This note provides additional research findings, using the Tiffany Control Scales, to re-emphasize that behavior typically changes when situations change. These and other findings reiterate the fact that many psychological tests should reflect situational differences and their effect on behavioral variance.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
American Educational Research Association. (1999) Standards for educational and psychological testing. Washington, DC. Author.
HaneyC.BanksC.ZimbardoP. (1973) Interpersonal dynamics in a simulated prison. International Journal of Criminology and Penology, 1, 69–97.
4.
HarrisJ. R. (2000) Context-specific learning, personality, and birth order. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 174–177.
5.
HeiderE. (1944) Social perception and phenomenal causality. Psychological Review, 51, 358–374.
6.
LewinK. (1946) Behavior and development as a function of the total situation. In LewinK.CartwrightD. (Eds.), Field theory in social science. New York: Harper & Row.
7.
MischelW.ShodaY.Mendoza-DentonR. (2002) Situation-behavior profiles as a locus of consistency in personality. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 50–54.
8.
SaudinoK. J. (1997) Moving beyond the heritability question: new directions in behavioral genetic studies of personality. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 6, 86–90.
9.
TiffanyD. W.TiffanyE. G. (1999) Overgeneralization of validity generalization in personality inventories: applied issues in testing. Psychological Reports, 84, 593–609.
10.
TiffanyD. W.TiffanyF. G. (2000) Power and control: escape from violence. Lanham, MD: Univer. Press of America (Rowman/Littlefield Publishing Group).