Integrative perspective

An ideologue who embraces one perspective may see divergent, mutually exclusive philosophies. Our opportunity is to develop an integrative perspective that recognizes seemingly conflicting views offer us different perspectives of the same complex picture. The answer to the question about which view is correct becomes “all of them.”

Restricting views through a single lens can provide a limited and distorted picture. In contrast, combining perspectives can provide a more complete and accurate perspective of how individuals and groups interact. Considering multiple perspectives provides a more comprehensive and accurate picture of social phenomena. In other words, understanding social psychology becomes clearer when viewing phenomena through various perspectives.

Kenrick et al. (2007) provided an integrated framework for understanding social phenomena by placing the perspectives on a continuum between proximate and ultimate. The proximate represents the here and now. The ultimate represents ancestral environments. Individual experience lies between the proximate and ultimate.

The cognitive perspectives, social-cognition and social-learning, explore the immediate causes of behavior--what happens here and now--connecting them to the individual’s memory and experience with reward and punishment. Sociocultural and evolutionary perspectives explore how culture and evolution influence social learning and behavior. The model proposed by Kenrick et al. (2002) includes neither neurological nor systems perspectives. Still, both can integrate throughout their proposed framework. Even considering these and numerous other perspectives, none alone provides an adequate understanding of human social interaction. As a fluctuating consequence of dynamically interacting factors within the individual and the context, understanding social behavior requires developing understanding through multiple perspectives and adjusting perspectives as dynamics interact and adapt.

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