Walter Mischel

Inter-individual variability

Differences between people, such as one person showing a higher average level of anxiety than another) when behaviour is observed across situations.

Intra-individual variability

Differences within the same person across situations, meaning that a person’s behaviour can change systematically depending on the context

The personality paradox

The apparent contradiction between two ideas:

1st. That people have a stable personality structure

2nd. Research often shows low cross-situational consistency in specific behaviours.

In other words, people seem stable as persons, yet their behaviour often changes from one situation to another.

Mischel’s response to the personality paradox

That stability may not lie in the same behaviour appearing everywhere, but in the stable pattern of how behaviour changes across situations

Personality signatures

People have consistent patterns of behaving in particular situations—the stable way a person’s behaviour varies depending on psychologically meaningful features of situations.

Ex. If Mike is provoked by his wife, he will be aggressive. If Mike is provoked by his boss, he will behave submissively.

Example of behavioural signature

If the team is winning, the coach is consistently affirming. If the team is losing, the coach is consistently yelling.

Why were previous social learning theories criticized?

Earlier social learning theories were criticised for giving too much weight to situational factors and basic learning mechanisms while not specifying enough about the internal person variables that mediate between situation, behaviour, or obvious individual differences.

What was Mischel’s response to the previous social learning theories?

Mischel addressed this by developing the CAPS model, which specifies a set of internal cognitive-affective units (encoding strategies, self-regulatory strategies, expectancies and beliefs, goals and values, and affective responses) and explains how they interact dynamically.

This allowed the theory to explain both personality coherence and cross-situational variability