How we dynamically interact in context

 In his later works, Aronson (2008) considered a contextual dimension to his definition. He proposed that the situation—time, history, and culture—also influences individual and group social behavior. Research from field pioneers like Zimbardo (1972; 2007) and Milgram (1963) went beyond offering context as a dimension in human social behavior to inferring that the context is the behavior. This “extreme situational determinism” (Reicher & Haslam, 2006, p. 3) holds that the social context contains powerful forces that overwhelm the individual's power to exercise free will. Individuals become the groups to which they belong and the roles that they fill.

From outside the social psychology field, Ludwig Von Bertalanffy (1969) offered the biological system as a metaphor that provides a dynamic perspective for understanding humans as social beings. Through the systems theory framework, a living organism is a complex open system. It maintains itself and the environment by continuously exchanging matter with the environment (p. 156). Metabolism, growth, development, and survival of an organism result from a dynamic interaction between a system and its environment (p. 149).

The dynamical systems model, also known as complexity theory, allows psychologists to interpret the dynamically interacting individual and social environment in context. Internal forces influence how the individual chooses to interpret, behave, and adapt in a social context; simultaneously, individuals change the social context (Kenrick, Maner, Buner, Li, Becker, & Schaller, 2002).

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People <> Others

The open systems framework would become an “anchor” for applying social psychology applications in organizations (McShane & Von Glinow, 2005). For example, adapting the organism metaphor from dynamical systems theory as the basis for explaining the social psychology of organizations, Katz and Kahn (1966; Jex, 2002) would propose that individuals and groups dynamically interact within the boundaries of the organization to ensure mutual and organizational survival by exchanging resources with, adapting to, and influencing the competitive environment.