User:SarahAlbertson4500/sandbox

Person-Situation Debate

Final Article - Due 5/13

Zach's Contribution:

KEY -

Crossed out = deleted from original article

Bold = new content inserted into article

Under Synthesis Paragraph - Personality psychologists William Fleeson and Erik Noftle have suggested that the person-situation debate ended in a synthesis. According to them, there is more than one type of behavior consistency. Traits are not robustly predictive of cross-situational consistency, but rather, predictive of consistency for a wide distribution of behaviors over time. '''Personality is not by itself a strong predictor of behavior but a better predictor can be ascertained from an average of behavior in environments. This will lead to a better model called density distributions. These models track how strongly a participant reacts in given situations.''' Fleeson has also proposed that traits can be better understood as density distributions of behaviors. He posited that an individual has an anchor mean level of a trait, but the individual's behavior can vary around this mean depending on situations. Therefore, this distribution could account for the low cross-situational consistency of single acts of behavior while also explaining the high consistency of behaviors over time.

Sarah's Contribution:


 * Expanding "current directions" section
 * Insert: Some believe that the person-situation debate came to a resolution in the 1970s, though it is still widely discussed as if the debate as not ended. One possible reason the debate is still discussed is because it criticizes foundational personality psychology ideas from Franz Boas and John B. Watson that date back to the early 20th century.
 * Addition to introductory paragraph
 * Insert: The debate is also an important discussion when studying social psychology, as both topics address the various ways a person could react to a given situation.
 * Addition to "background" section
 * Insert: One of the largest critiques of the person-debate situation is that it does not follow "modern science", as it studies specific people in specific situations and is difficult to replicate and generalize results.
 * Previous edits for "Adding to an article" assignment due 2/29
 * Current directions section
 * Insert: On the other hand, recent research has found that person-specific traits (like achievement emotions), which are developed by personality traits, may contribute to how someone perceives and then acts in a situation.
 * Introductory paragraph -> alter sentence
 * Original: "Personality trait psychologists believe that people have consistent personalities that guide their behaviors across situations."
 * Change to: "Personality trait psychologists believe that a person's personality is relatively consistent across situations. "
 * Responded to recent Wiki Editor suggestion on Talk Page
 * Suggestion: Although I don't have concerns about content, Situationism (psychology) is a WP:POVFORK and both articles will be improved by merging. Daask (talk) 17:56, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Response: Hey Daask, Thank you for the suggestion!  At the moment given the content on the person-situation debate article, I do think it might be best to leave the two articles as separate. The person-situation debate article has a lot of information towards situationist viewpoint already, and might benefit from more content on the personality trait psychologist view before adding more on the situationist side of the debate. With that said, I defiantly think looking into the merger would be very beneficial once the person-situation debate article is a bit more balanced.  SarahAlbertson4500 (talk) 21:31, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Person-Situation Debate

Zach's Contribution:

Areas that need work-

Needs a personality trait based argument. under represented

My first source talks about how both sides are right and what arises because of that.

Under Synthesis Heading Psychologists William Fleeson proposes that personality is not by itself a strong predictor of behavior but a better predictor can be ascertained from a average of behavior in environments. This will lead to a better model called density distributions. These models track how strongly a participant reacts in given situations This method is a mix of both the personality trait method and the situationist approach, neither is the main method but in combination they work to produce a more accurate model according to Fleeson. This still leads to potential large amounts of within person variability

Zach Springer (talk) 18:18, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Sarah's Contribution:

Future improvements:


 * Adding a "Personality Trait Psychologist Argument" Subsection
 * Expanding the "Current Directions" Subsection
 * My first source discusses that the argument is over, and hypothesizes why the debate is still widely discussed
 * My second source offers more ideas on what is in agreement and what isn't with the debate, why the debate still generates interest, and why it may not be worth studying anymore.

Possible additions, draft (would insert sentences among pre-existing paragraphs when editing article):


 * Some believe that the person-situation debate came to a resolution in the 1970s, though it is still widely discussed as if the debate as not ended.
 * One of the largest critiques of the person-debate situation is that it does not follow "modern science", as it studies specific people in specific situations and is difficult to replicate and generalize results.
 * One possible reason the debate is still discussed is because it criticizes initial personality psychology theories that date back to the early 20th century.
 * The debate is also an important discussion when studying social psychology, as both topics address the various ways a person could react to a given situation.

SarahAlbertson4500 (talk) 04:13, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Choosing a topic and sources - Due 3/7

Topic chosen: Person-Situation Debate

Zach's Articles:

Fleeson, William (2004-04-01). "Moving Personality Beyond the Person-Situation Debate: The Challenge and the Opportunity of Within-Person Variability". Current Directions in Psychological Science. 13 (2): 83–87. doi:10.1111/j.0963-7214.2004.00280.x. ISSN 0963-7214.

Fleeson, William; Noftle, Erik (2008). "The End of the Person–Situation Debate: An Emerging Synthesis in the Answer to the Consistency Question". Social and Personality Psychology Compass. 2 (4): 1667–1684. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00122.x. ISSN 1751-9004.

Testing editing - Zach

Sarah's Articles:

Lucas, Richard E.; Donnellan, M. Brent (2009-04-01). "If the person–situation debate is really over, why does it still generate so much negative affect?". Journal of Research in Personality. Personality and Assessment at Age 40: Reflections on the Past Person–Situation Debate and Emerging Directions of Future Person-Situation Integration. 43 (2): 146–149. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2009.02.009. ISSN 0092-6566.

Hogan, Robert (2009-04-01). "Much ado about nothing: The person–situation debate". Journal of Research in Personality. Personality and Assessment at Age 40: Reflections on the Past Person–Situation Debate and Emerging Directions of Future Person-Situation Integration. 43 (2): 249. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2009.01.022. ISSN 0092-6566.

SarahAlbertson4500 (talk) 17:52, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Article Evaluation - Due 2/22

Article Chosen: Person-situation debate

Main suggestion for improvement: Eliminating a content gap in the personality trait psychologists views, or the "person" side of the debate, by adding a sub-section that details this perspective.

Other notes/things to consider:


 * Everything felt relevant to the article and nothing felt distracting.
 * The article maintained a neutral stance and uses neutral language, though it felt as if there may have been a content gap in the "person" side of the debate, which could be interpreted as a bias.
 * The personality trait psychologist view (being more focused on the person rather than the situation, according to this article) is a bit underrepresented and is not discussed in full detail.
 * All citations were journals and do not include a type of URL or reference link, meaning it is unknown whether the sources support the claims of the article so far. This may be something to research more in depth later.
 * All references are peer-reviewed and well-known psychology journals. With this, all references are appropriate, reliable, and neutral.
 * No information appears to be out of date. Along with the viewpoint of personality trait psychologists, it may be beneficial to add how personality develops and stabilizes with time. In addition, individuals do not commonly acknowledge that their personality might depend on the situation until about age 10 (as discussed in class).
 * There is very little discussion on the Talk page of this article. All suggestions were from 2012, and are either minor suggestions or suggest to expand on pre-existing sub-sections of the article. The suggestions to expect on pre-existing sub-sections did not give specific feedback as to what should be expanded, or how.
 * This article is part of the WikiProject Psychology, and is rated start class with mid-importance.
 * There are some areas of the article that discusses the topic in a similar fashion that we have in class, such as how personality is believed to be relatively stable across different situations. However, the article does not acknowledge that even though the personality trait may be relatively stable, personality psychologists believe that a situation may dictate how strong/weak a certain trait is shown.

Optional: Choose at least 1 question relevant to the article you're evaluating and leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback with four tildes.

''HI! I think this is a great article with a good amount of importance, as there is a lot of discussion on this debate. Especially considering the overarching "nature versus nurture" concept that is much debated in the psychology community.''

''I especially enjoyed that the article includes a sub-section on the "situationist argument" to this debate. I think a similar sub-section on the personality trait psychologist's views of the debate would be a great addition to the article. This way, there's a bit more detail about both sides of the debate.''

Add to an Article - due 2/29

Article Chosen: Person-situation debate


 * "Current Directions" subsection -> Paragraph 2
 * Add: "On the other hand, recent research has found that person-specific traits (like achievement emotions), which are developed by personality traits, may contribute to how someone perceives and then acts in a situation. "
 * Reason for adding sentence & citation: Adds depth to paragraph, as before it did not explore person-specific traits while it was references earlier in the paragraph.
 * Paragraph 1, sentence 2
 * Original sentence: "Personality trait psychologists believe that people have consistent personalities that guide their behaviors across situations. "
 * Edited sentence: "Personality trait psychologists believe that a person's personality is relatively consistent across situations. "
 * Reason for edit it wording: There are some theories in personality trait psychology that believes that personality can guide our situations, but there are other viewpoints in personality theory not discussed here (as we talked about in class).
 * Reason for adding citation: Backs up the statement made

Peer Review


Overall, these are some good ideas to add to the article.

I like that there was mention of adding a "Personality Trait Psychologist Argument" Subsection, and expanding the "Current Directions" Subsection. The article only talks about the person-situation debate, but possibly adding other views might help illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of person-situation theory. That being said, a suggestion would be to add a section about the strengths and weaknesses, or something of the sort (it really depends on what you want to add to the subsections you mentioned). The 'situationist argument" paragraph seems to point out some of that, but I think expanding a upon it and making it more clear for the reader would be beneficial.

Another suggestion would be adding more information to the "Interactionism" paragraph in the article. In my opinion, it's essential to understand how person-situation debate works in research, and it's not extremely clear how it plays a factor in the Stanford prison experiment. "How/Why did the study (situation) make people act that way?," "What type of people participate in that type of research and why?," are just a couple questions you can answer for that paragraph. The paragraph seems to glaze over these issues without specifically stating how it works, so adding a sentence or two should make it more clear.

Adding the comments you made will definitely make the article more clear, concise, and easy to read. I also like how you guys were planning on changing some of the sentences, which made them seem more neutral.

If you have any questions about my suggestions or need me to clear anything up, let me know! Abbigail Ely (talk) 21:21, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Peer Review- Sarah's Response due 4/4
Hey Abbigail,

Thanks for all of the feedback! It is all much appreciated.

We will be sure to add that "Personality Trait Psychologist Argument" subsection, and to expand on the "Current Directions" Subsection. I completely agree that this will help show different perspectives and give a more balanced approach to the content. I'll have to look more into what you said about looking more into some strengths and weaknesses of each view, too. If we're able to add an equal number of strengths and weaknesses to both sides of the debate, this might help give some more depth to the article while still remaining objective. One item that you mentioned that I'm unsure on is how the article only talks about the person-situation debate. This makes me a little hesitant to change because the article itself is titled "Person-Situation Debate", so it sounds like the focus is really on the debate itself. I understand what you're saying about trying to find other views to really illustrate the theory, though. I'll have to talk to my partner more about this one.

To be completely honest, I myself haven't done a lot of looking into the "Interactionism" paragraph yet, so I really appreciate you pointing it out! When we make more changes, this can definitely be a paragraph we can look at and possibly add a couple of sentences to. You posed some really good questions, but I'm not sure that we have the answers to those questions. It will definitely be something I need to do more researching in, but at the very least perhaps we can add other experiments that might offer a different perspective.

Thanks again for the help! SarahAlbertson4500 (talk) 20:48, 3 April 2020 (UTC)