Question

Explain the person-situation debate. Provide your perspective on the most influential factor on behavior: person, situation, or person-situation interaction and why is it the most influential?

Answer 1

When we see any behavior of an individual, we generally tryvto attribute it to their personality or the environment around them. The person- situation debate arises out of the question - What influences behavior of an individual? Is it his personal disposition to act in a manner or did the situation determined the behavior. The question first arised when Walter Mischel showed his disagreement with the trait theories to explain human behavior.

For example, Consider Dave, a 40 year old man, a loving father of two children who was driving to drop them to school.He suddenly stopped his car and a passerby saw Dave brutally pull his 6 year old son's arm and scold him angrily with his face all red , thinking what a cold hearted father this man is. Dave's extreme reaction had a reason.His 6 year old had decided to put his head outside the window and a car driving at a high speed had overtaken them nearly missing the child. Dave, an otherwise sensible father had panicked and forcefully pulled his son inside the car.

As we can see Dave's behavior was very situation specific, he had never scolded his son with such extreme rage before.But at the same time it is possible that not every individual would have behaved in this way, Dave's behavior reflects that he has a tendency to be angry whenever he panics. The situation acted as a trigger and Dave behaved in a manner which was his own unique way to cope with the situation. Some other individual may have continued to drive and waited till their destination before saying anything, another individual may have been too shocked to continue driving, therefore situation alone cannot determine behavior. Situation and Person's traits or internal tendency interact, the former often acting as a trigger to help the latter come up at the surface.