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Density functional study have been carried out to investigate the stereoselectivities in the Mannich‐type reactions promoted by five typical amino acid catalysts with different scaffolds. The reverse diastereoselectivities in the cyclic and acyclic α‐ and β‐amino acids‐promoted Mannich reactions have been satisfactorily explained by the density functional theory (DFT) methods at the SMD/M06‐2X/6‐31G** computational level. The activation strain analysis has been used to account for the selectivity‐switching for these selected bifunctional catalysts. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.