Situational Forces in Helping Decisions

Helping behavior is shaped by social situations as well as by personality. Social psychologists and personality psychologists both try to predict human behavior, but they focus on different causes. Personality psychology looks at traits, character, and individual differences. Social psychology looks at the power of the situa...

Predicting human behavior is difficult. Researchers interested in personality often focus on how certain traits and character differences affect the way individuals behave, while those in the social realm hone in on the role of situational factors?based on one?s environment.

Both perspectives make sense: Say a driver gets cut off of the ro...