ABSTRACT
This chapter expresses the importance of the social psychological environment culture, social relations, belonging and connectedness, and social identity processes. The rhetoric of stability is embedded in widely held views of the person within psychology and serves to make evidence of change and person malleability seem surprising and noteworthy. Looking at institutions more specifically, Guimond and de la Sablonnire show that through socialization members of an institution come to endorse the values, beliefs, and norms that define the group. The role of social identity processes in person change is far less clearly understood than it should be based on the current availability of evidence. A central point is that through social identity change, it becomes possible to achieve mobilization and societal change that, in turn, affects the formation and expression of individual personality and behavior. A socially located view of the person opens up alternative pathways to explaining behavior stability and behavior change.
