[T]he people around us are not who we think they are, and we usually fall into the trap of thinking we know their inner workings better than we really do.--From review of Situation Matters
According to Professor Sam Sommers, we are not very consistent and predictable. In this review (Tufts Now), you will find a link to a short animation about his new book Situations Matter: Understanding How Context Transforms Your World. In the little video, Sommers says that we are a complex mixture of ideas, preferences, identities, and needs, and the way this bundle called "me" responds to the world is driven by situations.
From "Legends in Our Own Minds":
The core idea is straightforward. “We rarely appreciate the robust power of situations,” Sommers writes. “We look right past them, hidden in plain sight. Just like the museum visitor pays little heed to the painting’s frame, we fail to notice the impact of outside influences on our innermost thoughts and instincts. But frames do matter.”
Often I find research findings, not to mention personality tests, at best annoying because they are based on the notion that people's traits are fixed, the same from situation to situation. I look forward to reading a book that reminds us that our behavior is often situational, fluid.
This situational context is one reason why I find the premise of such books as Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking a bit suspect. We are all introverts and extroverts, too; which part of us shows up depends on the situation in which we are found. See note below for more about why this book Quiet raises a red flag for me.
And, on the other hand, people of integrity do have some fixed parts to their character, are not overly attracted to relativism, and do not typically sacrifice their values when swayed by outside influences. And the more self-aware a person is, the less he or she is influenced by outside factors. I hope integrity and self-awareness are discussed in the book, and look forward to reading it to see how Sommers addresses such topics as values.
More about the book's topic:
- "Sommers' new book explores effects of everyday situations on human behavior" (The Tufts Daily)
- "In Law as in Life, the Power of Context" (The Jury Expert)
Note: Click to take a quiz from the book Quiet. Several of the questions could as easily relate to being a high specialist in The Highlands Ability Battery or a high subjective [search on the word "subjective"] in Johnson O'Connor testing. A specialist/subjective can also be an extrovert so this test seems to confuse at least a couple of different traits or states. I have not read the book yet but will be curious to see if the same confusion is throughout.
