A cognitive-affective system theory of personality: reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure.

@article{Mischel1995ACS,
  title={A cognitive-affective system theory of personality: reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure.},
  author={W. Mischel and Y. Shoda},
  journal={Psychological review},
  year={1995},
  volume={102 2},
  pages={
          246-68
        }
}
A theory was proposed to reconcile paradoxical findings on the invariance of personality and the variability of behavior across situations. For this purpose, individuals were assumed to differ in (a) the accessibility of cognitive-affective mediating units (such as encodings, expectancies and beliefs, affects, and goals) and (b) the organization of relationships through which these units interact with each other and with psychological features of situations. The theory accounts for individual… Expand
View on PubMed
psych.colorado.edu
2,852 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
153
Background Citations
1,208
Methods Citations
189
Results Citations
77

Figures, Tables, and Topics from this paper

2,852 Citations

Citation Type

Citation Type

Conceptualizing Personality as a Cognitive-Affective Processing System: A Framework for Models of Maladaptive Behavior Patterns and Change.
This article outlines a conceptualization of personality as a cognitive-affective processing system (CAPS) and explores its implications for understanding disorders and pursuing therapeutic change.… Expand
Reconciling processing dynamics and personality dispositions.
TLDR
Recent findings demonstrating a previously neglected but basic type of personality stability allow a reconceptualization of classic issues in personality and social psychology and facilitates the reconciliation within a unitary framework of dispositional (trait) and processing (social cognitive-affective-dynamic) approaches that have been separated. Expand
The Emergence of Personality: Dynamic Foundations of Individual Variation.
Abstract We conceptualize personality and individual variation from the perspective of dynamical systems. People’s thoughts, feelings, and predispositions for action are inherently dynamic,… Expand
Personality as a Dynamical System: Emergence of Stability and Distinctiveness from Intra and Interpersonal Interactions
The implications of conceptualizing personality as a cognitive-affective processing system that functions as a parallel constraint satisfaction network are explored. Computer simulations show that… Expand
Advancing the Assessment of Personality Pathology With the Cognitive-Affective Processing System
TLDR
It is suggested that the CAPS model is an ideal framework that integrates a number of current theories of personality pathology, and simultaneously overcomes anumber of limits that have been empirically identified in the past. Expand
Intraindividual stability in the organization and patterning of behavior: incorporating psychological situations into the idiographic analysis of personality.
TLDR
The intraindividual organization of behavior variation across situations was enduring but discriminatively patterned, visible as distinctive profiles of situation-behavior relationships. Expand
Personality, emotion, and individual differences in physiological responses
TLDR
The interactionistic conceptualization of traits as dispositions moderated the personality-physiology relationships for measures of both central and peripheral nervous system activity and the implications of the interactionistic approach for biopsychological personality research are outlined. Expand
Reconciling contextualism with the core assumptions of personality psychology
A core assumption of personality is that individuals are characterized by qualities that are relatively invariant across situations and over time. Historically, this led to a search for evidence of… Expand
The Cognitive‐Affective Processing System
Mischel and Shoda's Cognitive Affective Personality System (CAPS) theory revolutionized thinking about personality. We review the functional utility of the CAPS perspective in light of the purposes… Expand
Integrating personality, context, relationship, and emotion type into a model of display rules
Abstract This research sets out to examine individual variations in perceptions of display rules. Based upon Mischel and Shoda’s [Mischel, W., & Shoda, Y. (1995). A cognitive-affective system theory… Expand
...
1
2
3
4
5
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 263 REFERENCES
Toward a cognitive social learning reconceptualization of personality.
  • W. Mischel
  • Psychology, Medicine
  • Psychological review
  • 1973
TLDR
The issues discussed include the nature of behavioral "specificity," the acquired meaning of stimuli, the uses and misuses of traits, and the construction of personality. Expand
Intraindividual stability in the organization and patterning of behavior: incorporating psychological situations into the idiographic analysis of personality.
TLDR
The intraindividual organization of behavior variation across situations was enduring but discriminatively patterned, visible as distinctive profiles of situation-behavior relationships. Expand
Links Between Personality Judgments and Contextualized Behavior Patterns: Situation-Behavior Profiles of Personality Prototypes
Research on personality judgment traditionally has assumed that the perceiver is guided intuitively by an implicit theory of global situation-free dispositions. In contrast, the cognitive social… Expand
Cognitive Strategies as Personality: Effectiveness, Specificity, Flexibility, and Change
As units of personality, cognitive strategies describe how individuals use self-knowledge and knowledge about the social world to translate their goals into behavior. The concept of a strategy… Expand
A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality
Past work has documented and described major patterns of adaptive and maladaptive behavior: the mastery-oriented and the helpless patterns. In this article, we present a research-based model that… Expand
Toward an interactional psychology of personality.
TLDR
An analysis of the controversy between the traits model and the interactional model suggests that the trait model is limited as a basis for use in description and prediction of behavior and as a general basis for personality research. Expand
Cognitive Social Approach to Dispositional Inferences: What if the Perceiver is a Cognitive Social Theorist?
In most research on personality inferences, it is assumed that perceivers are guided implicitly by the intuitive, lay counterpart of a global trait theory of personality. This article explores, in… Expand
Implicit Theories Individual Differences in the Likelihood and Meaning of Dispositional Inference
In their research, the authors have identified individuals who believe that a particular trait (intelligence, personality, or moral character) is a fixed disposition (entity theorists) and have… Expand
Episode cognition and personality: A multidimensional analysis
The aim of the present study was to examine the relation between personality variables and the way an individual cognitively represents and interprets various interaction situations. A sample of… Expand
Global Traits: A Neo-Allportian Approach to Personality
This paper outlines a theory of global traits based on the seminal writings of Gordon Allport and 50 years of subsequent empirical research. Personality research needs to refocus on global traits… Expand
...
1
2
3
4
5
...