Research Seminar
A royal road to understanding the mechanisms underlying personality-related behaviorIven Van MechelenKU Leuven | |
| Abstract: | In this paper we argue that a more in-depth understanding of the structure of individual differences in behavioral profiles across situations constitutes a royal road to understanding the mechanisms underlying personality and personality-related behavior. Beyond partial accounts of this structure in terms of cross-situational consistency coefficients and estimated percentages of variance accounted for by person-situation interactions, we propose a small set of empirically testable questions that underlie a basic typology of individual differences structures. The answers to these questions and the resulting classes of the typology are shown to relate to a broad range of concepts and theoretical frameworks, including ability accounts of personality dispositions (such as Wright and Mischel's competency-demand hypothesis), stress-diathesis models within the psychopathology domain, synergistic interactions, differences between situations in trait relevance and traits as situational sensitivities models. It is further explained how tools from the two-mode clustering domain (old as well as recently proposed ones) can be used to detect the type of individual differences structure that constitutes the gist of a person by situation data set at hand. We illustrate with data on individual differences in helping behavior in a broad range of emergency situations. |
| Date: | Tue May 6, 12:15 pm - 1:15 pm |
| Place: | room 00.60 (Department of Psychology, Tiensestraat 102, 3000 Leuven) |