Analysis and Discussion on Personality Variables in Psychology

This discussion post examines personality variables in psychology, beginning with an explanation of Walter Mischel's theory, which emphasizes the interaction between personal attributes and situational factors in determining behavior. Mischel's theory identifies five key personal variables: competencies, cognitive strategies, expectancies, subjective values, and self-regulation. The post then contrasts Mischel's approach with B.F. Skinner's focus on overt behavior, explaining Skinner's rejection of internal processes as determinants of behavior. Skinner's emphasis on observable responses and environmental events in his theory of operant conditioning is discussed, highlighting the importance of monitoring and analyzing visible behaviors. The post provides context for Skinner's rejection of internal processes, considering the challenges of scientifically justifying unobservable responses. The assignment references key scholarly sources to support the arguments presented.

Running head: DISCUSSION ON PERSONALITY VARIABLES
DISCUSSION ON PERSONALITY VARIABLES
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1DISCUSSION ON PERSONALITY VARIABLES
Explain the proposition given by Walter Mischel on the focus of traditional personality
theories on person variables instead of situation variables in your own words.
Theory of Personality, proposed by Walter Mischel indicates towards a person’s behaviour being
impacted by two factors –
a) The particular attributes of a particular situation
b) The way in which the situation is perceived by an individual.
Mischel (2013) states that there are a set of five personal variables that determine the conditions
of a specific situation. These are used to predict how a person will most likely behave.
a) Competencies: These include the intellectual capabilities and social skills of an individual
(Mischel, 2013).
b) Cognitive strategies: The discrete perceptions which exist of a particular event (Mischel,
2013).
c) Expectancies: Include the expected results of different behaviors that are conjectured by
the individual in his mind (Mischel, 2013).
d) Subjective values: Include the respective values of each possible outcome of various
behaviors (Mischel, 2013).
e) Self-regulations: These include the sets of rules and standards that individuals adapt to in
order to regulate their behaviour (Mischel, 2013).
It has been seen that humans first develop competencies to produce a range of behavioral
outcomes. Then acquisition of knowledge using personal constructs and encoding schemas

2DISCUSSION ON PERSONALITY VARIABLES
occur, which can be clubbed together as cognitive strategies. In the third step, individuals match
stimulus expectancies with behaviour or self-efficacy expectancies to predict outcome
expectancies. Having assessed the outcome, the fourth step would be a subjective analysis of the
same. Finally, intrinsic motivation and self-regulatory mechanisms act on the outcome
possibilities (Mischel, 2013).
In contrast to traditional social cognitive theories which are based on situational variables,
Mischel argued that whenever certain actions are destined a yield a particular outcome, a person
would behave in a similar manner. He emphasized that humans have individual differences.
Therefore, their values and expectations must be considered in predicting a person’s behaviour
and personality (Horstmann & Ziegler, 2016).
Discuss why Skinner studied overt behavior and rejected studying internal processes as
determinants of behavior.
The Theory of Operant Conditioning by Skinner is based on the conjecture that learning
is a function of overt behavioral change (Blackman, 2017). An individual’s behavioral changes
are a response to the environmental events. Elements like questions or physically and cognitively
engaging tasks like saving a goal or solving a calculus problem, asks the respondent to show
visible traits of response to the stimulus. Skinner’s motivation behind studying overt behavior
and reject internal processes or covert behavior is the ideation that behavior can be easily
monitored and analyzed if it is visible or perceptible.
Skinner developed his theory of operant conditioning as a response to the existing theory
of classical conditioning which he considered too simplistic for analyzing behavior in a being as

3DISCUSSION ON PERSONALITY VARIABLES
complex as man (McSweeney & Murphy, 2014). Human behavior is not limited to responding to
material stimuli, but also involves an intricate thought process that allows them to differentiate
rewards from punishments and cognitively connect the dots to find out which type of behavior
would fetch a reward and which, punishment. Thus they determine the type of behavior that
would be accommodated in an individual.
In this context, the study of internal processes would not have been a valuable
determinant of behavior as the internal mental processes are operations like memory, attention
and perception that act as mediators between a stimulus and response (Blackman, 2015). They
are unobservable behavior that can most effectively be self-deduced, and not being perceptible to
the audience, it was not of significant importance to Skinner. Overt behavior is what the
observable response shapes the behavior to be. Skinner’s rejection of internal processes is
reasonable on the grounds that unobservable responses are not easy to be scientifically justified
accurately.

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References
Blackman, D. E. (2017). Operant conditioning: an experimental analysis of behaviour.
Routledge.
Horstmann, K. T., & Ziegler, M. (2016). Situational perception: Its theoretical foundation,
assessment, and links to personality. The Wiley handbook of personality assessment, 31-
43.
McSweeney, F. K., & Murphy, E. S. (Eds.). (2014). The Wiley-Blackwell handbook of operant
and classical conditioning (pp. 455-482). Wiley Blackwell.
Mischel, W. (2013). Personality and assessment. Psychology Press.