Introduction
Person-situation interaction discusses about the argument whether a situation or a person is more effective than an individual’s behavior (Kahle 13). Psychologists of personality traits believe that individuals have personalities that are consistent and guide their actions in different situations. Situationists, adversaries of the attribute approach, contend that individuals are not steady enough from situation-to-situation to be described by comprehensive personality traits. In this essay, I am going use the social cognition and sociocultural perspectives of social psychology to discuss how situations select the individuals.
Situations Choose the Individual
The main question here is: does an individual choose the condition or does the condition choose the individual? Well, it may occur either way. When we say conditions choose the individual we basically imply that conditions have entrance necessities or requirements that must be fulfilled prior to an individual entering them. For example, colleges and academic institutions have text scores and GPA requirements. Potential spouses have their own requirements and jobs have experience and education requirements. If these requirements are not fulfilled, an individual does not have an opportunity to experience that situation.
2.1 Social Cognition Perspective
According to Forgas, social cognition perspective asserts that individuals learn behaviors depending on what they think concerning the behaviors of other individuals (23). The perspective states that individuals observe and understand other individuals’ behaviors. Ordinarily, people observe the actions of other individuals and then judge whether they are good or bad. This may change the individual’s belief system if they see a good person doing a bad activity. In this perspective, one can contemplate on the question: what causes violent behaviors? The other day I was watching the news and I noticed police officers using to stop angry demonstrators from destroying property. In such an occurrence, we can definitely say that the cops did not choose to engage in violence but the situation made them act in a violent manner. The situation made the cops to be violent.
Sociocultural Perspective
Our interactions with individuals around us communicate to us social rules and norms (Snooks 35). These rules and norms then take charge of our behaviors. Using the same question used in the social cognitive perspective, what causes violent behaviors? Someone would definitely say that individuals pick up violent behaviors after they observe the contacts around them. For example, may be an individual was brought up in an environment where violent behaviors are accepted. Recently, after having a long day, I decided to watch a high school movie while relaxing. One of the characters played the role of a bully in the school trips. As the other students walked to the cafeteria, some students gave him high-fives. They were not angry at him. This shows that violence is a requirement for being popular in schools, and many students in these schools want to be popular so they become violent too.
Conclusion
Each one interacts with their environment in different ways; sometimes, situations create us and other times we create situation. This life cycle is summed up by the six personality situation interaction: situations choose persons, persons choose situations, diverse individuals react differently to the same condition, different conditions can prime different person’s parts, persons change the condition, and situations change individuals. Sometimes, individuals find themselves in situations that dictate who they become and they do not have any other way out of the particular situation. From the case descried earlier, it was either the cops acted in a violent manner or the angry demonstrators destroyed properties worth a huge fortune.
Works Cited
Forgas, Joseph P. Social Cognition.1981. Print.
Kahle, Lynn R. Methods for studying person-situation interactions. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1979. Print.
Snooks, Margret K. Health Psychology: Biological, Psychological and Sociocultural Perspectives. Sudbury, Mass: Jones and Bartlett Publisher, 2009. Print.
