of behaviour seems high on today's agenda. From "anti-social behaviour" to the ill effect of lifestyles on health, the term encompasses our entire physical, emotional, and psychological selves. But it wasn't always so. When the word entered the English language in the late 15th century it referred only to deportment and manners, stretching in the 16th century to include the conduct of life, and action towards others. Although usually qualified by "good" or "bad", if unaccompanied its meaning was assumed positive.Manuals of behaviour became common sources on how to ingratiate oneself into society, strongly associating the word with notions of morality. In the 19th century this link was strengthened through the articulation of what was "normal", signifying an expected way of behaving socially and often defined by its new opposite, "abnormal". Pathologisation soon followed through new "diseases" defined predominantly by behavioural symptoms: the morbid propensity to steal (kleptomania in 1840), the refusal of food (anorexia nervosa in 1873), sexual perversions, and so on. In each case the moral element remained prominent.