Person-by-Situation Perspectives on Close Relationships

This chapter reviews theories and research that have adopted interactional (person-by-situation) approaches to studying close relationships. Interactional thinking in social and personality psychology is discussed from historical and contemporary perspectives, emphasizing ways in which individuals and situations intersect. Three theoretical models that adopt person-by-situation frameworks applied to important interpersonal processes are reviewed: the cognitive–affective personality system (CAPS) model, interdependence theory, and attachment theory. The chapter explains how and why person-by-situation approaches have increased our understanding of individuals within relationships. Specific research programs are highlighted. This research has revealed that certain types of situations elicit unique reactions in people with specific dispositional strengths or vulnerabilities. Collectively, these research programs indicate that one can neither predict nor understand how individuals think, feel, or behave in relationships without knowing the relational context in which they are embedded. The chapter concludes by discussing some new directions in which interactional-based thinking might head.

Perspectives on the Situation

This chapter reviews major theoretical positions on the influence of situations for the understanding of both personality and social–psychological processes. We review the history and current status of this topic, and we describe in some detail two recent theories that seem particularly amenable toward resolving the disparate approaches that this distinction often engenders. Broadly considered, our position is that personality and situations must be considered interacting factors, but in a theoretically specific way. The concept of affordance—that situations provide opportunities for the expression of certain personality traits—is central to our analysis. We also discuss several issues that personality and social psychologists might profitably consider to provide better grounding for theories and research about the impact of situations on behavior.

A Person × Intervention Strategy Approach to Understanding Health Behavior

This chapter suggests that an integration of perspectives from personality and social psychology (i.e., a Person × Intervention strategy framework) provides a rich context to explore precise specifications of the mediators and moderators that guide health behavior and decision-making. First discussed is how conceptualizations of moderated mediation and mediated moderation can enrich theory and serve to enumerate specific principles to guide the development and dissemination of more effective health behavior interventions. Second, research is reviewed from four different literatures that rely on a similar Person × Intervention strategy framework (i.e., the effectiveness of an intervention strategy depends on the degree to which it matches features of the target person) to examine evidence for the processes that mediate the effect of this moderated intervention approach. Finally described is how a more systematic analysis of the interplay between mediating and moderating processes can stimulate advances in theory, intervention research, and practice of health behavior.

Personality and Social Contexts as Sources of Change and Continuity Across the Life Span

This chapter provides a framework designed to address how individual persons respond to changes and continuities in social systems and historical circumstances at different life stages and in different generations. We include a focus on systematic differences among the people who experience these changes in the social environment—differences both in the particular situations they find themselves in and in their personalities. Using examples from research on divorce, immigration, social movement participation, and experiences of catastrophic events, we make a case for an integrated personality and social psychology that extends the analysis across time and works within socially and historically important contexts.

Individual and Societal Well-Being

This chapter highlights the contributions that have been made by personality and social psychology, respectively and together, to the science of well-being. Since its humble beginning in the 1930s, the science of well-being has grown to become one of the most vibrant research topics in psychological science today. The personality tradition of well-being research has shown that it is possible to measure well-being reliably, that self-reported well-being predicts important life outcomes, and that well-being has nontrivial genetic origins. The social psychology tradition has illuminated that there are various cultural meanings of well-being, that responses to well-being questions involve multiple cognitive processes, that happiness is experienced often in relationship contexts, and that it is possible to improve one’s well-being. Finally, there are recent methodological integrations of the personality and social psychology perspectives that delineate person–situation interactions.

The Intertwined Histories of Personality and Social Psychology

Personality and social psychology histories have been closely intertwined for more than a century. Several critical differences have at times acted to separate the fields. One such divergence involved their models of humans—whether largely irrational (personality emphasis) or largely rational (social emphasis). This difference has subsided with their joint acceptance of a “bounded rationality.” More important has been their difference in focus—the microlevel of the person versus the mesolevel of the group and situation. Now, both fields largely agree on a variety of interaction models that include both the person and the situation. We trace these tensions between the two fields across eras: (a) origins through World War I (1890–1919); (b) early developments (1920–1935); (c) war influences (1936–1950); (d) structural differentiation and slow acceptance (1951–1965); (e) dual crises (1966–1985); (f) coming back together again (1986–2000); and (7) continued fusion (2001–present).

From Help Giving to Helping Relations

This chapter reviews social psychological research on help giving and helping relations from the 1950s until today. The first section considers the conditions under which people are likely to help others, personality dispositions that characterize helpful individuals, and motivational and attributional antecedents of helpfulness. The second section looks at long-term consequences of help and examines help in the context of enduring and emotionally significant relationships. Research has shown that in the long run help can increase psychological and physical well-being for helpers but discourage self-reliance for recipients. The third section analyzes helping from intra- and intergroup perspectives, considering how its provision can contribute to helpers’ reputations within a group or promote the positive social identity of in-groups relative to out-groups. Help is thus conceptualized as a negotiation between the fundamental psychological needs for belongingness and independence. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Evolutionary Perspectives

Evolutionary perspectives on human behavior are almost as old as the science of psychology itself. A new brand of functionalism has emerged; it draws inspiration from developments in evolutionary biology in the past half-century. This chapter offers an overview of evolutionary biology as applied to human psychology. An ecological niche is discussed, and the critical issue of the nature of the niche humans entered and defined is addressed. Unusually, individuals’ fitness was highly dependent on their ability to attract, form, and maintain cooperative coalitions with others and harness the competencies of others to their own. Several broad, evolution-inspired proposals about human social behavior are described, illustrating how evolutionary perspectives offer integrative understanding of psychological phenomena and generate new research programs. Individual differences from an evolutionary perspective are addressed. Evolutionary perspectives, rather than representing alternatives to social or cultural perspectives, offer a means to construct foundationally integrative personality and social psychology.

Attachment Theory Expanded

This chapter moves from the original form of attachment theory and research to a more comprehensive behavioral systems theory of personality, motivation, and social behavior that considers both individual differences and the impact on mental processes and behavior of relationship partners and other aspects of social situations. The chapter begins by explaining the behavioral systems construct, including its species-universal and individual-differences aspects, which interact with social situations to shape social behavior. The behavioral systems studied to date are discussed: attachment, exploration, caregiving, sex, and power. More emphasis is placed on the attachment system than on the other behavioral systems because it has received more research attention, but new research related to the other behavioral systems is summarized. Avenues are suggested for further theorizing and research that will lead to a more complete behavioral systems theory of personality and social behavior.

Personality and Social Psychology

In this concluding chapter of the second edition of the Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology reflects on how the contributions to the handbook illustrate the ways in which personality and social psychology relate to and contribute to each other. As in the first edition, three patterns of relationship between the two approaches are considered: bridges (joining distinct social and personality perspectives on a substantive area), combined territories (with relatively seamless mergers between fields), and ravines (where the distance between fields has been substantial but where developmental opportunities exist). Also assessed are areas of change in these patterns of relationship; evidence of increasing integration between personality and social psychology approaches is indicated. Finally, as in the first edition, the roles played by professional associations, scientific journals and edited collections, departmental structures, funding agencies, and educational and training programs are considered as they facilitate or inhibit integrative work.