Deciphering Social Behavior

Deciphering Social Behavior

By: Van Dwinnells

Attitude is often referred to as personal view of something such as an opinion but it can also be a generalized notion of a psychological object.  In psychology, the term attitude refers to our disposition(s) of specific activities, ideas, and objects and as such we gauge them accordingly and apply degrees of favorableness or unfavorableness. (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975)   Socially, attitudes can translate from personal, individual, notions to larger social actions and behaviors. Therefore by monitoring behavior at a contextual level, one between how small groups integrate into larger communities, we may be able to change how a community, as a whole, acts or reacts to situations we impose.  In my last blog, From the Table to Life, I mentioned the need for community acceptance in order to gain traction for architectural projects.  By being more involved with and connected to those in the community we can alter their attitudes and thereby change the overall outlook of a project.  Now, I am trying to incorporate a model by which we may be able to analyze, implant, and stimulate positive responses to carefully planned motivational devices.  It is important to remember that for the most part, social attitudes are acquired and internalized rather than inherently innate.

Reading attitudes of individuals and/or the actions of an individual are harder because overt actions can be misleading and may not be representative of an entire social group.  It can be dangerous to look too close to the problem as some people and their attitudes and behaviors may be that of an outlier.  As Robert Merton has pointed out,

 "The metaphysical assumption is tacitly introduced that in one sense or another overt behavior is "more real" than verbal behavior.  This assumption is both unwarranted and scientifically meaningless.... It should not be forgotten that overt actions may deceive; that they, just as "derivations" or "speech reactions" may be deliberately designed to disguise or to conceal private attitudes."

Generally speaking, it is important to partially disregard global views.  It is possible to consider too large of a social group and make too broad of generalizations. It would be like portraying a community in the Midwest United States as the same as one on either the East or West coasts.  Granted similar beliefs may be held, but there are too many variables within the different aggregates of people, personal attitudes and behaviors have shaped the individuals quite differently, mainly due to their environment, and therefore such views are not always accurate or interchangeable when the core study is that of a smaller context.   In order to study and understand them, it is important to isolate the attitudes and behaviors of the each communities and then compare them in compatibility.  This is often referred to the theory of planned behavior first described in 1985 by Icek Ajzen.

"Briefly, according to the theory of planned behavior, human action is influenced by three major factors: a favorable or unfavorable evaluation of the behavior (attitude toward the behavior), perceived social pressure to perform or not perform the behavior (subjective norm), and perceived capability to perform the behavior (self-efficacy; Bandura, 1997, or perceived behavioral control).  In combination, attitude toward the behavior, subjective norm, and perception of behavioral control lead to the formation of a behavioral intention.  As a general rule, the more favorable the attitude and subjective norm, and the greater the perceived behavioral control, the stronger should be the person's intention to perform the behavior in question.  The relative importance of the three predictors as determinants of intentions can vary from behavior to behavior and from population to population."

This is probably the most common belief, and diagrammatic method, of how we actually form our intentions and then supposedly act on them.  The actual behavioral control, what we can influence or change, should be less obvious or at least less intrusive in order to reach a desired social behavior with little resistance.  By making smaller changes do eventually lead to larger ones.  For elaboration of how to please feel free to read my prior blog titled Moments.  My next blog will take closer a look at how just what and how we can modify and manipulate specific aspects of an environment to achieve a direct correlation between the perceived behavioral control and actual behavior.