The Person and the Situation by Lee Ross & Richard E. Nisbett

Author:Lee Ross & Richard E. Nisbett [Ross, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: The Person and the Situation : Perspectives of Social Psychology
ISBN: 9781905177448
Publisher: Pinter & Martin
Published: 2011-10-25T07:00:00+00:00

SCIENTIFIC DISENTANGLING VERSUS REAL-WORLD CONFOUNDING

It does not take a great deal of thought to recognize that some of the consistency and predictability of behavior that we rely upon in planning and transacting our social affairs may have little to do with classically conceived individual differences. Such regularity sometimes can be yet another reflection of the power of the situation. The predictability of the physicians who examine us, the professors who lecture us, the coaches who exhort us, the colleagues who chat with us, and the assorted friends, neighbors, and family members with whom we intertwine our lives, owes much to the relative consistency of the situational forces and constraints that govern those particular individuals – or at least govern them when they interact with us.

In the course of ordinary experience, we rarely have a chance to observe the same people in radically different roles or situations in a way that would test fairly the cross-situational consistency of their geniality, generosity, or ability to delay gratification. Nor do we systematically vary our own behavior, or our status and circumstances, or the nature of our relationships with others, to determine how their responses to us might change as a result. Accordingly, we are not forced (indeed, not even given the opportunity) to appreciate the power of the relevant role demands and to disentangle dispositional influences from situational ones. Quite the contrary, we count on the fact that particular roles and relationships will render people’s behavior predictable – despite the fact that broader, less “biased,” and more “scientific” samples of behavior would reveal inconsistency and unpredictability of a sort and degree that would surprise us profoundly.

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