Walter Mischel Theory Of Personality

n 1968, personality psychologist Walter Mischel dropped a bomb on the field of personality psychology. In his book titled Personality and Assessment, Mischel ultimately concluded that personality does not exist (Funder, 2016). He argued that behavior is too inconsistent across situations to be characterized by broad personality traits, and differences in behavior are due to differences in situational factors rather than differences in personality. Mischel’s ideas were immediately met with criticism, and so the person-situation debate began. Although it may not be as prevalent, the question of whether personality or situations are more important in determining behavior exists until today. Like Mischel, NPR’s podcast, “The Personality Myth,” argues against personality stability, but one of the oldest theories of personality would argue for it.

In the podcast, Walter Mischel was the first to make his argument against personality stability. According to Mischel, personality is perceived as stable, because we want to believe that it is stable. To support his claims, he cites his own famous experiment called the Marshmallow Test as evidence. He concluded that people can change their behavior simply by thinking about or envisioning situations in a different way. Stanford Psychologist Lee Ross also made a case against personality stability. According to Ross, personality only seems stable, because situational factors are stable. When situational variables drastically change, so does personality. NPR cited Milgram’s obedience study as evidence. The most compelling case against the stability of personality was Dan. As a convicted rapist who now writes poems and plans and coordinates TED talks in prison, Dan insists that he is no longer the person who he was when he committed his crime. According to Dan, he changed his personality simply by changing his