W12: Persons and Situations Flashcards
Persons and Situations:
Within personality and social psychology … …
personality psychologists have tended to focus more on the person
social psychologists have tended to focus more on the situation
… … when describing or explaining behaviour
Kurt Lewin’s (1936) ‘field theory’
B = f( P, E)
Behaviour is a function of:
1) The person
(e. g., needs, belief, values, abilities, i.e., personality
2) The environment,
especially the social environment (or the ‘psychological field’)
Persons and Situations
Post World War II… a shift in focus from dispositional factors to powerful siutational drivers of behaviour
Social Influence
Stanford Prison Experiment
Milgram’s (1963) obedience studies…
Asch’s (1951) conformity studies…
The Rise of Situationism:
Key claims that the rise has abt personality
Two key claims:
1) Personality a weak predictor of behaviour (r ~ .30).
2) Behaviour varies considerably over situations.
Conclusion:
The concept of a personality trait is “untenable”. Behaviour is largely driven by situations.
Growth of situationist “spin-off” theories…
The Fundamental Attribution Error
Ross, 1977
?
also called “correspondance bias”; Gilbert & Malone, 1995
People mistakenly explain behaviour in terms of dispositional factors rather than to situational factors
Growth of situationist “spin-off” theories…
The Conceptual Similarity Critique
Shweder (1975)
“How people classify” is mistaken as “how to classify people”
Coherence of personality traits simply reflect judgements of conceptual similarity
Situationism evaluated:
Claims (2)
Claim #1: “Personality is a weak predictor of behaviour (r ~ .30).”
Claim #2: “Behaviour varies considerably over situations.”
(of cos.
we have never heard of a trait theorist
who disagreed.” (Rorer & Widiger, 1983))
Situationism evaluated:
Claim #1: “Personality is a weak predictor of behaviour (r ~ .30).”
Yes and no:
Indeed, traits rarely predict behaviour much beyond r = .30
Notice the built-in assumptions here:
1) That traits are imperfect predictors does not mean that personality is “untenable”, or that situations are better predictors.
2) In fact, effects of situations on behaviour turned out to be, on average, no stronger than that of traits
Consistency of behaviour…
Single instance VS aggregation across occasions
Mischel (1968):
behaviour on one occasion is unrelated to that behaviour on a second occasion; thus personality can’t exist
Aggregation across measurement occasions increases reliability, which is requisite for assessing consistency/ stability
Epstein (1979):
Consistency of behavior as a function of aggregation across four diary studies…
Daily ratings of behaviour and experience…
For 7/8 behaviours consistency increases with aggregation
Epstein (1979):
Consistency of behavior as a function of aggregation across four diary studies…
S33
Daily ratings of behaviour and experience…
For 7/8 behaviours consistency increases with aggregation
Thin slices” paradigm – samples of behaviour across various controlled situations
Borkenau et al. (2004)
Self- and peer-reports of B5 personality traits
15 x videotaped behaviour in different situations,
120 judges provided ratings of behaviour based on the video footage
Main findings:
Stability of cross-situational behaviour increased as a function of aggregation
Relations between other-rated personality and behaviour increased as a function of aggregation
Personality:
Consistency over time
Consistency over time, not over situations, is most relevant to the concept of a trait (Roberts, 2009)
Rank order stability (test-restest reliability) of personality is high [week 10]
Predictive validity in longitudinal studies is high, e.g., conscientiousness
Situationism retreats…
ard 1990s
as:
Trait-behaviour correlates not ‘weak’…
Flexibility in behaviour across situations not incompatible with personality stability…
Refutation of ‘anti-personality’ theories
e. g., Disconfirmation of “Conceptual Similarity Critique” (Romer & Revelle, 1984)
e. g., Disconfirmation of the “Fundamental Attribution Error” in landmark meta-analysis of 173 studies (Malle, 2006)
“situational strength” hypothesis
Personality will cease to predict behaviour in “strong situations”
strong situation’ is characterized by…
1) Clear behavioural expectations
2) Incentives for compliance (or threats for non-compliance)
3) Individual ability to meet the demands of the situation
“situational strength” hypothesis
not supported?
Milgram study
35% nv follow under strong situations
found:
Authoritarianism: more obedience from those who respect and value authority
Locus of control: more obedience from those with an external locus of control
“situational strength” hypothesis
Recent conceptual replication of Milgram study
Television game show scenario
Authority figure = host
Teacher/Learner = contestants
Larger shocks predicted by
Agreeableness, r = .26, p = .0239
Conscientiousness, r = .34, p = .006
above average trait-behaviour effects emerge even in ‘strong situations’.
“situational strength” hypothesis
against
Virtually no studies directly assess situational strength dimensions, i.e., participants’ perceptions of:
- Behavioural expectations
- Incentives for compliance
- Ability to meet the demands
based more on the plausibility of the hypothesis and sheer repetition than on any empirical evidence.
Trait Activation Theory
Trait-relevant situations strengthen trait-behaviour associations (Tett & Burnett, 2003)
Personality traits are probabilistic descriptions arising in response to broad classes of stimuli and situations (DeYoung, 2015)
Trait Activation Theory
Support for ‘situational strength
All of the big five predicted job performance more strongly in ‘weak’ job situations:
When work was unstructured, when employees had decision-making autonomy, etc
Trait Activation Theory
support for ‘trait activation’
In ‘strong’ situations that were trait-relevant, specific trait-performance effects increased:
1) Extraversion when social skills demands were high
2) Openness when creativity/innovation demands were high
3) Conscientiousness when attention to detail required
Joint effects of persons and situations rather than a presumed person-situation competition
“Person situation transactions”:
3
Furr & Funder, 2017
Situational selection
Situational evocation
Situational perception
Situational selection
Situational selection:
Where traits predict entering a strong or consequential situation
e.g., extraversion and accidents (Nettle, 2005)
Situational evocation
Situational evocation:
Where traits impact on the dynamics of a particular situation
e.g., effects of traits on divorce (Solomon & Jackson, 2014)
Situational perception
Situational perception:
Where traits shape appraisals of a situation, and thus an individual’s experience of that situation, e.g.,
agreeableness -> opportunities to cooperate;
Reciprocal effects of traits and social environments
affects the appraisal of the situation and then reaction to the situation
Big Eight “DIAMONDS” model
for describing situations
Rauthman et al., (2014)
Duty: Job
Intelect: invovles intellectual or cognitive stimuli
Adversity: Someone is being criticized
Mating
pOitivity: potentially enjoyable
Negativity: potentially anxiety-inducing
Deception: possible to deceive someone
Sociality:
Close personal relationships are present
Big Eight “DIAMONDS” model
for describing situations
Rauthman et al., (2014)
Key findings
State expressions (behavior/experience) vary widely between and within participants
Traits and situations were both predictors of behaviour and experience
Effect sizes very similar
Personality traits also predicted situational experience (Situation selection? Situation perception?)
