Cognitive-affective theory by Walter Mischel

Michel’s cognitive-affective theory suggests that human behavior changes from situation to situation, but in a certain, predictable way.

For example, if someone is angry with his wife, he may react aggressively. However, if the same person is angry with his boss, he is likely to suppress his irritation and comply. Such behavior may seem inconsistent, because a person seems to respond differently to the same stimulus. But, from the point of view of cognitive-affective theory, irritation caused by different people is not the same stimulus. The behavior we have described is not inconsistent and may well reflect a pattern of reacting that is stable throughout a given person’s life.

You can talk about personality traits and measure personality traits. But in order to predict their behavior, it is much more important and interesting to understand their psychological situation, their inner vision of what is happening.

«The focus is shifting from attempts at comparison and generalization, designed to find out what different people ‘are’, to an assessment of what they do — really or mentally — in relation to the psychological situation in which they do it» (Mischel, 1973, p. 265).

Walter Mischel and the Cognitive-Affective Theory of Personality

The authors of the article are Robert Frager, James Fadiman. Chapter Theory of Personality and Personal Growth.

In modern psychology, since the time of Freud, the opinion has been established that personality traits are the most important cause of human behavior. This point of view is rejected by the followers of behaviorism, who consider the very concept of personality to be «a far-fetched explanation.» Thus, all existing theories explaining behavior can be divided into situation theories (situation theories), and trait theories (trait theories).

Proponents of the theory of personality traits have become scientists such as Raymond Cattell (Raymond Cattell) and Hans Eysenck (Hans Eysenck). Gordon Allport coined the term “personal disposition” to designate personality structures that can cause some kind of human action and guide his behavior.

According to the followers of this theory, people are driven by a limited number of impulses or personal traits that give behavior a certain consistency. For example, Freud would say that a person with the anal triad of forced neatness, stubbornness, and miserliness is urged to always be neat, stubborn, and stingy, and such a person will exhibit similar behavior in various conditions or situations. Similarly, from Cattell’s point of view, a person with a strong dominance trait usually behaves in a self-assertive, aggressive or competitive manner, and Eysenck would argue that an extroverted person, as a rule, is a person who is sociable, open, prone to actively receive new impressions.

Behaviorists have repeatedly pointed out that such a seemingly self-evident point of view is not supported by experimental studies. Back in 1928, the classic work of Hartshorne and May (Hartshorne & May) was published, which established that schoolchildren who were honest in one situation were dishonest in another. For example, some children may have cheated on a test but would not steal gifts at a party, others may have violated the rules of a sports competition but answered honestly on the test. Some psychologists, such as Seymour Epstain (1979, 1988), have argued that studies such as Hartshorne and May’s use of behaviors are too specific. Epstein argued that instead of relying on individual examples, researchers should piece together many behaviors, i.e., what is needed is the sum of many different behaviors. In other words, Epstein would say that even if a person does not always demonstrate a strong personal trait, such as conscientiousness, the sum total of his individual behaviors will nonetheless reflect his characteristic conscientiousness.

Walter Mischel rejects trait theory interpretations of behavior. According to Michel, this view of personality traits or personal disposition does not give due attention to the specific situation in which people operate. But at the same time, Michel did not lean towards radical behaviorism and did not argue that the situation alone determines behavior, but insisted that personality traits are also important. He proposed a conditional model of the influence of personality traits or personal dispositions (Mischel, 1990; Wright & Mischel, 1987). This point of view assumes that behavior is determined not by global personality traits, but by how a person perceives himself in a particular situation. For example, a person who is usually shy with people may, under certain conditions, behave in an open, extroverted manner.

As with Rotter’s general prediction formula, predicting human behavior in Michel’s conditioned model is impossible without knowing the goals. While the trait theory insists that the global location of traits determines behavior, the conditioned model argues that behavior is largely shaped by the individual’s specific goals. For example, the traditional theory of personality traits suggests that people who have the trait of conscientiousness will, in most cases, try to behave conscientiously. Michel’s goal-based theory, on the other hand, argues that in a variety of situations, a conscientious person can use his conscientiousness, along with other cognitive-affective (cognitive-affective) processes, to obtain a specific result, that is, to achieve a goal.

Behavior prediction

For successful interaction in society, people need to somehow predict the behavior of others. To find out how this happens, Michel and Wright conducted a series of laboratory studies in the late 80s. They interviewed 8- and 12-year-olds, as well as adults, asking them to say everything they know about the «target» groups of children. Both adults and children noted the diversity in the behavior of other people, but adults were more specific about the conditions under which a particular behavior can take place. While the children limited their descriptions to words such as, «Charlie sometimes hits other kids,» adults gave more precise wording, such as, «Charlie fights when provoked.» These results confirm that people do indeed see the relationship between situation and behavior and that they intuitively follow Michel’s conditioned model of personality trait influence.

At the same time, these studies reaffirmed a previously identified trend in information processing, which Michel defined as the consistency paradox. The paradox is that not only ordinary people, but even professional psychologists intuitively believe in the relative consistency of human behavior, while direct experience proves that behavior is very diverse. It seems self-evident to many people that personal trait locations, such as aggressiveness, stinginess, punctuality, and the like, are global traits that explain much of our behavior. We choose a person for public office because they are allegedly honest, reliable, decisive and straightforward, employers and personnel managers are looking for employees who are punctual, loyal, cooperative, hardworking, organized and sociable. Many believe that such traits will manifest themselves over a long period of time and in a variety of situations. Michel (1990) argued that such people are, at best, half right. He acknowledged that some basic traits do remain the same for a long time, but denied that their manifestations can be generalized from one situation to another.

Michel became interested in behavioral predictions back in the 60s, while examining volunteers during his work as a consultant to the Peace Corps (his famous book Personality and Diagnostics was written on the basis of these data. Michel discovered that a three-person evaluation committee that had at its disposal information obtained using three different scales, could not reliably predict how successful the performance of people who were going to work as teachers in the Corps would be.The correlation between the committee’s judgments and the actual performance of teachers was no more than 20%.In his book, Michel argued that the correlation about 30% between different dimensions of the same personality trait, as well as between sets of traits and the resulting behavior, represents the smallest correlation value at which one can speak of a personality profile.Thus, a relatively low correlation between traits and behavior is the result of not low reliability diagnostic tools, and inconsistent behavior. According to Michel, specific behavior does not have a rigid connection with personal traits.

What do you need to know in order to predict the purposeful behavior of a person in a particular situation, without falling victim to the sequence paradox? From Michel’s point of view, the main thing is the interaction of situational variables and personality traits. Although behavior may sometimes appear inconsistent, understanding situational variables and personality traits helps to discover patterns of variation within relatively stable personality traits. In a simplified form, Michel’s predictive formula can be written as an expression in one of the programming languages:

If A Then X

Else If B Then Y

“If A then X; otherwise, if B then Y, where X and Y are reactions, and A and B are a combination of personality variables and the situation affecting the person.

Cognitive-affective system of personality.

According to Michel, apparent inconsistency in people’s behavior is potentially predictable, consistent behavior that reflects stable patterns of variation in behavior (patterns of variation) that exist within the individual. As a solution to the classic sequence paradox, Michel and Shoda (1995) proposed a cognitive-affective personality system that explains both the diversity of behavior in different situations and the stability of patterns. Cognitive-affective theory suggests that human behavior changes from situation to situation, but in a certain, predictable way.

For example, if someone is angry with his wife, he may react aggressively. However, if the same person is angry with his boss, he is likely to suppress his irritation and comply. Such behavior may seem inconsistent, because a person seems to respond differently to the same stimulus. But, from the point of view of cognitive-affective theory, irritation caused by different people is not the same stimulus. The behavior we have described is not inconsistent and may well reflect a pattern of reacting that is stable throughout a given person’s life. Such an interpretation, Michel and Shoda argue, resolves the consistency paradox by explaining both the persistently observed inconsistency in behavior and people’s intuitive belief that the personality traits of those around them are relatively stable.

If behavior were the result of a global arrangement of traits, then the behavior of the same person would not allow for great variation. In other words, being angry, this person would always react more or less the same, regardless of the specific situation. However, the long-term pattern of variation inherent in each of us testifies to the inadequacy of both behavioral situation theory (situation theory) and trait theory (trait theory). A variation scheme is an individual’s personal signature, that is, his consistent way of varying his behavior in certain situations. His characteristic personal signature remains stable in all situations, even if the specific behavior changes.

Cognitive-affective units.

To predict behavior in a particular situation and determine a personal autograph, Michel’s cognitive-affective theory ascribes to each individual a set of partially overlapping personality variables — cognitive-affective units (cognitive-affective units). These include competencies, goals and values, expectations, information encoding strategies, and emotional responses. In fact, cognitive-affective units include all psychological, social and physiological characteristics of people that cause them to interact with the environment in a relatively stable pattern of variation.

Competencies and self-regulatory strategies

The most stable social-cognitive units in time and in different situations are, according to Michel, cognitive competencies.

Michel (1973, 1990) used the term competencies to refer to the body of information we receive about the world and our relationship to it. By observing our own behavior and the behavior of others, we learn what we can do in a given situation and what we cannot do. Michel agrees with Bandura that we do not perceive all environmental stimuli, but instead selectively construct or generate our own version of the real world. Thus, we internalize a set of beliefs about our ability to do things, often in the absence of actual action. For example, a bright student can be sure that she is competent enough to do well in her final written exam, even if she does not know what exactly the tasks will be there.

One of the reasons for the apparent succession of traits is, according to Michel, the relative stability of «intelligence», the main trait underlying personal dispositions. It has been proven, he wrote, that cognitive competencies, as measured by the traditional IQ test, are the best predictors of the social and interpersonal relationships that a person builds, and thus give social traits some semblance of stability. Moreover, Mischel suggested that when non-traditional methods are used to assess intelligence, including the ability of a person to see alternative solutions to problems, an even greater degree of consistency found in other traits can be explained.

To control their own behavior through the goals they set for themselves and through the results of their actions (self-produced consequences), people use self-regulatory strategies (self-regulatory strategies). A person does not need external rewards and punishments to develop his behavior, we can set our own goals, and then reward or criticize ourselves, depending on how our behavior moves us towards these goals.

A self-regulatory system allows us to plan, shape, and implement certain behaviors, even when there is little or no outside support. Any person can successfully regulate his behavior in the face of an unfavorable and even hostile environment, and each of us is able to stick to his line without reinforcements from the environment, especially if we have our own (self-produced) goals and values ​​that are important to us. However, inappropriate goals and ineffective strategies to achieve them increase the level of anxiety and lead to defeat. This view is almost entirely consistent with Rotter’s concept of poor adaptation. Thus, according to Michel, people with inflexible, inflated goals may try very hard to achieve them, but the lack of competence and environmental support will not allow them to achieve their goals.

Encoding strategies

To transform external stimuli into personal constructs, including the concept of self (self-concept), view of other people and their own way of looking at the world, people use cognitive abilities. These methods of transformation are, in Michel’s terminology, people’s encoding strategies, that is, their methods of systematizing information received from external stimuli. Different people encode the same events in different ways, which explains individual differences in personal constructs. So, one person will get angry when he is offended, while another will prefer to ignore such an insult. In addition, the same person can encode the same events in different ways in different situations. For example, a person who usually views a phone call from a best friend as a good thing may, in some particular situation, perceive it as an annoying nuisance.

An individual’s coding strategies are one of the most important components of a personal signature, and their influence on behavior in a particular situation cannot be underestimated.

Expectations and Beliefs

Like Rotter, Michel pays great attention to the concepts of expectations (expectancies) and beliefs (beliefs), and beliefs partly correspond to Rotter’s concept of generalized (generalized) expectations. In his theory, Michel identifies two types of expectations — expectations of the result of behavior and expectations of the consequences of the stimulus. In any situation, there are a huge number of potential behaviors, but how people actually behave depends on their expectations and beliefs about the consequences of each of the possible ways they behave. Knowing a person’s assumptions and beliefs about the likely outcomes of his actions is better at predicting his behavior than knowing what he actually knows how to do.

When a person has no information about what his actions will bring him, he implements the behavior that received the strongest reinforcement in past similar situations. Using previous experience and observation of others, a person learns to implement those modes of behavior in which he expects to receive the subjectively most valuable result. For example, a college student who has never taken a final written exam nevertheless has experience preparing for other exams. Which actions she has taken in the past to prepare for exams have led to the most valuable result for her will partly affect how she prepares for the final written exam. If the relaxation techniques she used in preparation worked well before, she will expect similar techniques to be helpful this time as well. Michel (1973, 1990) called this type of expectation behavior-outcome expectancy.

The second type of expectation is stimulus-outcome expectancies, which refer to «a set of combinations of stimuli that limit the possible outcomes of any behavior pattern» (Mischel, 1973, p. 271). Stimulus consequence expectations help us predict what events might occur after a particular stimulus appears. Probably the most obvious example would be the expectation of thunder after the appearance of lightning (stimulus) in the sky. Michel considers expectations of the consequences of a stimulus to be an important parameter for understanding classical conditioning. For example, a child who is used to associating pain with certain circumstances becomes frightened and starts crying when he sees a nurse with a syringe.

As we have already pointed out, predicting the behavior of others is necessary for the normal functioning of a person in society. And the main reason for mispredictions is our false expectations. Moreover, Michel (1990) believes that one of the reasons for the inconsistency of our own behavior is our inability to predict the behavior of other people. We attribute personal traits to others without much hesitation, but when we notice that their behavior does not match those traits, we become less sure about how to respond to these people. Our behavior can be constant in different situations as long as our expectations do not change. But our expectations are not constant, they change because we are able to recognize and evaluate the many possible reinforcers in a given situation.

Goals and values

The fourth cognitive-affective unit is, according to Michel, subjective goals, values ​​and preferences. Unlike behaviorists, Michel believes that humans are active and purposeful beings. They do not react to situations reflexively, but formulate goals, develop a plan to achieve these goals, and partly create the situations they find themselves in.

“Even if people had the same expectations, they would probably choose different ways of behaving, because they have different subjective values ​​for the results they expect” (Mischel, 1973, p. 272).

Even if people have largely similar experiences and are in the same situation, they may choose different behavioral strategies because they pursue different goals. For example, two college students may have the same academic ability and the same expectations about their possible success if they continue their education at some higher educational institution. However, the former places more value on gaining a place in the labor market than on going to university, while the latter prefers to continue their studies rather than start their careers immediately. The two may have very similar college experiences, but because their goals are different, they make vastly different decisions.

Values, goals and interests, and personal preferences belong to the category of cognitive-affective units that can evoke emotions in a person. According to Michel’s theory, it is this factor that gives them relatively high stability. For example, a person may have a negative attitude towards a certain dish, because he associates it with the nausea he once experienced when he ate a similar dish. In the absence of counter conditioning, this aversion will persist because certain foods evoke strong emotion. Similarly, patriotic values ​​can remain the same throughout life because they are associated for a person with positive emotions such as security, home attachment, and mother love.

Emotional reactions

In 1973, Mischel proposed a set of five overlapping personality variables to measure behavior. These personality variables shifted the emphasis from what a person has (for example, from global traits) to what he does in a particular situation. Moreover, like Rotter’s definition of behavior, what a person does includes not only direct actions, but also such cognitive and affective (that is, emotional) qualities as thinking, planning, the ability to feel and evaluate.

However, the primary set of personality variables did not cover all the psychological and physiological characteristics of people that are the cause of their interaction with the environment, and Michel had to supplement the list of the most important cognitive-affective units with emotional reactions. Emotional or affective responses include emotions, feelings, and psychological reactions. Michel and Shoda (1995) consider emotional reactions to be inseparable from the conditions in which they occur, and consider this combined cognitive-affective unit as the main one.

The importance of emotional reactions lies in the fact that they affect each of the cognitive-affective units. Michel and Shoda wrote about this (1995):

“Cognitive-affective representations are not discrete, unrelated units that simply elicit individual “reactions.” These cognitive representations and emotional states dynamically interact with each other and mutually influence each other, and this organization of relations between them forms the core of the personality structure that guides them and limits their impulses” (p. 253).

Emotional reactions do not exist in isolation. For example, our concept of ourselves includes certain positive and negative feelings (feelings). “I see myself as a capable psychology student and that makes me happy.” «I’m not very good at math and I don’t like it.» Similarly, our competencies and coping strategies, our beliefs and expectations, our goals and values ​​are colored by our emotional responses.

situational variables.

The second component necessary for predicting human behavior, in addition to cognitive-affective units, is situational variables (situational variables), which include all the stimuli that a person receives in a particular situation. In the process of behavior formation, situational variables interact with personal qualities. Michel (1973) argued that situations «affect behavior in so far as they affect such personality variables as the individual’s way of coding, his expectations, the subjective value of stimuli, or the ability to generate response patterns» (p. 276).

We can determine the relative influence of situational variables and personality traits by observing similarities and differences in the reactions of people in a given situation. When different people behave in much the same way, such as when watching an emotional scene in a thrilling movie, we conclude that situational variables are stronger than personality characteristics. On the other hand, at first glance, the same events can cause significantly different reactions when the qualities of the individual overlap the properties of the situation. For example, several workers may be fired in the same way, but their individual differences will lead to different behavior, depending on how much each of the fired workers feels the need to work, how confident he is in his qualifications, and how high he estimates his chances of finding another job.

The interaction of the situation and various personality traits plays a significant role in shaping behavior. In one experiment, for example, Michel and Staub (1965) studied the conditions that influence an individual’s choice of rewards and found that both the situation and individual expectations of success are important. The researchers first asked eighth-grade high school students to rate their expectations of success in solving problems that require the ability to reason logically and possess some general information. After the students completed a series of tasks, some of them were told that they had successfully completed the task, others were told that they had not completed the task, and still others received no information. They were then asked to choose between an immediate, but less valuable and inappropriate reward for their work, and a delayed, but more valuable and appropriate reward for their work. According to Michel’s interaction theory, students who were told they had done well on a previous similar task were more likely to expect higher rewards in line with their performance; those who were told that they had failed in the previous task preferred to choose an immediate, less valuable reward, and those who did not have any feedback made their choice based on their own perceptions of their capabilities. Thus, the students from the group that received no information, who initially had high expectations of success, made the same choice as those who believed that their previous job was successful, while those who initially had low expectations of success made the same choice as those who believed they had failed. Figure 2 illustrates how situational feedback interacts with success expectations influencing reward choices.

Rice. 25.1. Model used by Michel and Staub

Not only adults, but also children tend to use cognitive processes to transform complex situations into simpler ones. Michel and his former graduate student Bert Moore (1973) found that children are able to transform environmental events by focusing on selected aspects of the stimuli they receive. In their delay gratification experiments, children who were simply shown a picture of a reward (a treat or a small amount of money) were able to wait longer for the reward than those who were encouraged to cognitively construct (imagine) the real reward by looking at the picture. Previous studies (Mischel, Ebbesen, & Zeiss, 1972) have shown that children who are shown a real reward during the waiting period have a harder time waiting than those who do not see the reward. These two scientific papers proved that, at least in some situations, the cognitive transformation of a stimulus can have the same effect as the stimulus itself.

Michel and Ebbson (1970) found that children can use their cognitive abilities to transform an unpleasant situation of waiting for a reward into a more pleasant one. During a study on gratification delay, kindergarten children were announced that they would receive a small reward after a short period of time and a larger one if they could wait longer. The children who thought about the promised pleasure had more difficulty waiting, while those who were able to wait the longest used various forms of self-distraction to avoid thinking about the reward. They looked the other way, closed their eyes, or sang songs in order to turn an unpleasant expectation into a more pleasant situation.

This discovery prompted Michel and Moore (Moore, 1973) to use the symbolic representation of the reward to test how waiting time would change. They taught children to imagine that the real reward is a picture and that the picture is a real pleasure. They found that cognitive representations (i.e., what children picture in their heads) have more of an effect on how far children can delay their gratification than actual rewards. Children who saw a real reward but imagined it to be a picture were able to wait for a long time, while those who saw a picture but imagined it to be real could not wait that long. It was the results of the research that led Michel to the conclusion that both the situation and various cognitive-affective components play a role in shaping behavior.

Chapter results.

To describe human behavior, Michel developed a conditioned model that assumes that people’s behavior is largely determined by their perception of themselves in specific conditions.

“People react differently in different situations, and the previously recognized sequence of traits is a myth. Michel does not deny the existence of stable patterns of behavior, but believes that one should not rely on them alone to explain behavior. Michel’s theory does not view behavior as derived from stable, global personality traits.

— Behavior is shaped by the interaction of cognitive-affective units and situational variables. The most important cognitive-affective units include competencies and self-regulatory strategies (what a person can do and his strategies for doing these actions), coding strategies (the way information is understood and systematized), expectations and beliefs about the possible consequences of one’s behavior, as well as goals. and values ​​and emotional responses.

Key concepts.

Cognitive-affective units. All psychological, social and physiological characteristics of people that cause them to interact with the environment in a relatively stable pattern of variation. The cognitive-affective units include: competencies and self-regulatory strategies, coding strategies, expectations and beliefs, goals and values, emotional reactions.

Personal signature. A consistent way for a person to vary their behavior in certain situations. A person’s characteristic signature remains stable in all situations, even if their behavior changes.

Conditional model of the influence of personality traits (Conditional model). A point of view put forward by Michel, suggesting that behavior is determined not by global personality traits, but by how a person perceives himself in a particular situation.

Stimulus-outcome expectancies. A set of combinations of stimuli that limit the possible results of the execution of any behavior pattern.

Consistency paradox. Intuitive belief in the relative consistency of human behavior resulting from known personality traits, while direct experience proves that behavior is very diverse.