Lecture 11 Mischel Flashcards
Making sense of consistency correlations
What does a consistency correlation of .16 tell us about
the likelihood of future behaviors for specific individuals?
• Not much!
• Knowing Jane was friendlier than Holly in situation 1 increase the
likelihood that she will be friendlier than Holly in situation to to only
55% (50% = chance)
A proposed solution: The power of aggregation
- Sample behavior
- On many occasions
- Calculate all correlations
- Calculate the average of all correlations
- Gives a stronger correlation as this would allow the removal of the situation as a confound (treating it as an error)
What are the benefits and limitations of aggregation?
• Assume:
1. Consistency correlation of .16 is true
2. We can sample many people over many different occasions
• By how much would knowing past average behavior (across MANY situations, i.e., aggregation), improve our
predictions compared to knowing nothing?
• Simulate (all statistical assumptions met)
What are the benefits and limitations of aggregation (Conclusion 1)
Conclusion #1
• Knowing past average behavior (across MANY situations, i.e., aggregation), we can predict future average behavior
(across MANY situations)
By aggregating many data points about Jane’s behavior, we can predict the distribution of Jane’s behavior in future
BUT
• If individual distribution(s) variable (r=.16), knowledge of past average behaviors do not improve accuracy in predicting specific behavior by specific actor
What are the benefits and limitations of aggregation (Conclusion 2)
Conclusion #2
• Although people will have different means, all will show:
• A wide range of responses (as implied by low cross situational correlations)
2 people may reliably have different means for a traits expression but there will be much overlap in the distribution of those traits such that more often than not, the response is closer to the population mean than an extreme
- Although people will have different means, all will show:
- A wide range of responses
- More often responses closer to population mean than extreme
- Cannot predict specific behavior of “extreme” actors
What are the benefits and limitations of aggregation (Conclusion 3)
Conclusion #3
• Knowing past (average) behavior, we can predict
RELATIVE likelihood of particular types of responses for certain actors
• If actor displayed extremely high response, can conclude that person is more likely to show an extremely high response than
an extremely low response on future occasions
• Identifying actors that are relatively more/less likely than peers to score at either extreme end of distribution
But, these are relative predictions—any extreme behavior (in absolute sense) is unlikely)
Lay people’s assertions about consistent personalities may in fact be based on this i.e. the prediction that ON AVERAGE Martha will be exhibiting extroverted behavior the next time she is observed.
Walter Mischel
Attacked existing personality psychology then later came to defend it if done his way later Wrote his book: "personality and assessment" which was a scathing critique of the field Believed: • Cross-situational behavioral consistency low • Correlation between traits and relevant observed behavior low • Situational manipulations overwhelm individual difference effects
And so wondered: Is there such a thing as personality?
COGNITIVE-AFFECTIVE
SYSTEM THEORY OF
PERSONALITY (Theoretical position)
Traditional personality psychology viewed the situation as noise that hopefully aggregation would remove.
Mischel said this error is not meaningless. He felt that if e can understand an individual’s subjective experience of the situation we could predict behavior in similar situations much better for them
COGNITIVE-AFFECTIVE
SYSTEM THEORY OF
PERSONALITY (CAPS)
• Specific situations cue (specific) people to act in reliable
ways
• “if-then” contingency (if situation X, then response Y)
• Variability in behavior across situations not random error that needs to be eliminated
• Variability is important information: gives us clues about underlying personality system
• BUT, we need to understand the psychological meaning
of the situation for the individual in order to predict the individual’s behavior
• What is cueing the person?
Mischel’s study (method)
Children’s camp
Many activities and hence, situations:
Camp • Woodworking • Cabin meeting School • Playground • Classroom Home • Mealtime • Watching TV
Mischel focused on the Interpersonal situations (“ifs”) • Peer approaches • Peer teases • Adult praises • Adult warns • Adult punishes • These are the things that matter to kids! • People have different “if-then” contingencies…
Mischel and psychological meanings
Felt that what mattered was the interpersonal features of a situation
Mischel’s study (results)
Compared with coding for the situation, coding for the interpersonal if yielded much better correlations between incidences
IE their correlations for within behaviors (such as IF adult praises or IF child attacks) were very consistent across situations
Across situations, they found the child’s traits had the same .16 correlation
Cognitive Affective Mediating Units
Mischel, 1973
• Encodings or construal
o self, other people (eg family expectations, situations
• Expectancies and beliefs
o about social world, outcomes for behavior in particular
situations, self-efficacy
• Affects
o feelings, emotions, affective responses, incl. physiological
• Goals and values
o desirable and undesirable outcomes and affective states;
goals, values (eg sally is high C at home but not work because Sally values home more), life projects
• Competencies and self-regulatory plans
o scripts, strategies for organizing action/affecting outcomes
For Mischel, If/then is personality
Cognitive Affective Mediating Units Mischel, 1973 Diagram
Has a diagram with input stimuli, CAMUs in the middle and output as behavior
“…it is the organization of the
relationships among them
[units] that forms the core of the personality structure…
-Mischel
Rejection Sensitivity
Geraldine Downey • Some people anxiously expect, readily perceive and overreact to rejection • “Your ask a friend to go on vacation with you over Spring Break” Rate: • Level of concern/anxiety • Likelihood of rejection • Some people walk around with vulnerability • vigilant to rejection cues • interpret social interactions in terms of rejection • But ”if-then”: i.e. certain situations may trigger this
