Persons, situations, and behaviors: Consistency and variability of different behaviors in four interpersonal situations.

Abstract

Understanding how persons, situations, and behaviors contribute to behavioral consistency is a central goal for the science of behavior. The present study focused on dyadic social situations that were created by professional actors who enacted 4 social roles derived from interpersonal theory: dominant, submissive, agreeable, and quarrelsome. A total of 128 behavioral episodes from 32 target participants who each interacted for 5 min with 4 same-sex actors were videotaped. Several behaviors were coded from the videos, and stranger-ratings of targets' personality and behavior in the four different situations were also obtained based on those videos. The results provided novel evidence regarding the cross-situational consistency of different behaviors and allowed the following conclusions: (a) on average, targets were both rank-order and intraindividually consistent; (b) molar behaviors were more rank-order consistent than were micro-level behaviors; (c) interpersonal behavioral tendencies were evident in directly observed behavior, and (d) high Conscientiousness may facilitate interaction with quarrelsome partners.

Trait enactments as density distributions: The role of actors, situations, and observers in explaining stability and variability.

“…However, “warm” does not specify the specific actions, such as whether he or she smiled, slapped someone on the back, or shared dessert. Rather, it evaluates the meaning of the behavior (Leikas et al, 2012; Sherman et al, 2009). …”

“…Traditionally, researchers have used concrete behaviors (e.g., slapped someone on the back) to assess trait enactments (Jackson et al, 2010; Leikas et al, 2012; Wu & Clark, 2003). However, there is ambiguity in identifying the trait content a given concrete behavior is enacting.…”

“…However, there is ambiguity in identifying the trait content a given concrete behavior is enacting. Concrete behaviors also leave out other aspects of trait enactments such as affect, cognition, and the psychological meaning of the behavior (Leikas et al, 2012; Sherman, Nave, & Funder, 2009). …”

Behavioural Consistency within the Prisoner'S Dilemma Game: The Role of Personality and Situation

“…This result is notable in light of previous studies that have consistently shown that behaviour is jointly determined by the interaction of personality and situational variables (cf. Snyder & Cantor, ), in the sense that the expression of personality differences depends on certain situational features (for some notable examples, see Leikas et al, ; Sherman et al, ; also see Balliet & Van Lange, ). It is important to note, however, that the lack of person–situation interaction effects that was observed in the present study should only be interpreted in the context of the specific variables that were included in our study and by no means imply that such interactions cannot occur if other personality and situational variables are taken into consideration.…”

“…Indeed, a large body of prior research has employed a person × situation approach to study human behaviour (Snyder & Cantor, ), and these studies were conducted in both experimental (e.g. Leikas, Lönnqvist, & Verkasalo, ) and field settings (e.g. Sherman, Rauthmann, Brown, Serfass, & Jones, ).…”