W. Ickes – författare

Several years ago, two of my colleagues and I had the opportunity to interview Fritz Heider-perhaps the most influential theorist in the field of social psychology (Harvey, Ickes, & Kidd, 1976). During our interview, Heider affirmed a belief that had guided his career since the 1920s, the belief that the study of human relationships is the most important task in which social scientists can engage. Although many social scientists would profess to share this belief, it is nonetheless true that the study of human relationships has been one of the most neglected tasks in the history of the social sciences-including psychology. What Heider found in the 1920s-that most psychologists acknowledged the importance of studying human relationships but at the same time tended to focus their own research on more "tractable" topics such as memory and cognition-is still very much evident in the 1980s. Even within the more specific domain of social psychology, a majority of researchers still choose to address those hybrid topics ("social cognition," "social categorization and stereotyping," "person memory," etc. ) that relate most directly to traditional areas of psychological research. Still other researchers, while choosing to study such important interpersonal phenomena as altruism, aggression, conflict, and interpersonal attraction, tend to focus so exclusively on these isolated and abstracted phenomena that they fail to provide a more inclusive view of the relationships in which these phenomena occur.

Several years ago, two of my colleagues and I had the opportunity to interview Fritz Heider-perhaps the most influential theorist in the field of social psychology (Harvey, Ickes, & Kidd, 1976). During our interview, Heider affirmed a belief that had guided his career since the 1920s, the belief that the study of human relationships is the most important task in which social scientists can engage. Although many social scientists would profess to share this belief, it is nonetheless true that the study of human relationships has been one of the most neglected tasks in the history of the social sciences-including psychology. What Heider found in the 1920s-that most psychologists acknowledged the importance of studying human relationships but at the same time tended to focus their own research on more "tractable" topics such as memory and cognition-is still very much evident in the 1980s. Even within the more specific domain of social psychology, a majority of researchers still choose to address those hybrid topics ("social cognition," "social categorization and stereotyping," "person memory," etc. ) that relate most directly to traditional areas of psychological research. Still other researchers, while choosing to study such important interpersonal phenomena as altruism, aggression, conflict, and interpersonal attraction, tend to focus so exclusively on these isolated and abstracted phenomena that they fail to provide a more inclusive view of the relationships in which these phenomena occur.

Personality and Roles: Sources of Regularities in Social Behavior For behavioral scientists, whether they identify primarily with the science of psychology or with that of sociology, there may be no challenge greater than that of discovering regularities and consistencies in social behavior. After all, it is such regularities and consistencies that lend predictability to the behavior of individuals in social contexts-in particular, to those events that constitute dyadic interactions and group processes. In the search for behavioral consistencies, two theoretical constructs have emerged as guiding principles: personality and roles. The theoretical construct of personality seeks to understand regularities and consistencies in social behavior in terms of relatively stable traits, enduring dispositions, and other propensities (for example, needs, motives, and attitudes) that are thought to reside within individuals. Because it focuses primarily on the features of individuals, the construct of personality is fundamentally psychological in nature. By contrast, the theoretical construct of roles seeks to understand regularities and consistencies in social behavior in terms of the directive influence of coherent sets of rules and prescriptions that are provided by the interpersonal, occupational, and societal categories of which individuals are continuing members. Because it focuses primarily on features of social structures, the construct of roles is fundamentally sociological in nature.