CROSS-SITUATIONAL SPECIFICITY IN MANAGERs' PERCEPTIONS OF SUBORDINATE PERFORMANCE, ATTRIBUTIONS, AND LEADER BEHAVIORS

Managers' perceptions of subordinates' performance, causes (attributions) of subordinates' performance, and the leader behaviors they employed toward subordinates were examined from the standpoint of cross-situational consistency versus cross-situational specificity. Cross-situational consistency would be indicated if managers' perceptions of performance, attributions, and leader behaviors were stable over different situations, whereas cross-situational specificity would be indicated if these same perceptions indicated reliable variation, as a function of situation. Empirical results for 377 Navy managers provided strong support for cross-situational specificity. Results are discussed in relation to prior research, generated by interactional theory on consistency versus specificity of responses across situations, and in relation to research and developmental needs in leadership, attribution theory, and performance evaluation.     

Trait-Specific Versus Person-Specific Moderators of Cross-Situational Consistency

ABSTRACT Moderator variables for cross-situational consistency can be tested m two different ways (a) a trait-specific manner which examines differences in cross-situational consistency among traits, or (b) a person-specific manner which examines differences in cross-situational consistency among people The present study examined moderator effects–both trait- and person-specific–of the discrepancy between private self-ratings on trait dimensions (“How do you see yourself?”) and the corresponding public self-ratings (“How do others see you?”) Agreement between self- and peer ratings served as the dependent variable The results showed that public-private discrepancy moderated self-peer agreement when operationalized in a trait-specific manner, i e, for each trait, higher discrepancy was associated with lower self-peer agreement On the other hand, the results showed only minimal moderator effects when public-private discrepancy was operationalized in a person-specific manner, i e, when mean discrepancy across all traits served as the moderator Implications of the distinction between trait- and person-specific approaches to moderator effects are discussed     

Behavioral change and consistency across contexts

The degree to which behavior changes across situations is often conflated with the cross-situational consistency of individual differences. The current study assesses the extent of behavioral change and consistency, the relationship between them, and variables associated with behaviors’ differing patterns of change and consistency. Two hundred fifty-six participants were observed in three different, three-person interactions. In line with previous research, behaviors showed a great deal of both change and consistency. Behavioral change across situations was unrelated to the degree to which individual differences in these same behaviors were maintained, demonstrating that behavioral consistency does not imply lack of situational adaptation. Behaviors rated as relatively broad and as relatively automatic showed more consistency; behaviors rated as relatively controlled showed more change.     

What we think we do (to each other): how personality can bias behavior schemas through the projection of if-then profiles

People's knowledge about others includes not only person schemas about the typical traits of others but also behavior schemas about the likely interpersonal consequences of different behaviors. In this article, it is argued that perceiver effects can be interactive at the level of behavior schemas. A person's own personality configuration of if-then responses in social interactions (Mischel & Shoda, 1995) may contribute to that person's beliefs about the meaning and impact of relational behaviors more generally. In consequence, people who experience strong (or weak) responses to behaviors that vary along a particular trait dimension, such as warmth-coldness, may expect others to experience similarly strong (or weak) responses to those same kinds of behaviors. In 3 studies, people who were high in trait communion expected others to respond more strongly to behaviors that varied in warmth-coldness than did people who were low in trait communion, and people who were low in trait agency expected others to respond more strongly to behaviors that varied in assertiveness-unassertiveness than did people who were high in trait agency. Studies 2 and 3 provided evidence that participants' behavior schemas were based on assumptions derived from their own if-then personality profiles.     

The consistency of presented personality: Additional evidence from aggregation

The present study investigated people's variability across situations by getting ratings of 66 subjects on 14 bipolar dimensions from at least eight interactants, chosen for their diversity. The intercorrelation of single ratings yielded a mean coefficient of .221. The correlation of single ratings with the aggregate of the other ratings for a dimension resulted in a mean coefficient of .388. The correlation of two sets of aggregated ratings gave a mean coefficient of .550, or .710 with application of the Spearman-Brown correction. Finally, computation of Cronbach's alpha gave a mean coefficient of .735. The results provide a further demonstration of the coherence that can be revealed by aggregation. Correlations of aggregated ratings on each of the 14 dimensions with extraversion ranged up to .668, and correlations with neuroticism ranged up to .410. The study suggests that there is a dispositionality in the characteristics people display, and that the emphasis on variability (e.g., Mischel, 1968; Mischel & Peake, 1982) should be tempered.     

Grit and conscientiousness: Another jangle fallacy

When grit was first introduced, it gained popularity before basic psychometric questions were fully explored. One critical issue is how distinct grit is from the Big Five personality trait conscientiousness. Most studies have examined correlations between grit and conscientiousness, rather than conducting item-level factor analysis. This study examined the extent to which grit and conscientiousness are empirically distinct, and which predict students’ grades. A diverse sample of adolescents completed measures of grit and conscientiousness. MIRT-based confirmatory factor analyses showed that grit and conscientiousness’ factor structures strongly overlap. Structural equation modeling showed that conscientiousness and the perseverance of effort component of grit predicted students’ grades more strongly than consistency of interest. These findings indicate that grit and conscientiousness are not unique constructs.     

The person and the situation in an international model of behavior

Abstract.— The report deals with two main problems: ( a ) cross-situational consistency of person variables, which is discussed on the basis of a critical analysis of empirical research on cross-situational stability of actual behavior, and ( b ) the role of the momentary situation in models of behavior, and the consequences of an interactional view for theorizing and research on situations. The analyses and discussions are based on two distinctions, namely ( a ) a distinction between consistency in terms of actual behavior and consistency in terms of mediating processes, and ( b ) a distinction between personality theories and measurement models. Three different senses of consistency in terms of reactions are distinguished.     

Prediction and Cross-Situational Consistency of Daily Behavior across Cultures: Testing Trait and Cultural Psychology Perspectives

Trait and cultural psychology perspectives on the cross-situational consistency of behavior, and the predictive validity of traits, were tested in a daily process study in the United States (N = 68), an individualistic culture, and the Philippines (N = 80), a collectivistic culture. Participants completed the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and a measure of self-monitoring, then reported their daily behaviors and associated situational contexts for approximately 30 days. Consistent with trait perspectives, the Big Five traits predicted daily behaviors in both cultures, and relative (interindividual) consistency was observed across many, although not all, situational contexts. The frequency of various Big Five behaviors varied across relevant situational contexts in both cultures and, consistent with cultural psychology perspectives, there was a tendency for Filipinos to exhibit greater situational variability than Americans. Self-monitoring showed some ability to account for individual differences in situational variability in the American sample, but not the Filipino sample.     

The limits of love: Predicting immediate versus sustained caring behaviors in close relationships

Do the same kinds of processes predict spontaneous acts of kindness and long-term caring behavior in relationships? Three studies examined predictors of immediate behaviors versus delayed, sustained behaviors. Positive feelings toward the relationship partner predicted pro-relational behaviors when the behaviors could be completed in an immediate and fairly short timespan, but not when the behaviors required performance after several days delay (Study 1) or when the behavior required continued self-regulation over a period of a week (Studies 2 and 3). Sustained behavior regulation was better predicted by factors related to self-regulation strength, such as trait conscientiousness, than it was by positive relationship feelings. However, when feelings were primed daily, the feelings-behavior link remained strong for sustained behaviors (Study 3). Together, these studies suggest that immediate pro-relational behaviors are more likely to be acts of the heart, whereas delayed, sustained pro-relational behaviors are more likely to be acts of will.     

What do conscientious people do? Development and validation of the Behavioral Indicators of Conscientiousness (BIC)

Typical assessments of personality traits collapse behaviors, thoughts, and feelings into a single measure without distinguishing between these different manifestations. To address this lack of specification, the current study develops and validates a measure that assesses a number of broad behaviors associated with the personality trait of conscientiousness (the Behavioral Indicators of Conscientiousness; BIC). Findings suggest that the lower-order structure of conscientious behaviors is mostly similar to the lower-order structure in extant trait measures. Furthermore, a daily diary method was used to validate the BIC against frequency counts of conscientious behavior. Overall, the results identify specific behaviors that conscientious individuals tend to perform and highlight possible advantages of this approach over broad trait assessment.     

Impression Management Behavior in Assessment Centers: Artificial Behavior or Much Ado About Nothing?

Candidates’ assertive impression-management (IM) behaviors affect performance ratings during selection interviews, a finding that has caused some concern about selection interviews’ objectivity and accuracy. Similar effects have been proposed for assessment centers, yet research on IM in assessments centers is rare and inconclusive. This study uses trait-activation theory (Tett &; Guterman, 2000 Tett, R. P. and Guterman, H. A. 2000. Situation trait relevance, trait expression, and cross-situational consistency: Testing a principle of trait activation. Journal of Research in Personality, 34: 397–423. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) to predict how assertive IM-behaviors emerge and influence performance ratings during assessments centers. Results showed that candidates’ ingratiation behaviors related to observer ratings on the conceptually related AC-dimension cooperation, whereas self-promotion behaviors related to ratings on the dimensions leadership and planning. Furthermore, assertive IM behaviors during the assessment center construct-related validity and correlated significantly with candidates’ performance in non-evaluative situations. Consequently, assertive IM behaviors in personnel selection may pose less of a threat than frequently assumed but may partially reflect a behavioral manifestation of candidates’ underlying interindividual differences.     

Attributions of stability and relevance of personality traits

This experiment tested a number of hypotheses derived from trait theory, attribution theory and interactional psychology. Forty subjects rated the stability and relevance of 60 pre-selected traits of three role-related people and themselves in four specific social situations. The traits were categorized beforehand in terms of their structural, motivational and content properties, and whether they were positive or negative. There was a significant difference in the perceived stability of positive and negative traits between liked and disliked people; positive traits being seen as significantly more stable in liked people and less stable in disliked people. However, subjects did not attribute significantly less stability to their own behavioural traits than to those of others in the same situations. It was also demonstrated that trait labels are seen to be differentially relevant for describing people in different social situations. The results are discussed in terms of the work on stability and cross-situational consistency in trait and attribution theory and person-situation research.     

The effect of individual differences in act prototypicality judgments on trait-behaviour correlations and cross-situational consistency

Individuals differ in their perceptions of actprototypicality. This study examined whether incorporating such individual differences enhances trait-behaviour correlations and provides stronger evidence for cross-situational consistency. Three hundred and fifty-three subjects rated the dominance prototypicality of 100 acts, indicated how often they performed each of these acts, and provided trait ratings of how dominant they were in general. There were substantial and reliable individual differences in prototypicality judgements over a 4–5 month period. A variety of weighting schemes were used to incorporate these individual differences, but none dramatically increased the trait-behaviour correlation. Similarly, incorporating individual differences did not increase the magnitude of cross-situational consistency correlations. However, incorporating individual differences did enhance the pattern of trait-behaviour and consistency correlations from less prototypical to highly prototypical acts. Differences in perceptions of act prototypicality thus do not affect the magnitude of the correlations that can be obtained, but they are useful in revealing theoretically meaningful patterns of relationships.     

Conscientiousness, procrastination, and person-task characteristics in job searching by unemployed adults

The study examined the job-search intentions and subsequent behavior of 32 unemployed males and 32 unemployed females, median age of 43 years, in relation to conscientiousness and the lower-order trait procrastination and to rated person-task characteristics of importance, pleasantness, and competence regarding 14 job-search activities. At Time 1, conscientiousness was positively related to each of the person-task characteristics and to intentions to engage in the composite of job-search activities; trait procrastination was not. At Time 2, two weeks later, trait procrastination predicted self-reported job-search behaviors, controlling for initial intentions, with pro-crastinators exhibiting less job-search activity in the two week interim, compared to nonprocrastinators. Both conscientiousness and trait procrastination were related to a direct self-report measure of dilatory behavior. The three person-task characteristics were found to mediate the relation of conscientiousness to job-search intentions and to dilatory behavior. In addition, perceived task pleasantness moderated the relation of conscientiousness to job-search behavior, controlling for intentions, such that higher levels of conscientiousness were associated with increases in behavior only under conditions of low task pleasantness. Discussion centered on the prominent role of the person-task characteristics and on the place of conscientiousness and trait procrastination in predicting intentions and behavior.     

SOCIAL-COGNITIVE MECHANISMS AND PERSONALITY COHERENCE:

Abstract— This article presents a social-cognitive analysts of cross-situational coherence in personality functioning. Social-cognitive analyses are contrasted with those of trait approaches in personality psychology. Rather than attributing coherence to high-level constructs that correspond directly to observed patterns of social behavior, social-cognitive theory pursues a "bottom-up" analytic strategy in which coherence derives from interactions among multiple underlying causal mechanisms, no one of which corresponds directly to a broad set of responses. Research investigating social and self-knowledge underlying cross-situational coherence in a central social-cognitive mechanism, perceived self-efficacy, is presented. Idiographic analyses revealed that individuals' schematic self-knowledge and situational beliefs give rise to patterns of high and low self-efficacy appraisal across diverse, idiosyncratic sets of situations that do not, in general, correspond to traditional high-level trait categories Bottom-up analyses in personality psychology are related to other disciplines' analyses of organization in complex, adaptive systems.     

Trait aggression is primarily a facet of antagonism: Evidence from dominance,latent correlational,and item-level analyses

Trait aggression has been studied for decades and yet remains adrift from broader frameworks of personality such as the Five Factor Model. Across two datasets from undergraduate participants (Study 1: N = 359; Study 2; N = 620), we observed strong manifest and latent correlations between trait aggression and lower agreeableness (i.e., greater antagonism). Trait aggression was also linked to greater neuroticism and lower conscientiousness, but their effect sizes fell beneath our preregistered threshold. Subsequent item-level analyses were unable to articulate trait aggression and agreeableness items into separate factors using the IPIP-NEO, but not the Big Five Inventory. Our findings suggest that trait aggression is accurately characterized as primarily a facet of antagonism, while also reflecting other personality dimensions.     

Personality,tobacco consumption,physical inactivity,obesity markers,and metabolic components as risk factors for cardiovascular disease in the general population

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between personality traits, tobacco consumption, physical inactivity, obesity markers and metabolic components as cardiovascular risk factors (CVRFs). A total of 2543 participants from the general population (CoLaus|PsyCoLaus) had provided complete information on physical health and unhealthy behaviors and completed the Revised NEO Five-Factor Inventory. Our results show a strong cross-correlation between obesity markers and metabolic components suggesting that their combination could represent an important CVRF. Moreover, socio-demographic characteristics, tobacco consumption, and physical inactivity were associated with both obesity markers and metabolic components latent traits. The conscientiousness personality trait was significantly associated with obesity markers, but played a modest role. Indeed, higher conscientiousness was associated with lower level of obesity indicators. However, no link between personality and metabolic components were found. In sum, our data suggest that health related behaviours have more effect on the development of cardiovascular diseases than personality traits.     

Individual differences and cross-situational consistency of dyadic social behavior

A new theoretical analysis of individual differences and cross-situational consistency of behavior is proposed. The authors hypothesized that the social behavior of mice (Mus musculus) is determined by individual differences among animals in behavior emitted (i.e., actor effects), in behavior elicited from social partners (partner effects), and by unique responses of one animal to another (relationship effects). Each effect represents a distinct facet of individual differences with different psychological meaning; likewise, the cross-situational consistency of each effect has a distinct psychological meaning. Individual differences in behavior emitted were observed, and these actor effects were consistent longitudinally. Individual differences in behavior elicited from social partners were observed, and these partner effects were also consistent longitudinally. Unique responses to specific social partners also determined behavior but were inconsistent longitudinally. The theoretical importance of reconceptualizing the concepts of individual differences and cross-situational consistency in behavior is discussed. ((c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).     

The more the better – But more of which? Information quantity and shared meaning as predictors of consistency and accuracy in person judgment

This study investigates the consistency and accuracy of person judgments at zero acquaintance in two conditions: Targets were judged repeatedly across a sequence of videotaped situations, either (a) by different observers in each situation, or (b) by the same observer in all situations. Replicating previous research, accuracy increased (inversely accelerated) when including additional situations rated by different observers. However, much of this increase was owed to improved inter-rater reliability (a confound in previous research). Also, cross-situational consistency of judgments was much higher when all ratings came from the same observer. These results underscore the crucial influence of shared meaning on judgment accuracy and consistency.