PP ESSAY 2, THE PERSON-SITUATION DEBATE
Now that we're done with essay number three, we're on to essay number two. The topic is
critically discuss the person situation debate and its consequences, which is the remarks
again. With point number one, they said that the person situation debate is a major
argument in personality psychology about the shapes of our behavior, more personality
traits or the situation we're in.
Traits theorists believe behavior stays consistent across time and different settings because
people have stable traits. For example, someone who is shy will likely stay quiet in most
social situations. On the other side, situationists argue that behavior changes based on the
situation.
That same shy person might speak confidently during class presentations because the
situation demands it. Now moving on to point two, this debate became popular when
psychologist Walter Mischel, if the pronunciation is correct, sorry Walter, he challenged the
idea of stable traits. He argued that behavior varies depending on the situation and that
traits are poor predictors of what people will do.
This pushes personality psychologists to rethink their approach, leading to the idea of
personal situation interaction, highlighted on that part. Okay, the belief of behavior is
influenced by both traits and the environment. For example, someone high in consciousness
may only work hard on a group project if their group is motivated.
So behavior is not just about personality but also the setting. Moving on to point three,
another key idea is aggregation. This means that while traits may not predict a person's
behavior in a single situation, though they can predict pattern of behavior over time.
For example, someone high in agreeableness may not help every time, but overall across
different situations they are generally helpful. Okay, so now moving on to point number
four, the debate led to an important consequences in personality psychology. First, it helped
psychologists understand the personality isn't rigid.
People act differently depending on their environment. Secondly, it encouraged better
research methods like studying behavior over the long period instead of just one moment.
Third, it improved personality assessments by making them more reliable and sensitive to
context.
Now, that was the last point. On to the conclusion. Now, with that said, the personal
situation debate changed how psychologists view human behavior.
It showed that behavior isn't only based on who someone is but also on where they are and
what's happening around them. Today's most experts agreed that both personality traits
and situations interact to shape behavior in everyday life. Thank you.
That is it for essay two.