The Person and the Situation

1. Situations, not personality traits, often determine behavior

People find it hard to penetrate beyond appearances to the role determinants of behavior, even when the random basis of role assignment and the particular prerogatives of particular roles are made abundantly clear.

Situational power: Research has repeatedly shown that seemingly minor situational factors can have a profound impact on behavior, often overriding individual personality traits. Some classic examples include:

• Milgram's obedience experiments, where ordinary people administered apparent electric shocks to strangers when instructed by an authority figure
• Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment, where students role-playing as guards became abusive towards those playing prisoners
• Darley and Batson's Good Samaritan study, where seminary students in a hurry were far less likely to help a person in distress

Dispositional fallacy: Despite this evidence, people tend to explain behavior in terms of personality traits rather than situational factors. This "fundamental attribution error" leads us to overestimate the importance of individual differences and underestimate the power of the situation in shaping behavior.

2. People overestimate the consistency of their own and others' behavior

We find ourselves concluding that people are not only sheep (as Asch's earlier demonstration had suggested) but that they are also weaklings who cannot stand up to authority or, even worse, that they have a sadistic streak just waiting to show itself.

Illusory consistency: Research shows that people's behavior is far less consistent across situations than we tend to believe. Studies looking at traits like honesty, friendliness, and conscientiousness find only weak correlations (around 0.1-0.2) between how people behave in different contexts.

Overconfident predictions: Despite this lack of consistency, people remain highly confident in their ability to predict others' behavior based on limited information about their personality. This overconfidence stems from:

• Confirmation bias - noticing and remembering information that fits our existing impressions
• Illusory correlation - seeing relationships between traits and behaviors that don't actually exist
• Fundamental attribution error - explaining others' behavior in terms of personality rather than situation

3. Subjective interpretations shape our responses to situations

To predict the behavior of a given person successfully, we must be able to appreciate the actor's construal of the situation – that is, the manner in which the person understands the situation as a whole.

Construal matters: How we interpret a situation is often more important in determining our response than the objective features of the situation itself. This explains why different people can react very differently to the same circumstances.

Cultural lens: Our cultural background heavily influences how we construe situations. For example:

• Individualistic vs. collectivistic cultures interpret social obligations differently
• Different cultures have varying norms around expressing emotions
• Cultural values shape perceptions of what constitutes success or failure

Understanding these differing interpretations is crucial for predicting and influencing behavior across cultural contexts.

4. Cultural differences profoundly impact behavior and values

Regional differences in homicide rates should be greatest in small towns and least for large cities, because small towns in a region are more alike in their culture and more distinguishable from small towns in other regions than are great urban centers.

Cultural determinants: A society's economic, ecological, and historical circumstances shape its cultural values and practices. For instance:

• Hunter-gatherer societies tend to value individual initiative and group solidarity
• Agricultural societies often emphasize obedience and responsibility
• Pastoral societies may develop more aggressive cultural norms

Enduring influence: Cultural values can persist long after the original circumstances that shaped them have changed. This helps explain enduring regional differences within countries, such as higher homicide rates in the American South compared to the North.

Dynamic systems: While cultures resist change, they can also evolve dramatically when circumstances shift. Examples include:

• The transformation of Plains Indian culture after the introduction of horses
• The economic rise of Japan despite initial predictions of failure

5. Social influence can lead to dramatic changes in behavior

Within a half dozen generations, following initial contact with the escaped horses of the Spanish explorers, a distinct and complex culture of equestrian nomads was flourishing on America's Great Western Plain.

Conformity pressures: Classic studies like Asch's line judgment experiments demonstrate how social pressure can lead people to doubt their own perceptions and conform to a group, even when the group is clearly wrong.

Dramatic transformations: Social influence can produce rapid and profound changes in behavior and beliefs:

• Newcomb's Bennington College study showed how students' political views shifted dramatically leftward after exposure to the liberal campus environment
• Sherif's Robbers Cave experiment demonstrated how intergroup competition could quickly create hostility between previously friendly groups of boys

Mechanisms of influence: Social psychologists have identified several key processes that drive social influence:

• Informational influence - relying on others for information about reality
• Normative influence - conforming to avoid rejection or gain approval
• Internalization - adopting others' beliefs as our own

6. Small situational factors can have outsized effects on behavior

One important aspect of Lewin's situationism was a healthy respect for apparently minor but actually important details of the situation. He often called these "channel factors" because they referred to small but critical facilitators or barriers.

Channel factors: Seemingly minor situational details can have a disproportionate impact on behavior by either facilitating or inhibiting action. Examples include:

• Providing a map dramatically increased the likelihood of people getting tetanus shots in one study
• Adding a follow-up phone call significantly boosted food drive donations

Foot-in-the-door technique: Small initial commitments can lead to much larger ones later. In one study, people who agreed to display a small sign supporting safe driving were far more likely to later agree to install a large, unsightly sign on their lawn.

Implications: Understanding these subtle influences allows for more effective interventions:

• Focus on removing small barriers rather than large-scale attitude change
• Look for ways to obtain small initial commitments that align with desired behaviors
• Pay attention to seemingly minor details when designing programs or policies

7. Applying social psychology requires understanding situational forces

When trying to get people to change familiar ways of doing things, social pressures and constraints exerted by the informal peer group represent the most potent restraining force that must be overcome and, at the same time, the most powerful inducing force that can be exploited to achieve success.

Beyond individual focus: Effective interventions often target situational factors rather than trying to change individual attitudes or traits. This approach recognizes that behavior is heavily influenced by social context.

Lewin's group dynamics: Kurt Lewin's work demonstrated the power of group-based interventions:

• Using group decision-making to facilitate changes in consumer behavior and workplace practices
• Recognizing both the restraining and facilitating potential of peer groups

Practical applications: Understanding situational influences has led to successful interventions in areas like:

• Public health campaigns
• Educational reforms
• Workplace productivity improvements
• Environmental conservation efforts

8. Individual differences exist, but are often overstated

People's physical characteristics, no less than their roles and reputations, constitute important parts of the life space and important situational determinants of behavior.

Limited predictive power: While individual differences in personality traits do exist, their ability to predict behavior in specific situations is often quite weak. Correlations between personality measures and behavior rarely exceed 0.3.

Situational confounds: In everyday life, people often create or select situations that align with their dispositions, leading to an illusion of greater consistency than actually exists. For example:

• People choose occupations and social circles that fit their personalities
• Appearance and status affect how others treat us, reinforcing certain behaviors

Aggregation benefits: Looking at behavior averaged over many situations does reveal more stable individual differences. This explains why personality assessments based on long-term observations can be more predictive than single behavioral measures.

9. Social systems resist change but can transform dramatically

Quasi-stationary equilibria can be hard to change because of the balance of opposing forces that maintain, and in a sense overdetermine, the status quo. On the other hand, very dramatic and widespread changes in the system can sometimes result from the introduction or alteration of seemingly small and inconsequential forces.

Tension systems: Lewin conceptualized social systems as existing in a state of tension between opposing forces. This helps explain both resistance to change and the potential for sudden, dramatic shifts.

Tipping points: Small changes can sometimes trigger cascading effects that lead to large-scale transformations. Historical examples include:

• The rapid fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe
• The civil rights movement in the United States

Intervention strategies: Effective change often involves:

• Identifying and weakening forces that resist change
• Strengthening forces that support the desired change
• Looking for key leverage points where small interventions can have outsized effects

Understanding these dynamics is crucial for anyone seeking to implement lasting social or organizational change.

Last updated: April 12, 2025