Personality, the Sociocultural Environment, and Student Political Activism: Toward a Field Theory of Social Behavior

Summary

The suitability of a field-theoretical, social psychological model for understanding student political activism was assessed. Undergraduates provided information on their political involvements and also on certain personality dispositions and social environments implicated, in the theoretical literature, as conducing to them. Both the individual difference and the sociocultural predictor constellations explained an appreciable amount of variation in the political activity criteria. Evidence was then adduced to support the field-theoretical position that personality and social environment variables account for supplementary rather than overlapping segments of the variation in campus unrest. The results call into question the appropriateness of unidimensional or unidisciplinary approaches to understanding the activism phenomenon and suggest the likely futility of intervention programs based on them. They reinforce previous findings consistent with a field-theoretical explanation of complex social behavior.