Question

Compare and contrast situational influences and dispositional influences and give an example of each. Explain how situational influences and dispositional influences might explain inappropriate behavior.

Short answer

Situational influences are those external factors that influence your behavior such as urgency, environmental conditions, or societal norms. For example, consider running a red light because you're late for a meeting. Dispositional influences refer to inherent personality traits or habits that shape behavior, like a habitual disregard for rules that results in regularly running red lights. Both can lead to inappropriate behavior as they may provoke individuals to act outside of societal norms or act in disregard of rules.

Step-by-step solution

Define Situational and Dispositional Influences

Situational influences refer to external factors, conditions or circumstances that influence how a person behaves, while dispositional influences refer to a person's inherent qualities of mind and character. In other words, situational influences are about 'the place and time', while dispositional influences are about 'the person'.

Provide Examples

An example of situational influence could be someone running a red light due to being late for work which they wouldn't do under normal circumstances. An example of dispositional influence might be a person who is always late and so regularly speeds or runs red lights because of their inherent disregard for rules.

Explain the Influence on Inappropriate Behavior

Situational and dispositional influences could explain inappropriate behavior. Using the previous examples, running a red light due to lateness (situational) as well as habitual lateness and disregard for rules (dispositional) both result in the inappropriate behavior of traffic violations.

Key concepts

Situational Influences

Situational influences are external factors that impact how an individual behaves. These are out of our control and often tied to specific environments or contexts. Imagine being in a crowded room; you might feel more anxious or irritable simply because of the noise and the number of people around you. So, the situation plays a big role in shaping how you feel and act.
Situational influences can be seen in various forms:

• Environmental aspects like temperature, lighting, or noise levels.
• Social settings such as group dynamics or peer pressure.
• Stressful conditions like time constraints or high demands at work.

For example, a normally calm person might act impatiently when stuck in traffic due to the high pressure of being late. This behavior is not inherently part of their character but is triggered by the situation itself. Recognizing the power of situational influences helps us understand why people might act out of character in certain situations.

Dispositional Influences

Dispositional influences focus on the internal characteristics that drive a person's behavior. These are often stable traits like personality, values, or beliefs that shape how someone typically responds to various situations.
When considering dispositional influences, think about qualities such as:

• Personality traits like introversion or extraversion.
• Attitudes towards authority or rules.
• Intrinsic motivations or fears.

A person who consistently runs late may do so because they have a laid-back personality, reflecting a broader pattern of behavior related to time management. Unlike situational influences, these are enduring traits, meaning they show up across different scenarios and over time.
Understanding dispositional influences can help us predict how someone might behave in the future, since these internal characteristics tend to remain the same.

Behavioral Psychology

Behavioral psychology examines how we learn and how our experiences shape our actions. This approach acknowledges both situational and dispositional influences, highlighting how behavior is a result of interacting factors.
Key aspects of behavioral psychology include:

• Conditioning processes like reinforcement and punishment.
• The role of past experiences in shaping current behavior.
• The impact of observational learning and modeling from others.

In a situation where someone runs a red light, behavioral psychology might explore how past experiences of urgency and stress led to this action. It would also consider whether the person learned this behavior from observing others, such as family or peers.
By studying behavioral psychology, we can gain insights into why people act the way they do and develop strategies to modify or improve behavior through targeted interventions.