Social Psychology the Power of the Situation

Social Psychology

The Power of the Situation

Sam Sommers (2008) writes in an article entitled The Elusive Power of Daily Situations about an incident in which he broke a finger of each one of his hands and had to undergo a minor surgical operation that was necessary to ensure the healing process. He describes how this situation was altered for him by his anxiety over the various choices and complications that were part of this type of surgery, by the discomfort he felt wearing a flimsy hospital gown that he was unable to tie due to his broken fingers and being in an unfamiliar place, and by his embarrassment at the incident that resulted in the injury in the first place. Sommers relates this to the phenomena of the power of the daily situation as he writes "As we know from decades of research in social psychology, many of us are far too inattentive to the power of the situation in our daily interactions." (Sommers, 2008)

This article describes a main component of social psychology: the fact that situations compel behaviors. For example, one would not walk into a library and shout at the top of his lungs, nor would he engage in the same type of behavior at the doctor's office as he would at a wild frat party. Berger and Luckmann (1966) introduced the idea that "all knowledge, including the most basic, taken-for-granted common sense knowledge of every day reality. is derived from and maintained by social interactions."

This information is relative to a specific experience I had in which I underestimated the power of the situation in a daily interaction. I work as a telephone answering service operator, and I tend to feel frustrated and angry when I encounter professional discourtesy or incompetence from another operator. Yesterday I was trying to call my health insurance company and placed on hold for over 45 minutes, during which the operator picked up the phone several times to inform me gruffly and rudely to "Hold on!" In my mind, there was no excuse for this treatment, and I finally hung up. I called back and requested to speak with a supervisor to complain about this operator's behavior. The supervisor was empathetic to my complaint and apologized, but then informed me in a protective manner that the particular operator who I had perceived as being unfriendly and rude had just found out that her elderly grandmother had passed away. This put her behavior in a new context which I could understand completely. This clearly demonstrates Sommers' description of the way we allow the power of the situation to influence our daily experiences, and "this tendency is only magnified when we operate within the confines of our own professional worlds." (Sommers, 2008)

The Fundamental Attribution Error

Art Markman (2009) describes the Fundamental Attribution Error in his article People, Situations, Attributions, and the Hollywood Movie. He describes Clint Eastwood's character in a movie as experiencing a fundamental positive change in his racist attitude, and then explains how this is typical of a Hollywood portrayal in which the main character changes for the better and we leave the theater feeling uplifted. Markman says that this is consistent with how we tend to view other people: we make judgments of others based on an aspect of their character, whether the particular trait that we are basing our judgment on is accurate or merely assumed.

Another aspect of the Fundamental Attribution Error is that, while we attribute other people's actions to their personality characteristics, we tend to use situational influences as the causes of our own actions. A second example of this phenomena that is similar to Markman's can be found in the movie Monster's Ball. This movie portrays Billy Bob Thornton as a racist prison warden. The audience is confused as we watch him engage in a sexual and social relationship with Halle Berry's character, who is African-American, because we are judging Thornton's character as being intrinsically racially prejudiced. The majority of the audience does not take into account the character's physically and verbally abusive father who rigidly enforced the ideas of racial bigotry and segregation in him as he was growing up, and does not surmise that perhaps the character does not agree with these ideas and behaviors but is merely going along with them in public to please his father.

Situational Personality Trait

In her article Was Michael Jackson a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)? Are You?, Dr. Susan Biali, MD (2007) discusses the impact of situation on personality traits. She uses the example of Michael Jackson, who was shy and reclusive in his personal life, yet outgoing, excessive, and flashy when performing on the stage. Biali describes how she shares a similar situational personality - she is a public speaker and has worked with the media in her professional capacity, and she is extroverted when on camera and on stage, but in her personal life she is a private person who prefers to spend a lot of time alone.