Chp 10 - Person Situation Interactions Flashcards
Harry Stack Sullivan: Interpersonal (4)
*Personality and identity tied to social situations
*Late childhood-early adolescence shift in social world: Family -> peers
*Acceptance by peers
*Important role in identity formation (played by peers in formation of identity)
Henry Murray Views (3)
*Importance of goals
*Focus on process
*Environmental Press
Environmental Press (3)
All the environmental forces acting on an individual, including the social situation
- External factors and behaviour
- Integrated, dynamic nature of individual
-The direction “push” of the situation, other people
Competence and Environmental Press
Competence: Skills that you have to apply in the situation
When env press is strong, to function well, need a high level of confidence
Determines whether is a positive or negative
But when no env press, high competence:
- Nth calling on you to use the skills
- No info on what skills should be used
Traditional Personality Theory
B = f(P)
Behaviour (B) is a function of Personal Factors (P)
But behaviour does not occur in a vacuum.
What about the situation?
Mischel: The Consistency Paradox
Perception of consistency in personality
vs
Empirical tests find powerful lower consistency
(correlation personality – behaviour, r’s <.3)
- e g. I’m reserved around ppl idk, I’m really extroverted around frds and fam”= inconsistent
Powerful control by situation.
“I believe we help people when they need assistance”
- But bystander effect
- e.g. falling on the street
- Even if one rates high in altrurism, people are more likely not to help
- the more people are around, the less likely ppl to help, diffusion of responsibiltiy
Mischel’s Personality Variables: What the Person Brings to the Situation (4)
Each Cat Eats Poop
Encoding Strategies: Concepts, interpretations, perceptions; how we process and encode info
Competencies: What we can do; the person’s abilities and knowledge
Expectancies: What will happen; outcome expectancies, including self-efficacy
Plans: What we will do; our intentions for actions
Situationism
Behaviour controlled by the situation, not personality traits
B= f(E)
Behaviour is function of the environment (physical, social)
Mischel: Situationism
Do we even need the concept of Personality?
(3)
Consistency paradox
- When tested, poor cross-situational consistency
Social roles
- Control by the situation, power of social roles
Person bias
- Illusion of consistency in other’ behaviour because of person bias
- e.g. in the library quiet, but we attribute person’s behaviour as their personality
Person Bias, the Fundamental Attribution Error:
- Tendency to attribute behaviour of others to their personality, not situation
- Common and powerful, even when we know that it is incorrect
Person bias (manager experiment)
Subjects randomly assigned to role of clerk or manager
Students assigned to the role of manager scored higher for
Leadership
Assertiveness
Intelligence
Supportiveness
Likelihood of future success
Mischel: Delay of Gratification (1+4+1)
Ability to defer present gratification for larger, delayed rewards, develops during childhood
- Aspect of ego control, related to impulse control, self-efficacy
Delay More Difficult under conditions if:
- Reward is visible
- Cognition centered on hedonic value of reward (e.g. thinking of how the food tastes like)
- Reward sampled (e.g. “im just gonna have a taste”)
Measure of ego control:
- Can children of different ages show diff control and get bigger reward
Delay of Gratification, By 5 most learn: (5)
*Cover/hide reward;
*Use imagery in place of actual reward
*Think about something else, Direct attention to sth else
*Attend to appropriate models
Strategies effective for delay for delay of gratification also useful for impulse control
Delay of gratification at ages 4,5, were positively correlated with high school measures of: (5)
*verbal and math scores
*concentration
*coping mechanisms (frustration, stress)
*emotional maturity
*social skills.
ego-control (4)
Delayed gratification is an aspect of ego-control
*Stable
*Correlated with academic success, occupational success, social skills, well-being,
*negatively with divorce rates.
Extremes unhealthy of Ego Control: Uncontrolled (5)
*Impulsive
*Poor stress coping
*High divorce rates
*Poor occupational success
*Poor ego-resiliency
Poor ego-resiliency (2) vs. high (2)
If you’re not successful, things don’t go your way, how big of a hit is it?
- Minor criticisms can drop their self-esteem
- Take long time to recover
High ego-resiliency
- Take criticism lightly
- Recover quick
Interactionism: Person-Situation Interactions (4)
Competencies and Environmental Press
Behavioural Signatures & Bem’s Triple Typology
Life Course Approach
Reciprocal Determinism
Person-Situation Interactions:
Behavioural Signatures (4)
- Stable patterns of behaviour
- Behaviour predictable but must consider the situation;
- if X then …, but if Y …
- 2 types of consistency
Are you extroverted?
It depends… “If I am with people Idk I am usually quiet; but if I am with my friends I am talkative and more outgoing”
Behavioural Signatures: 2 Types of Consistency
Type 1:
- Overall or average level of behaviour
- What is this person like?
- The big 5 as measured by BFL, NEO-PL, 16PF
Type 2:
- Situation-behaviour consistency
Stable patterns within specific situations and specific behaviours - More extensive, detailed knowledge of person, situation
Bem’s Triple Typology
Three components
1. The person
2. The situation
3. The behaviour
E.g.
If someone with inflated self-esteem (person)
Is challenged (situation)
They will become aggressive (behaviour)
E.g.
If someone with low SE (person)
Experiences a success (situation)
They will become anxious (behaviour)
Reciprocal Determinism (Bandura) (3+2)
“Behavior, internal, personal factors, and environmental influences all operate as interlocking determinants of each other.”
- Behaviour
- Personal Cognitive Factors
- Environment
Can start the analysis with any of the factors
- Those who are low in agreeableness tend to behave in a irritable manner, environment reinforces the behaviour with a negative response
What person-interact situations tend to do is reinforce the behaviour, due to the response of others and environment
- Not contrary to other ideas but linear
Life-Course Approach (Caspi) (2+3+1)
*We create own person-situation interactions
*Cognitive style, reciprocal determinism, seeking out specific situations, all lead to stability
- Pattens of behaviour change with age, culture, social group, experience
- Tend to become more conscientious, emotionally stable, content, extroverted and less impulsive
- We create our own person-situation interactions by how we interpret, choose, interact
Cumulative continuity:
- Tendency of personality to remain stable, even though change possible
Extremes unhealthy of Ego Control: Overly Controlled (4)
*Anxiety disorders
*Mood disorders
*Behavioural inflexiblity (not going to behave any different regardless of situation)
*Stress-related health problems
