Chapter 10- Person-Situation Interactionism

Walter Mischel: 1960s-70s.

• Behavior varies highly across situations.

• Hence, it makes no sense to think of behavior in terms of broad personality traits.

• Mischel examined the size of relationships between personality traits and actual behavior in specific situations.

  • Average correlation: about r = .30 - .40

  • Hence, on average, a single personality trait accounts for about 9 - 16% of the variance in behavior, within specific situations.

Mischel claimed we therefore cannot reliably predict behavior from personality traits.

Examples:

• Not all conscientious ppl are perfectionistic all the time.

• Not all neurotic are anxious all the time.

• Not all extraverted are outgoing and sociable all the time.

These represent inconsistencies.

“Error variance.”

Unaccounted for variations in the behavior.

• Criticism of Mischel’s argument:

First, his argument assumes a simple model of personality, in which a single personality trait attempts to predict a specific behavior in a specific situation.

• It is well understood that personality is far more complicated.

• Behavior is multiply determined.

Second, although behavior does vary highly across situations, people maintain some degree of consistency, as well.

Situational approaches ignore that consistency within individuals, across situations (i.e.,     individual differences).

Third, Mischel presumes that simple correlations between two variables of r = .30 - .40 are small and unimportant.

• Actually, correlations of that size are often quite meaningful.

Cholesterol intake and mortality risk.

       Air bag use and automobile death rate.

• Furthermore, complex models using multiple personality traits often yield substantially larger correlations with specific behaviors.

Fourth, the goal of personality traits is to predict general behavioral tendencies, over time and across situations.

• The goal is not necessarily to predict specific behaviors in specific situations.

Fifth, situations are generally no better at predicting specific behaviors than are traits, overall.

• Average effect size is also about r = .30

• The Power of Situations

Sometimes the power of situational factors is so strong that it overrides any personal dispositions.

Examples:

Most people experience fear reactions to snakes in the wild.

Most people experience fear and excitement and seek safety during a disaster.

Most people experience sympathy toward a child who is being harmed.

In such situations, the influence of individual differences is minimized.

• Trait Relevance

• Recall from Gordon Allport that not all traits are equally important for all people.

• Those traits that most well define the person tend to best predict his/her behavior.

• Certain situations provide greater opportunity for the expression of some traits, compared to other situations.

• Aggregation

The ability of traits to predict behavior is greatly increased when we aggregate or average, across multiple situations or over time.

• Ex A1: Among 100 Ss, extraversion does not well predict the number of people interacted with at one specific party; r = .30

• Ex A2: That same prediction is much increased, when we average across 12 consecutive parties; r = .65

• Ex B1: Among 100 Ss, neuroticism does not well predict who is depressed right now; r = .30

• Ex B2: That same prediction is much increased, with regard to who becomes depressed over the next 10 years.

• Person-Situation Interactionism

At present, it is generally agreed that a combination of personality (trait) factors and situational factors, combined, represent a more comprehensive view of human behavior.

Recognition that behavior is affected by both:

Personal dispositions (traits), and

Situational factors, as well as

Interactions between the two.

Criticism of the Interactionist Approach

Advantages:

Recognizes that behavior varies across situations.

Often studies personality, over time.

Can encourage integration of personality & situational approaches.

Disadvantages:

Difficult to study all possible situational variants.

May overlook biological factors.

Extreme positions may neglect the complexity of the relationship between personality and situational factors.