Individual Behavior and Group Behavior

8 Key excerpts on "Individual Behavior and Group Behavior"

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  eBook - ePub

  Science And Human Behavior

  • B.F Skinner(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Free Press

    (Publisher)

  SECTION IV

  THE BEHAVIOR OF PEOPLE IN GROUPS

  Passage contains an image

  CHAPTER XIX

  SOCIAL BEHAVIOR

  Social behavior may be defined as the behavior of two or more people with respect to one another or in concert with respect to a common environment. It is often argued that this is different from individual behavior and that there are “social situations” and “social forces” which cannot be described in the language of natural science. A special discipline called “social science” is said to be required because of this apparent break in the continuity of nature. There are, of course, many facts—concerning governments, wars, migrations, economic conditions, cultural practices, and so on—which would never present themselves for study if people did not gather together and behave in groups, but whether the basic data are fundamentally different is still a question. We are interested here in the methods of the natural sciences as we see them at work in physics, chemistry, and biology, and as we have so far applied them in the field of behavior. How far will they carry us in the study of the behavior of groups?

  Many generalizations at the level of the group need not refer to behavior at all. There is an old law in economics, called Gresham’s Law, which states that bad money drives good money out of circulation. If we can agree as to what money is, whether it is good or bad, and when it is in circulation, we can express this general principle without making specific reference to the use of money by individuals. Similar generalizations are found in sociology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, and history. But a “social law” must be generated by the behavior of individuals. It is always an individual who behaves, and he behaves with the same body and according to the same processes as in a nonsocial situation. If an individual possessing two pieces of money, one good and one bad, tends to spend the bad and save the good—a tendency which may be explained in terms of reinforcing contingencies—and if this is true of a large number of people, the phenomenon described by Gresham’s Law arises. The individual behavior explains the group phenomenon. Many economists feel the need for some such explanation of all economic law, although there are others who would accept the higher level of description as valid in its own right.

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  Mind, Self, and Society

  The Definitive Edition

  • George Herbert Mead, Charles W. Morris(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • University of Chicago Press

    (Publisher)

  [1.2]   No very sharp line can be drawn between social psychology and individual psychology. Social psychology is especially interested in the effect which the social group has in the determination of the experience and conduct of the individual member. If we abandon the conception of a substantive soul endowed with the self of the individual at birth, then we may regard the development of the individual’s self, and of his self-consciousness within the field of his experience, as the social psychologist’s special interest. There are, then, certain phases of psychology which are interested in studying the relation of the individual organism to the social group to which it belongs, and these phases constitute social psychology as a branch of general psychology. Thus, in the study of the experience and behavior of the individual organism or self in its dependence upon the social group to which it belongs, we find a definition of the field of social psychology.

  [1.3]   While minds and selves are essentially social products, products or phenomena of the social side of human experience, the physiological mechanism underlying experience is far from irrelevant—indeed is indispensable—to their genesis and existence; for individual experience and behavior is, of course, physiologically basic to social experience and behavior: the processes and mechanisms of the latter (including those which are essential to the origin and existence of minds and selves) are dependent physiologically upon the processes and mechanisms of the former, and upon the social functioning of these. Individual psychology, nevertheless, definitely abstracts certain factors from the situation with which social psychology deals more nearly in its concrete totality. We shall approach this latter field from a behavioristic point of view.

  [1.4]   The common psychological standpoint which is represented by behaviorism is found in John B. Watson. The behaviorism which we shall make use of is more adequate than that of which Watson makes use. Behaviorism in this wider sense is simply an approach to the study of the experience of the individual from the point of view of his conduct, particularly, but not exclusively, the conduct as it is observable by others. Historically, behaviorism entered psychology through the door of animal psychology. There it was found to be impossible to use what is termed introspection. One cannot appeal to the animal’s introspection, but must study the animal in terms of external conduct. Earlier animal psychology added an inferential reference to consciousness, and even undertook to find the point in conduct at which consciousness appears. This inference had, perhaps, varying degrees of probability, but it was one which could not be tested experimentally. It could be then simply dropped as far as science was concerned. It was not necessary for the study of the conduct of the individual animal. Having taken that behavioristic standpoint for the lower animals, it was possible to carry it over to the human animal.

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  Psychology in Organizations

  • S Alexander Haslam(Author)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  1

  ORGANIZATIONS AND THEIR PSYCHOLOGY

   

  Humans are social animals. No one who reads this book lives entirely alone, remote from the influence of society and other people. We each seek out contact with others, in the knowledge that this has the capacity to enrich our lives in different ways. This contact usually appears to be natural and uncomplicated, but most of it is highly structured. It is regulated, coordinated and managed. This is partly because much of our day-to-day activity involves dealing with people who are acting as members of organizations. As well as this, a great deal of our own behaviour is determined by our place within an organization. Today you may encounter a shop assistant, a bus driver, a lecturer, a newsreader, a politician, and you may also act, and be treated by others, as a student, a teammate or a fellow worker. Precisely because these sorts of interactions are aspects of organizational behaviour, they are – at least to some extent – purposeful, predictable and meaningful.

  Understanding the psychological underpinnings of individuals’ behaviour in organizations is a particular focus for researchers in two subdisciplines: organizational psychology and social psychology. Among other things, both fields examine and attempt to understand the mental states and processes associated with behaviour in structured social groups and systems. This chapter discusses in more detail what organizations are and how they have been studied by organizational and social psychologists, before going on to outline how the social psychology of organizational life will be examined in this book.

  A central question that provides a backdrop to the issues addressed in this chapter, and in the book as a whole, is how we should understand the contribution that groups make both to the psychology of individuals within organizations and to the functioning of organizations as a whole. Do groups detract from individual motivation and performance or do they augment it? Do groups introduce error and bias into judgement and decision making or are they sources of validation and validity? Are individual products and behaviour superior to group output and collective action? More importantly, when and why

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  The Sciences Of Man In The Making

  AN ORIENTATION BOOK

  • Edwin A. Kirkpatrick(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  HAPTER X

  BEHAVIOUR IN RELATION TO OTHERS, OR SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

  THE NEED FOR A SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

  THE concept of general psychology is of an organism reacting to the physical environment, and improving in doing so by practice. Individual psychology not only recognizes differences in human organisms but emphasizes the truth that, in reacting in his special way, each individual builds a self whose parts are so organized that what is done in response to a situation is not wholly determined by either the situation or the sense and motor apparatus responding, but by the personality of the actor. Social psychology shows that there is also a social determiner of conduct. It no longer assumes a general “ social mind ” of which each individual mind is a part, but emphasizes the truth that the individual is directed and moulded by companions and by the customs and institutions of the group of which he is a part. These influences are shown to have more to do with determining behaviour than bodily structure or physical environment. Realization of the importance of personal and cultural influences in human behaviour has led to the present deep interest in social psychology, which is concerned with these interrelations.

  THE EFFECTS OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF ONE UPON ANOTHER

  A hungry individual animal or man, when food is perceived, responds to the situation in a positive and active way. Another individual, also hungry, observes the response perhaps before he has observed the food, and is then influenced by the two stimuli to more vigorous action than the first one, who had the food stimulus only. As the second approaches and begins taking food, both become more active in getting it than would be the case if each was alone, especially if the amount is limited. If one interferes with the other’s attempt to get a portion the natural reaction is one of anger, which usually calls forth a similar response with further interference of each with the other, and increase in vigour of struggle. For a time, perhaps, the food is neglected while each tries to match the aggressive behaviour of the other by more effective responses of a similar kind.

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  Essentials of Social Psychology

  An Indian Perspective

  • Shubhra Mangal, Shashi Mangal(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)
• It tells us that our thoughts, feelings and actions are influenced with the interactions and presence of others and vice versa. Proceeding further, it acquaints us with the way these are influenced in the presence of others in one or the other social situations. In other words, thus, social psychology may be found to look at human behavior as influenced by other people and the social context in which this occurs.
• For influencing and affecting our feelings, thoughts and actions, the actual presence of others is not essential. It can happen also with their imagined and implied presence such as when watching television or following internalized cultural norms.
• Social psychology provides a scientific explanation of what, how and why people think, feel and behave the way they do with others, influence them and have interactions and relationships with them in one or the other social situations.
• It helps us in understanding and explaining the manner in which our thoughts, feelings and actions influence others or get influenced in the presence/interactions with others. Apart from the ongoing behavior of others, social experiences preserved in our memory, and the attitudes formed out of these experiences, and physical factors also influence our behavior towards others.
  Social Psychology

  An applied branch of the subject psychology that deals with the scientific study of the behavior of individuals in a social context enabling us to get an explanation of the nature and causes of their thoughts, feelings and behaving with others in one or the other social situations.
• In this way, what is available in the form of social as well as other variables to us in our social environment at one or the other time, proves quite significant in influencing our bent of mind (in terms of our attitudes, perceptions and motives) and our actions and behavior at that time and also in future in the similar encounters. By highlighting all such things, social psychology tries to bring out all the factors that lead us to behave in a given way in the presence of others, and look at the conditions under which certain types of behavior/actions and feelings occur.