Does a Person Form a Situation or a Situation Form a Person - Essay Example

PERSON SITUATIONEvery person interested in psychology should be fascinated by how people react differently to the same situation (Scott et al., 1995). According to cognitive theory, human responses are governed by emotions which actually cloud their cognition. People have different emotions, and how these emotions are displayed is what result to the responses. Responses to a situation depend on several things such as stimulus, what we have been taught by others or observed in others, biological DNA and personality.

Because most of these factors can never be the same to every individual, it is clear that different people will respond different to the same situation (Kenrick et al., 2010). People read detective stories to find out who did the dirty deed, but in real life we also want to know why people do things – was it because of a terrible childhood, a mental illness, possession by a demon, or what? When we make a situational attribution, we are identifying the cause of an action as something in the situation or environment.

Let’s look at the dyad different persons respond differently to the same situation. On my job their are two department complexes. One complex houses sixteen women in drug treatment. Another complex houses four women. When on a given assignment the hours are 7am to 7pm and 7pm to 7am. The assignment on 7am is much harder with more demanding schedule. As a supervisor to get motivation from each employee, I would schedule the employee with the most seniority to perform the more hectic schedule. Ms. Betty who is an older employee responds very angrily when she is put on the 7am schedule, as to she cannot perform the hustle and bustle of transporting the clients.

I would schedule her to the 7pm schedule, which calls for giving medication at 7:30pm. Then there is no more hectic work to be done.Persons choose the situation, and situations choose the person. Several aspects of the work environment are known to increase job involvement, motivation and satisfaction (Scott et al., 1995). For example as a supervisor I would allow employees to set their own hours and make decisions. The work would then feel meaningful and important to employees. Tasks are varied rather than repetitive.

The company maintains clear and consistent rules. The employees have supportive relations with their superiors and other co-workers. PERSON SITUATIONPriming is an implicit memory effect whereby exposure to a stimulus influences responses to a later stimulus. Different situations can prime different parts of the person through later stimulus. This is common when priming result to long term effect. Therefore, it is a fact that different situations can lead to priming that will destroys different parts of a person.

For instance, unconscious priming can negatively affect word choice on a word-stem completion test following a situation where words have been consciously forgotten (Scott et al., 1995). An individual can change the situation in which he/she is faced with. Each individual’s situation is governed by his/her personality and disposition. The kind of personality that the person in the scenario has will determine whether the situation will change him/her or she/he will change the situation. The following examples explain scenarios whereby people can change situations or where situations can change people (Kenrick et al., 2010). When the company offers opportunities for its employees to learn and advance then the employee is more motivated to perform.

Companies that foster these conditions tend to have more productive and satisfied employees. Workers tend to become more creative in their thinking and feel better about themselves and their work than they do if they feel stuck in routine, boring jobs that give them no control or flexibility over their daily tasks.The strongest motivator is incentive pay, bonuses that are given upon completion of a goal rather than an automatic raise. Incentive pay increases people’s feelings of competence and accomplishment (Scott et al., 1995). Also the important of the working conditions affects an employee motivation.

When someone does not do well at work, other are apt to say it is the individual’s own fault because he or she lacks the internal (introvert) drive to “make it”. But what the person may really be lacking is a fair chance to make it.References Kenrick, D. T., Neuberg, S. L., & Cialdini, R. B. (2010). Social psychology: Goals in interaction. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.Scott, M. J., Stradling, S. G., & Dryden, W. (1995). Developing cognitive-behavioural counselling. London, Angleterre: Sage.