Person-situation Debate and Accuracy in Personality Assessment and Judgement
Part 1 Person-situation Debate
The person-situation is a result of the inconsistencies in personality traits. These inconsistencies offer different characteristics and behavioral patterns in their approach and response to stimuli. In psychology, the person-situation debate has been one of the biggest controversies concerning the determination of whether an individual or the situations play a role in determining one’s behavior. The personality trait of an individual varies from one situation to the next. As a result of these inconsistencies develops the controversy of the person-situation debate. There are there approaches to this controversy, according to situationists (Funder, 2019).
Firstly, one’s personality trait to predict behavior is limited; therefore, one’s personality traits are not directly proportional to his or her t behavior. Secondly, that in the determination of what an individual does, the situations are more predominant as compared to personality traits. Lastly, the effective personality assessment test is a waste of time as it does not give accurate Assessments of a person’s institution. A personality trait indicates how an individual will act on average however they do not know how one will act in a specific situation (Funder, 2019). Phycologists have attempted to explain this phenomenon by test different personality traits over a range of situations; however, to capture the exact moment, a person ass aggregate behavior must subject to different situations over an average time. This is to explain the variance of the behavior of individuals across a variety of situations.
Arguably, situations are more imperative in predicting an individual’s behavior for essence in response to different situations. On the other hand, personality traits do not play a major role in behavior prediction but n cases such as an economic situation or other important life aspects. Therefore, the interaction between situations and a person is the origin of the behavior. Situations are more reliable because, firstly, a person’s variance is affected by the situation. Secondly, the personalities of individuals affect the situations in which they find themselves. Lastly, situations influence individuals’ personalities (Funder, 2019). Therefore, people with different personalities may likely end up in certain places due to their situations concerning their interactionism. Irrespective of the generalized agreement that situation forces and personality affects behavior, different perspectives determine these aspects, thus ending controversy. The c person-situation debate has compelled psychologists to have a clearer assessment of the link situations, behavior, and personality in understanding why individuals do what they do at a given time in a given situation (Furr, 2018).
The interactionism perspective believes that a person’s personality is influences the creation of situations that they find themselves in. however, a personal personality does not predominantly influence the person’s behavior due to the inconsistencies. According to Funder, a psychologist, he posited that a person is attached to a certain trait; however, his or her behavior varied depending on the situation (Funder, 2019). This, therefore, explain the inconsistencies of behavior over time. This thus explains the more than one type of behavioral consistency, more so the situational constituency especially ascertained vary the behavior in the environment (Condon, 2021).
Part 2
Accurate Personality judgment
Personality assessments are currently used to assess and determine a person’s personality traits. However, it is commons for individuals to judge each other’s personalities. Through this judgment arises consequences that influence one’s expectancy or opportunities. Personality trait entails the patterns of behavior, emotions that there has been researched that questions the accuracy of these judgments on one’s personalities. According to the realist accuracy model, personality judgments are dependent on the availability and unitization of the information to base the judgment. However, the accuracy of this model is the relation of four factors (Funder, 2019). Firstly, the trial’s nature to set to be judge, the properties of the aspect intended to undergo the judgment, the nature of the information that determines the judgment, and the subject making the judgment. There are different perspectives of accuracy, realism, constructive, and pragmatism; these three aspects influence the accuracy of the personality judgment. However, in most cases, the first impressions of personality are almost accurate coupled with moderate accuracy.
According to the Realistic Accuracy Model, the judge’s ability to detect an individual’s available behavioral information determines the scale of accuracy, even though the judgments are consequential in an attempt to navigate life’s social problems (Allen, 2020). However, to achieve a near accuracy of the personality judgment, these moderate variables should be considered. Firstly, for essence, when the subject is more transparent, it is easier to make an accurate judgment compared to reserved and secretive people. Secondly, sufficient information, the more the quantity of information, the more imperative in making judgments than trying to make judgment information for subjects in a highly structured setting. Thirdly a good judge, the accuracy for the judgment can be highly influenced by the judge’s mood in making a positive judgment. According to Funder, he believes that women are good personality judges as compared to men since they are more observant and have n ideally more accurate view of normal life, lastly good trait, according to this, it is easier to judge a good trait as they become more visible, such as the energy levels (Funder, 2019).
Notably, accurate self-knowledge plays a role in personality judgments. On many occasions, people judge themselves or are judge by others. Determining these judgments’ accuracy can be difficult, especially self-judgment, since some of these traits are invisible even to self and others. However, a judgment made in terms of predictive validity and consumption can accurately predict a person’s behavior. With the increase in electronic media use, the current research examines cues such as taste in music, medial social roles, or even one facial appearance to make the judgments (Jayawickreme, 2019). There are many despites of the accuracy of the judgment, white it is easy to shun its viability. It is also trivial; lately, people have sufficient information about one another. In other cases, they even know regarding what they know. Therefore, the creative and recent methods to ascertain perform personality judgments have driven the need to develop the criteria to ascertain their accuracy. These criteria foes beyond the personality tests such as the Myers Biggs, TAT tests and incorporates information from the social platform. Therefore, judgments of personality need to be as accurate as possible to avoid errors or negative consequences; thus, there has been a major focus to eliminate errors and biases in judgment. However, biasness still stems from heuristics circumstances, especially those of controlled contexts.
References
Allen, C. (2020). Personality Assessment. The Balance of Personality.
Condon, D. M., & Mõttus, R. (2021). A role for information theory in personality modeling, assessment, and judgment.
Funder, D. C. (2019). The personality puzzle: eighth international student edition. WW Norton & Company
Furr, R. M., & Funder, D. C. (2018). Persons, situations, and person-situation interactions. Handbook of personality: Theory and research, 4.
Jayawickreme, E., Zachry, C. E., & Fleeson, W. (2019). While trait theory: An integrative approach to examining personality structure and process. Personality and individual differences, 136, 2-11.
