Situation strength as a basis for interactions in psychological models.

Abstract

One of the most important methods that psychological scientists use to understand behavior and cognition is theorizing. Increasingly, theorizing is used to support not only additive hypotheses, but also multiplicative ones. And yet, authors often struggle to provide adequate theoretical justifications for multiplicative hypotheses. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, W. Mischel averred that, in "strong" situations, behavior is relatively uniform regardless of one's personality characteristics. In "weak" situations, that is, those that lack clear behavioral expectations, behavior is not constrained by the situation and is free to covary with personality. This is the situational strength interaction, and although this reasoning has been applied to personalitybehavior models, we show that it can be used to justify many interaction models in psychology more generally. In some cases, such reasoning may serve to bolster the more traditional interaction arguments. In other cases, it shows that the traditional interaction arguments must be incorrect. In this tutorial, we describe a generalized situation strength phenomenon, called the restricted variance interaction, that can be used to pinpoint the nature, direction, and even the magnitude of many interaction hypotheses in the psychological sciences. We illustrate the value and application of restricted variance reasoning using examples from the workplace mistreatment literature and then extrapolate to several other areas of psychology.

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“…Although suppression can take many forms (see Friedman & Wall, 2005, for a review), the classic notion is that a suppressor variable is a predictor that is unrelated to the DV but correlated with the other predictor, which is itself related to the DV (Horst et al, 1941). As Cortina et al, in press) point out, there is a unique connection between suppression and RV when the compression occurs on the IV. Cortina and colleagues show that when there is IV compression (i.e., the moderator acts as a moderator because it compresses the IV), it results in a correlation between the IV and the moderator.…”

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“…Cortina et al (2022) use weddings as an example. During a traditional, Anglo‐Saxon wedding ceremony, people are generally quiet and remain still regardless of any personal tendencies that they might have.…”

“…The concept of RV interactions has been extended beyond Mischel's original conception of the effect of situation strength on personality‐behavior relationships to explain many other relationships observed in the psychological sciences. Specifically, Cortina et al (2022) describe how RV interactions appear in research on the neurological bases of emotions, memory retrieval and cognition, the effects of adversity, and the causes of certain psychological disorders. They note that most models in modern psychology contain interaction effects, and that RV interactions, in particular, are quite common because psychology scholars often study contextual or relational factors that take the form of “moderators‐as‐compressors” even if they don't realize it.…”

“…Suppression is especially relevant for IV compression (Cortina et al, 2022). Because compression necessarily creates a relationship between the compressing and compressed variables, there must, in the case of IV compression, be a relationship between the moderator and the predictor.…”

“…Where such norms are absent, behavior is free to vary and is (partly) determined by personality. Cortina et al (2022) use weddings as an example. During a traditional, Anglo-Saxon wedding ceremony, people are generally quiet and remain still regardless of any personal tendencies that they might have.…”