Persons, Situations, Interactions: The History of a Controversy and a Discussion of Theoretical Models

The history of the person-situation controversy is reviewed. Although this controversy is not new, and most psychologists now see themselves as interactionists, they disagree about the kinds of person, situation, and interaction process units that should be emphasized. Two models, a social intelligence model and a goals model, for analyzing person-situation interaction and the question of person-environment congruence are considered.

[1]  M J Burke,et al.  Should negative affectivity remain an unmeasured variable in the study of job stress? , 1988, The Journal of applied psychology.

[2]  N. Cantor,et al.  Ups and downs of life tasks in a life transition. , 1989 .

[3]  L. James,et al.  A Multivariate Test of Homogeneity of Regression Weights for Correlated Data , 1984 .

[4]  A. George.  Assessing Presidential Character , 1974, World Politics.

[5]  R. Kanfer.  Motivation theory and industrial and organizational psychology. , 1990 .

[6]  D. Magnusson.  Toward A Psychology of Situations : An Interactional Perspective , 1981 .

[7]  Victor H. Vroom,et al.  On the validity of the Vroom-Yetton model. , 1978 .

[8]  W. Mischel,et al.  Beyond déjà vu in the search for cross-situational consistency. , 1982 .

[9]  P. Earley,et al.  Task planning and energy expended: Exploration of how goals influence performance. , 1987 .

[10]  Lawrence A. Pervin,et al.  Personality: Current Controversies, Issues, and Directions , 1985 .

[11]  E. A. Locke,et al.  Goal setting and task performance: 1969–1980. , 1981 .

[12]  M. Sussmann,et al.  Conceptualizations of valence and instrumentality: A fourfold model , 1985 .

[13]  F. Fiedler.  Validation and extension of the contigency model of leadership effectiveness: a review of empirical findings. , 1971, Psychological bulletin.

[14]  P. Bycio,et al.  Situational specificity in assessment center ratings: A confirmatory factor analysis. , 1987 .

[15]  Victor R. Tom.  The role of personality and organizational images in the recruiting process , 1971 .

[16]  Lawrence A. Pervin,et al.  Current controversies and issues in personality , 1978 .

[17]  S. Epstein.  The stability of confusion: A reply to Mischel and Peake. , 1983 .

[18]  W. Mischel.  Toward a cognitive social learning reconceptualization of personality. , 1973, Psychological review.

[19]  S. Epstein,et al.  Perception of cross-situational consistency. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[20]  Kenneth H. Craik,et al.  The Act Frequency Approach to Personality , 1983 .

[21]  Lawrence A. Pervin,et al.  Perspectives in Interactional Psychology , 1978 .

[22]  P. Wright.  The Social Psychology of Organizations, (2nd Ed): Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn New York: Wiley, 1978, 838 pp. , 1979 .

[23]  Pervin La.  The stasis and flow of behavior: toward a theory of goals. , 1983 .

[24]  J. Hollenbeck,et al.  Goal Importance, Self-Focus, and the Goal-Setting Process , 1987 .

[25]  A. Furnham,et al.  Goal‐based and situation‐based expectation of behaviour , 1987 .

[26]  R. Lazarus,et al.  Stress-Related Transactions between Person and Environment , 1978 .

[27]  Barry Gerhart,et al.  How important are dispositional factors as determinants of job satisfaction? Implications for job design and other personnel programs. , 1987 .

[28]  J. W. Atkinson.  Personality, motivation, and action , 1978 .

[29]  Richard H. Price,et al.  Behavioral appropriateness and situational constraint as dimensions of social behavior. , 1974 .

[30]  A. W. Wicker.  An Introduction to Ecological Psychology , 1984 .

[31]  R. Billings,et al.  DIMENSIONS OF WORK OUTCOMES: A MULTIDIMENSIONAL SCALING APPROACH , 1980 .

[32]  Gordon W. Allport,et al.  Pattern and growth in personality , 1961 .

[33]  A. Bandura.  Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory , 1985 .

[34]  J. Barrow.  Worker performance and task complexity as causal determinants of leader behavior style and flexibility. , 1976, Journal of Applied Psychology.

[35]  Lawrence A. Pervin,et al.  Performance and satisfaction as a function of individual-environment fit. , 1968 .

[36]  Bernard M. Bass,et al.  Stogdill's Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of Theory and Research , 1982 .

[37]  Barry M. Staw,et al.  Stability in the Midst of Change: A Dispositional Approach to Job Attitudes , 1985 .

[38]  J. M. Hunt.  TRADITIONAL PERSONALITY THEORY IN THE LIGHT OF RECENT EVIDENCE. , 1965, American scientist.

[39]  J. Hollenbeck,et al.  Goal commitment and the goal-setting process: Problems, prospects, and proposals for future research. , 1987 .

[40]  P. Wachtel.  Psychodynamics, behavior therapy, and the implacable experimenter: an inquiry into the consistency of personality. , 1973, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[41]  B. Schneider.  THE PEOPLE MAKE THE PLACE , 1987 .

[42]  R. Price.  The Taxonomic Classification of Behaviors and Situations and the Problem of Behavior-Environment Congruence , 1974 .

[43]  David Magnusson,et al.  Similar situations—Similar behaviors?: A study of the intraindividual congruence between situation perception and situation reactions☆ , 1978 .

[44]  Terence R. Mitchell,et al.  Expectancy models of job satisfaction, occupational preference and effort: A theoretical, methodological, and empirical appraisal. , 1974 .

[45]  T. Mitchell,et al.  PATH-GOAL THEORY OF LEADERSHIP , 1975 .

[46]  D. Stokols.  A congruence analysis of human stress. , 1985, Issues in mental health nursing.

[47]  A. Bandura.  Social learning theory , 1977 .

[48]  H. Eysenck.  Is there a paradigm in personality research , 1983 .

[49]  W. Mischel,et al.  A conditional approach to dispositional constructs: the local predictability of social behavior. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[50]  Victor H. Vroom,et al.  Organizational choice: A study of pre- and postdecision processes , 1966 .

[51]  J. Wallace.  What units shall we employ? Allport's question revisited. , 1967 .

[52]  David M. Herold,et al.  Two-Way Influence Processes In Leader-Follower Dyads , 1977 .

[53]  A. George,et al.  Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House: A Personality Study , 1958 .

[54]  M. A. Campion,et al.  A control systems conceptualization of the goal-setting and changing process , 1982 .

[55]  L. A. Pervin.  Theoretical Approaches to the Analysis of Individual-Environment Interaction , 1978 .

[56]  R. D. Middlemist,et al.  A within-person test of the form of the expectancy theory model in a choice context , 1984 .

[57]  Leadership style: Rigid or flexible? , 1973 .

[58]  Lawrence A. Pervin,et al.  Person-environment congruence in the light of the person-situation controversy , 1987 .

[59]  John K. Butler.  Value importance as a moderator of the value fulfillment–job satisfaction relationship: Group differences. , 1983 .

[60]  Lawrence A. Pervin,et al.  Goal concepts in personality and social psychology. , 1989 .

[61]  H. Garland,et al.  Influence of ability, assigned goals, and normative information on personal goals and performance: A challenge to the goal attainability assumption. , 1983 .

[62]  Roseanne J. Foti,et al.  A test of leadership categorization theory: Internal structure, information processing, and leadership perceptions , 1984 .

[63]  L. James,et al.  CROSS‐SITUATIONAL SPECIFICITY IN MANAGERs' PERCEPTIONS OF SUBORDINATE PERFORMANCE, ATTRIBUTIONS, AND LEADER BEHAVIORS , 1983 .

[64]  R L Helmreich,et al.  The honeymoon effect in job performance: temporal increases in the predictive power of achievement motivation. , 1986, The Journal of applied psychology.

[65]  Edward J. O'Brien,et al.  The person-situation debate in historical and current perspective. , 1985 .

[66]  John F. Kihlstrom,et al.  Personality and social intelligence , 1987 .

[67]  Dennis M. Irons,et al.  A Multivariate Test for Sequential Moderation , 1982 .

[68]  W. Hill,et al.  VARIATIONS IN LEADER BEHAVIOR AS A FUNCTION OF TASK TYPE. , 1973 .

[69]  Edwin A. Locke,et al.  Goal setting theory and job performance. , 1989 .