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Chapter 10:

Person-Situation InteractionistAspects of Personality

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Harry Stack Sullivan (cut-about)

Why some honest people cheat?

Personality is tied to social situations

Personality is the relatively enduring patternof recurrent interpersonal situations

Importance ofpeers in forming identity (vs parents)

Interpersonal theory of psychiatry

The social self (from George Herbert Mead)

who we are and how we think of ourselvesarise from our interactions with those aroundus; also having an identity in a social world

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Personality consistently changes as afunction ofrelations with others

Illusion of individuality the idea that a

person has a single, fixed personality is just anillusion. So, we may have many personalities!

We become different people in differentsocial situations

In each situation we imagine how others thinkof us and respond accordingly

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Focuses on threats that areinherently social

Importance of chums (peers) -chumship

Locates healthy and unhealthypsychological development in thereactions of ones peers

Sullivan blames society for mostproblems

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NEED

Henry Murray

Viewed personality as the study ofhuman lives across time

Situations encountered throughoutones life

Combines unconscious motives andenvironmental pressures

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Murrays Personological System

Emphasizes the importance of:

Internal needs and motives

Environmental press

Dynamic system, with feedback

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Examples of Murrays Needs

Affiliation

Autonomy

Dominance

Exhibition

Harm Avoidance

Nurturance

Order

Play

Sex

Succorance (needto loved, nursed,controlled)

Understanding

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Murrays Thema

Typical combination of needs

Measured with the ThematicApperception Test (TAT)

A person composes a story to anambiguous picture (projective test)

Narrative approach

Studies motives through biographies

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Mischels Critique of Personality

Correlations of behavior withpersonality are generally .30 or less

Critique assumes a simple model ofpersonality-behavior relations

Critique assumes that a correlation of

.30 is small

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Walter Mischel

Four personality variables:

1. Competencies

A persons abilities and knowledge

2. Encoding strategies

Schemas used to process and encode

information Personal meanings

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3. Expectanciesoutcome expectancies for our own

behavior

4. Plans Behavioral signature

Recurring situation-behaviorrelationships

Contributes to the apparentconsistency of an individual'spersonality

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Implicit Personality Theory

Attributions:

Observers tend to attribute the behaviorsof others to personality

(self = situation based) Under-emphasis on the role of situation

Limited information

People overestimate the consistency of

their own behavior However, people are generally good

judges of personality

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Situations

Some situations are so powerfulthat they override personalityeffects

A fire in a crowded theater

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The Power of Situations

Individual behavior at a given point in time isdifficult to predict because of the poser ofsituations.

Consistency within situations

Problem of classifying situations

The personality of situations

Where would we expect behavioralconsistency?

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Individual behavior at a given point in time is difficultto predict because of the poser of situations.

Consistency within situations

Trait relevance certain situations provide anopportunity for certain traits to be expressed; travelvs helping others

The personality of situations aggression in allsituations? no 2 situations are exactly alike

Where would we expect behavioral consistency?Aggregation = the averaging of behaviors acrosssituations to improve the reliability of behaviorassessments; job & temperament

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Situations

Consistency averaged acrosssituations

Reliability issue

Appropriateness of the situation

Averaging cross-situational behaviorshelps to deal with both of these issues(aggregation)

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Personal vs. Social Situations

Field independence

Tendency to judge an entity in isolation,disregarding background influences

In social situations this person actsindependently of the actions of others

Field dependence

Tendency to judge an entity in its context,attending to background influences

In social situations this person conforms

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Mirror Neurons

Brain cells that fire in the same wayfor an individuals own actions andfor the observed actions of others

Allows people to feel or sense theexperience of another

Empathy correlated with mirrorneuron activity

Autism may involve abnormalmirror neurons

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Self-Monitoring

Low self-monitors

Less sensitive to reactions andexpectations of others

Show more consistent behaviors acrosssituations

High self-monitors

More sensitive to the social influencesthat vary across situations

More difficult to see personality effects

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Seeking and Creating Situations

We seek situations that reinforce ourself-conception (i.e. college,restaurant,,activity)

This makes our social environmentsand self-concepts appear more

stable than they really are

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Longitudinal Study

The close comprehensive, systematic,objective, sustained study of individualsover significant portions of the life span

Various types of data: life data,observational data, test data, self-reportdata

Examples:

Block and Blocks longitudinal study atBerkeley

Lewis Termans Life-Cycle Study

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Life Course Approach Individuals create their own person-situation

interactions by interpreting and seeking outsituations

Patterns of behavior change as a function ofage, culture, social groups, life events, and soforth. Because of internal drives, motives, andtraits.

Cumulative continuity promotespersonality consistency Interpreting situations as similar Eliciting similar reactions from others Seeking out similar situations

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Readiness

Each experience has its effects inthe context of previous experiences

We are more affected by certainenvironments at certain times in ourlives

These notions are related to the

concepts of imprinting andcritical periods

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Social interations can becategorized:

1. Affiliation dimension of warmthand harmony vs rejection andhostility

2. an assertiveness dimension of

dominance and task-orientation vssubmission and deference

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Circumplex Model

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Person-Situation Approach

Analogy

Humans as an ongoing dialoguebetween self and environment

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Advantages

Emphasizes interpersonal influences Can draw on the best aspects of other

approaches

Understands that we are different

selves in different situations Often studies personality across time

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Limits

Difficult to define situations May overlook biological influences

Extreme positions can fail to take intoaccount the complexity of the

relationship between personality,behavior, and the situation

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View of free will

Free will exists but only to a limiteddegree

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Common assessment techniques

Observation and empirical testing ofcross-situational consistency,classifying situations, self-report tests,projective tests, biographical study,longitudinal study

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Implications for therapy

Personality can change slowly overtime, as a person seeks out andinfluences situations and as situationsin turn interact with the personscharacteristics