I found this website that had the article "When Situations Not Personality Dictate Our Behavior". I thought that this article really fit in well with what we have been talking about in Motivation and Emotion. This article points out that we are readily able to judge other people on how they act. We take how they act as a direct view into their personality. However this is not the case, the situation in most cases overrides our personality and they are the deciding factor in how we react.
The article then gives proof of this through a study that was done. This study used students at Princeton Theological Seminary. All the students were first given a personality test. The students were also told that they were going to be delivering a speech to other students. The participants were then selected either to give a speech over career options that were available after graduation, or they were asked to give a speech about the Good Samaritan parable from the Bible. When the student was on their to give the speech they would pass a man lying down in a doorway with his eyes closed and him coughing. The researchers wanted to find out how many of the students would stop to help the man who was obviously in anguish. The researchers also added into the experiment how rushed the students were to give the speech. So they divided the students into three categories low, medium and high hurriedness. The results found were that when the students were not really in a hurry 63% stopped to help. When there was a medium hurriedness 45% stopped to help. Finally, when the students were in a real rush to give their speech only 10% stopped to help the man. Now there was a difference found between what type of speech the student was giving and what percentage stopped to help. When the student was just giving a speech over career opportunities only 29% stopped to help, and when they were giving a speech over the Good Samaritan 53% stopped to see if they could help.
This study that was done really helps to show that a situation more than personality can have an effect on how a person acts, and behaves.
You can find the full article at: http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/12/when-situations-not-personality-dictate-our-behaviour.php#more-8305
Leave a comment