Table Of ContentTHE PERSON AND
THE SITUATION
For Stanley Schachter
About the Authors
Lee Ross is Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. He received his
Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University in 1969. He is coauthor with
Richard Nisbett of Human Inference and coeditor with John Flavell of
Cognitive Social Development: Frontiers and Possible Futures. He is a
founder and one of the principal investigators of the Stanford Center on
Conflict and Negotiation. His 1977 article “The Intuitive Psychologist and
His Shortcomings” is the most widely cited article of the 1980s in social
psychology.
Richard E. Nisbett is Theodore M. Newcomb Professor of Psychology and
Director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the University of
Michigan. He received his Ph.D. degree in Psychology from Columbia
University in 1966. He taught at Yale University from 1966 to 1971. He is
co-author, with Lee Ross, of Human Inference, with E. E. Jones, D. E.
Kanouse, H. H. Kelley, S. Valins and B. Weiner of Attribution: Perceiving
the Causes of Behavior, and with J. Holland, K. Holyoak, and P. Thagard of
Induction. In 1982 he was the recipient of the Donald Campbell Award for
Distinguished Research in Social Psychology.
THE PERSON AND
THE SITUATION
Perspectives of Social Psychology
Lee Ross
Stanford University
Richard E. Nisbett
University of Michigan
Foreword Malcolm Gladwell
The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology
First published by McGraw-Hill 1991
This edition first published in Great Britain by Pinter & Martin Ltd 2011
Copyright © Lee Ross and Richard E. Nisbett 1991, 2011
Foreword © Malcolm Gladwell 2011
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-905177-44-8
The right of Lee Ross and Richard E. Nisbett to be identified as the authors of this work
has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act of
1988
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade and otherwise, be
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Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
Pinter & Martin Ltd
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www.pinterandmartin.com
CONTENTS
FOREWORD BY MALCOLM GLADWELL
PREFACE
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1 INTRODUCTION
The Lessons and Challenges of Social Psychology
The Weakness of Individual Differences
The Power of Situations
The Subtlety of Situations
The Predictability of Human Behavior
The Conflict Between the Lessons of Social Psychology and the Experience
of Everyday Life
The Tripod on Which Social Psychology Rests
The Principle of Situationism
The Principle of Construal
The Concept of Tension Systems
Predictability and Indeterminacy
Prediction by Social Scientists
Prediction by Laypeople
The Problem of Effect Size
Statistical Criteria of Size
Pragmatic Criteria of Size
Expectation Criteria of Size
Overview and Plan of the Book
2 THE POWER OF THE SITUATION
Social Influence and Group Processes
Uniformity Pressures in the Laboratory: Sherif’s” Autokinetic” Studies and
the Asch Paradigm
The Bennington Studies
Sherif’s Studies of Intergroup Competition and Conflict
Inhibition of Bystander Intervention
Why Is Social Influence So Powerful?
Channel Factors
On Selling War Bonds
Time to Be a Good Samaritan
Effects of Minimal Compliance
Putting It All Together: Stanley Milgram and the Banality of Evil
3 CONSTRUING THE SOCIAL WORLD
Subjectivist Considerations in Objective Behaviorism
Relativity in Judgment and Motivation Phenomena
Some Nonobvious Motivational Consequences of Reward
The Construal Question in Social Psychology
Solomon Asch and the “Object of Judgment”
Partisanship and Perception
The Tools of Construal
The Attribution Process
Normative and Descriptive Principles of Causal Attribution
Attributions Regarding the Self
Failure to Allow for the Uncertainties of Construal
The False Consensus Effect
Overconfident Social and Personal Predictions
Situational Construal and the Fundamental Attribution Error
4 THE SEARCH FOR PERSONAL CONSISTENCY
An Overview of Conventional Theories of Personality
The Scientific Findings and the Debate
The Challenge of 1968
Empirical Studies of Cross-Situational Consistency
Implications of the Empirical Challenge
Professional Responses to the Challenge of 1968
Bem’s Revival of the Nomothetic-Idiographic Distinction
Methodological Objections and Alternative Empirical Approaches
Epstein’s Claims for the Power of Aggregation
Making Sense of “Consistency” Correlations
Predictions Based on Single Observations
Predictions Based on Multiple Observations
The Relative Likelihood of Extreme Behaviors
5 LAY PERSONOLOGY AND LAY SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Qualitative Aspects of Lay Personality Theory
Quantitative Aspects of Lay Personality Theory
Lay Dispositionism and the Fundamental Attribution Error
Inferring Dispositions from Situationally Produced Behavior
Slighting the Situation and Context in Favor of Dispositions
Overconfidence in Predictions Based on Dispositions
Dispositionism and the Interview Illusion
When Are Dispositional Data Useful?
The Sources of Lay Dispositionism
Perception and the Dispositionist Bias
Differing Causal Attributions for Actors and Observers
Construal and the Dispositionist Bias
Statistics and the Dispositionist Bias
How Could We Be So Wrong?
6 THE COHERENCE OF EVERYDAY SOCIAL EXPERIENCE
Scientific Disentangling versus Real-World Confounding
Scientific Disentangling of Person and Situation
Real-World Confounding of Person and Situation
Audience-Induced Consistency and Predictability
When People Create Their Own Environments
Choosing and Altering Situations
Responsiveness to Others’ Needs for Predictability
Continuity of Behavior over the Lifespan
Situations, Construals, and Personality
The Utility of Lay Personology Reconsidered
The Search for More Powerful Conceptions of Personality
7 THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF CULTURE
Situational Determinants of Culture
Effects of Ecology, Economy, and Technology
The Situation of the “Middleman” Minority
Culture, Ideology, and Construal
The Protestant Vision and the Growth of Capitalism
Associationism and Economic Development
Collectivism versus Individualism
Social Context and Attribution in East and West
Social Class and Locus of Control
Regional Differences in the United States as Cultural Differences
Enforcement of Cultural Norms
Cultures as Tension Systems
Cultural Change in America
Blacks and Whites in the American South
Traditional Japanese Culture and Capitalism
Traits, Ethnicities, and the Coordinates of Individual Differences
Can Ethnicities Substitute for Traits?
Why Is Ethnicity an Increasingly Important Factor in Modern Life?
8 APPLYING SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Methodological Lessons for Research Practitioners and Consumers
The Value of “True Experiments”
The Hawthorne Saga
When “Big” Interventions Fail
Situationism, Liberalism, and the Politics of Intervention
A Case History: The Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study
When “Small” Interventions Succeed
Lewinian Discussion Groups and Democratic Procedures
“Modeling” Effects on Prosocial Behavior
Interventions that Encourage Minority-Student Success
Distal versus Proximal Interventions
Labeling and Attribution Effects in the Classroom
Social Labels and Self-Fulfilling Expectations
Labeling versus Exhortation to Achieve Behavior Change
Motivational Consequences of Superfluous Inducements
Attributions for Classroom Success and Failure
Subjective Perceptions and Objective Health Consequences
Placebo Effects and Reverse Placebo Effects
The Beneficial Effect of Forewarning and Coping Information
The Health Consequences of Perceived Efficacy and Control
Everyday Application of Social Psychology
AFTERWORD
REFERENCES
INDEX OF AUTHORS AND NAMES
SUBJECT INDEX
