Walter Mischel

INTERACTIONIST THEORY

• Similar to Bandura's theory -- very social cognition in orientation, but emphasis on interaction of the situation.
• Focusing on cognitive labels, his theory is unique to human species (unlike Skinner, Miller, Dollard, etc.)

THE TRAIT CONTROVERSY: MISCHEL'S CHALLENGE

• Traditional personality theories -- individual differences consist of global characteristics "traits" affecting a wide variety of behaviors.
• Mischel reviewed research literature and stated: "With the possible exception of intelligence, highly generalized behavioral consistencies have not been demonstrated, and the concept of personality traits as broad predispositions is thus untenable."
• The Situational Context of Behavior
• Relationship between traits and behavior takes situation into account.
• E.g., Trait of aggressiveness will influence behavior only under certain conditions: when angry or frustrated, or when people threaten or criticize.  Under other conditions, trait has no effect on behavior.
• The situational approach, consistent w/ people's everyday descriptions of behavior -- hedging their statements w/ conditions, e.g., "Johnny will hit back when he is teased."

COGNITIVE PERSON VARIABLES

• Mischel proposed:  Personality psychologists consider several psychological processes w/in a person to determine how situation will affect behavior.
• Referred to these cognitive person variables.  These include consideration of trait labels, encoding strategies, and personal constructs.

Competencies

• An individual's ability to generate diverse behaviors under appropriate conditions.
• Varies widely from person to person
• Includes many learned behaviors and concepts:  knowing structure of physical world, sexual gender identity, social rules
• What a person knows or is able to do (not what they actually do)

Expectancies

• Whether behavior occurs depends on competencies and internal, subjective expectancies.
• Several types:
• Behavior-Outcome Expectancies, what will happen if a person behaves in a particular way
• Stimulus-Outcome Expectancies, how events will develop in the world, one's own actions aside; not always connected w/ immediate behavior.
• Self-Efficacy Expectancies, beliefs about whether one actually can do the behavior