Social-Psychology and Situational Elements Affecting Individual Social Behavior

In this review, Shaver suggests that social-psychology is essential for the study of enterprise because the creation of a new venture is a truly social enterprise. Social-psychology is the scientific study of the personal and situational elements affecting people social behavior. As psychology concentrates on dependent variables smaller than the person, sociology concentrates on structures and procedure larger than any single individual. Social-psychology investigates the socially meaningful actions of individuals. This research aims to examine four significant areas of theory and research in social-psychology and discuss how each fits into the study of enterprisers activity: cognition, attribution, attitudes, and the self. These topics are included because these are the traditional concerns of social psychologists and are the subject of numerous articles in entrepreneurship. The self, “Who are you” and “How did you get that way,” both “Is” and “does.” In the improvement of our social selves, we must often choose among accuracy and distortion. We need to know our capabilities, but we wish them to be more extensive than what reality offers. This applies when considering if we have the right stuff to start a new venture as well as in networking from the standpoint of social comparison, among others. Specifically, self-efficacy in the enterprisers domain is a replacement for the “Perceived behavioral control” that is part of the theory of planned behavior.