Institutional climates

Abstract

A person’s behaviour is influenced by the surrounding environment, as well as by attributes which the person brings to that environment, such as personality, abilities and attitudes; behaviour is a function of person and environment. Many people either live or work in institutions of one kind or another. For such people, the institution constitutes an important part of their environment. For some people it constitutes almost their total environment. Those who work in an institutional setting cannot fail to notice how the institution influences its members, either for good or ill. Many will have felt frustrated by the values which the institution seems to embody, or by the practices which are prevalent within it, feeling that members could be helped more if things were otherwise, or even that members are being harmed by the institution. The great importance of these matters has begun to be recognized in psychology and there is a growing psychological literature on the organization of institutions and how to change them. The study of institutions holds wider lessons for social psychology too. An institution is a social psychological laboratory. The experiments which take place there are naturally occurring experiments in the psychology of social interaction, social roles, intergroup attitudes, conflict and cohesiveness. The study of institutions is of vital significance for both theoretical and applied psychology.