Situational Factors

Personality and Behavior

As a result of biological factors and socialization, people develop unique personalities, i.e. a set of individual characteristics and habitual behaviors.
How an individual behaves in certain situations may be more strongly determined by situational factors than personality.
The presence of other people, haste, current thoughts and feelings, group roles, and even weather represent few examples of situational factors.
You might behave differently if you're on a relaxed schedule compared to if you need to finish an essay due the next day.
This is caused by the interactions between situational factors and personality traits.

Identity defines you are and it is a mostly permanent understanding of yourself which does not change during different situations.
Besides their unique personal identity, a person develops social identity that is based on group membership.
Certain situations activate different aspects of social identity, impacting how you behave.

Social identity can cause ingroup favoritism.
This is the phenomena where people believe that those in their group are unique, relatable and more trustworthy, whereas those outside of their group appear disconnected and different.
In a conflict, each side sees themselves fighting for justice with their own reasons whereas the enemies are simply brutes with no personality.
Outgroup members are often avoided and seen stereotypically whereas ingroup is more understood and in-depth.
Social identities form due to the human need to seek acceptance and respect.

Categorization: The individual categorizes people, including themselves, in order to understand them. For example: high school students vs. vocational school students, native Finns vs. immigrants or drivers vs. cyclists.
Identification: The individual adopts an identity of a social group and begins to divide people into us and others. The group that the individual identifies with is an ingroup, while other groups constitute an outgroup.
Comparison: The individual begins to compare groups unconsciously, typically noticing differences over similarities. Although any group is internally diverse, the “others” are seen through stereotypes as one particular type of person.
Ingroup favoritism: The individual begins to view the members of the ingroup positively and the outgroup negatively. Any ingroup success receives praise, while the achievements of an outgroup are belittled.

Through the development of social identity, the individual gains of a sense of belonging to 'the good ones', which improves self-esteem.
This might, however, lead to negative ramifications such as biased thinking, stereotyping, prejudices, intergroup tension, discrimination, and negative attitudes.
Groups can even be formed based off fabricated ideas.
It is important to maintain respect both for ingroup and outgroup.
Social identity is not fixed as aspects of it get accentuated during changing situations and perspectives.
For example, a Finnish exchange student might feel very Finnish while abroad but like an outsider after returning to Finland.
The activated aspects of social identity affect human behavior and mental processes.
For example what we pay attention to or the interpretations we make.
Social identity also influences how close or distant we act towards others.

People attempt to influence one another in multiple ways.
Even when there is no direct peer pressure or active persuasion, situational needs make individuals imitate attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors from their environment.
The tendency to modify one's behavior based on others is called conformity.
People will often act strange or weird if everyone else acts the same way, to conform to the situation.
A person might be doing what everyone else is doing or avoid taking action because no one else is.