The Social and Cultural Domain



The Social and Cultural Domain

Introduction

The focus of personality and social structure is on the effects of culture, macro-social processes, and social structure on various dimensions of individual functioning. Research includes, but is not limited to, socialization processes, elements of cultural influence, and effects of social structural characteristics like social class and occupational characteristics on aspects of conceptions of the self, psychological functioning and cognition, aspirations, attitudes, and meanings. Personality and social structure is a movement which has its roots in social psychology. The primary concern of this movement is to find a middle ground between the overly individualistic, psychological view of the world and the highly structural, sociological conception. Articles by James House and Melvin Kohn in the late 1970s and early 1980s implored social psychologists to return to a research basis not controlled by the “structure versus agency” debate. Researchers and theorists working in personality and social structure focus on the areas in which human personality and social structures intersect and on the outcomes of the intersection.

Discussion

Personality and Social Interaction

Human beings are characterized as social animals possessing a fundamental need to belong to others. Most of our behaviors, thoughts and emotions are social, meaning that they are directly or indirectly related to other people. Consequently, personality (how people are) is inseparably interwoven with social relationships (who people are with). First, a relevant part of personality is characterized by inter individual differences in how people act towards others and how they think and feel about others and about themselves in relation to others. Personality would probably have less relevance if there were no social relationships. Second, most important social actions, thoughts and feelings are partly determined by personality characteristics of the people involved. Social relationships would not be such a challenging part of our lives if all people were equal in how they act, think and feel. Third, social interactions feed back into the development of personality. How others react towards us and how we feel and think about others has the potential to impudence that we become.

Despite personality and social relationships being intrinsically connected, social psychological research has long neglected the role of personality in determining social phenomena. Similarly, personality research has long been reluctant to study social real-life phenomena. Fortunately, this situation has begun to change. More and more researchers have supported an interdisciplinary approach to personality and social relationships and a growing number of social psychologists and personality researchers have called for a stronger focus on actual social behavior. Integrative approaches have been applied in diverse fields such as interpersonal perceptions at zero acquaintance, peer-relationships, personality development, romantic relationships or family ties (Adamopoulos & Kashima, 1999). Although all of these approaches describe the interplay of personality and social phenomena, there is still a lack of cross-talk between and within sub disciplines. For each relationship type, personality domain, or level of acquaintance, separate concepts and labels are applied. Here, we present a uni?ed framework for studying the complex dynamics between personality and social ...