Situational strength is defined as cues provided by environmental forces regarding the desirability of potential behaviors. Situational strength is said to result in psychological pressure on the individual to engage in and/or refrain from particular behaviors. A consequence of this psychological pressure to act in a certain way is the likelihood that despite an individual's personality, they will act in a certain manner. As such, when strong situations (situations where situational strength is high) exist, the relationship between personality variables (for example, extraversion or risk-taking behaviors) and behaviors is reduced, because no matter what the personality of the individual is, they will act in a way dictated by the situation. When weak situations exist, there is less structure and more ambiguity with respect to what behaviors to perform.
An example of a strong situation is a red traffic light. Traffic rules dictate how people are supposed to act when they see a red light, and this influence often prevents people from engaging in behaviors that are consistent with their personalities. For example, most people, no matter whether they are daring or cautious, will stop in front of a red traffic light. Therefore, one could not reasonably predict how a person would behave with personality in this situation.
In contrast, an example of a soft situation is a yellow traffic light because the most appropriate course of action is not especially well defined and norms are inconsistent. Thus, individuals who are more daring are likely to speed through the intersection on a yellow light, whereas cautious individuals are likely to stop.
Although it is difficult to formally express when situations restricting individual differences in personality began in psychology, work conducted by Carl Rogers suggested that certain individual differences are most likely to manifest themselves in situations where there is psychological freedom and safety, compared to situations where psychological freedom and safety do not exist. Additionally, Stanley Milgram argued that psychological forces of conflict may not be brought into play under diluted conditions. However, recent conceptualization and study of situational strength can be traced back to the work of Walter Mischel. In 1968, Mischel published his classic book, Personality and Assessment, where he argued that personality cannot be studied in a vacuum; instead, the complexity of human behavior and its determinants must be studied from a perspective that accounts for the simultaneous and interactive impact of individual differences and situational characteristics. It is important to note that Mischel did not imply that people show no consistencies in behavior, or that individual differences are unimportant. The major theme was rather that the trait approach to personality was not as sensitive to the influence of situations as it should have been.
In books and articles on the topic, Mischel stressed the importance of better understanding how, when, and why individual differences are most likely to be important predictors of behavior, and when they are more likely to be nullified by situational influences. Specifically, Mischel began laying the foundation for subsequent thought in this area by arguing that psychological "situations" and "treatments" are powerful to the degree that they lead all persons to construe the particular events the same way, induce uniform expectancies regarding the most appropriate response pattern, provide adequate incentives for the performance of that response pattern, and instill the skills necessary for its satisfactory construction and execution (p. 276). He further argued that individual differences are most likely to directly affect behavior "when the situation is ambiguously structured... so that subjects are uncertain about how to categorize it and have no clear expectations about the behaviors most likely to be appropriate (normative, reinforced) in that situation" (p. 276). Thus, he helped to lay the foundation for the general idea underlying what is now typically referred to as "situational strength" (or "situation strength").
Mischel's work led to an important shift in social scientists' thinking about the behavioral expression of personality. But, as some have recently argued, situational strength is too often viewed as being true without treating situational strength as a theoretical construct in need of conceptual development and empirical verification.
Meyer, Dalal, and Hermida argue that for theoretical understanding and practical application of situational strength to be advanced, at least three important issues must be addressed:
Four facets of situational strength have been identified:
In an empirical study, which incorporated vote-counting meta-analysis, it has been found that conceptualizations of situational strength that currently exist in psychological literature form an interaction with non-ability individual differences. Additionally, the effect size of the interaction effect was reasonably large.
Situational strength comes from perception of a behavior. A meta-analysis was performed by Bowling et al. to test the relationship of situational strength between job satisfaction and job performance. The results of this were that constraints and consequences both led to a negative relationship. Job satisfaction and job performance were more related to each other in strong versus weak situations. They found that situational strength had to be the mediator between the two. An example they provided is that an employer would use situational strength to understand that the more satisfied an employee is the better their performance is, and the opposite the less satisfied an employee is the worse their performance is. This holds true for most cases, with some limitations such as the employer holding the same job title as the employee and having a lower level of situational strength.[1]
Studies have shown that situational strength is related to counterproductive work behavior. Counterproductive work behavior can lead to being absent, stealing, fraud, aggression, and more. The increases in crime in the workplace has happened in every region. Counterproductive work behavior is usually considered unacceptable and can lead to harming others. Studies have found that the two traits most responsible for the effect of counterproductive work behavior are agreeableness and contentiousness. This was evident across many cultures. Continuousness has been found to be the trait with the strongest prediction rate on counterproductive work behavior. The influence of the trait is more likely to be stronger the weaker the situation. Group norms were also considered when the studies were performed. One of the results of the group norm study was that after seeing someone being rewarded for an action, the observer is more like to perform that same action expecting a reward.[2]
Self-promotion is frequently used in the workplace. This can be lying on a job application and having a high self-esteem. The act of self-promotion is often caused by the narcissism personality trait. A study was performed to test how situational strength ties into narcissism being used for self-promotion. The results showed that situational strength is not a moderator of narcissistic self-promotion. There was only resistance in strong situations, which is not enough to show that it plays a role in preventing it.[3]
Perhaps the most important implication of situational strength is that it is commonly believed to explain cross-situational variability in the criterion-related validity of non-cognitive individual differences. This suggests that psychology should not focus on whether personality constructs predict job performance but rather about the conditions under which they predict job performance. This also shows great practical implications for personnel selection because the criterion-related validity of individual differences may vary across different occupations. For instance, Meyer, Dalal, and Bonaccio found that occupation-level situational strength moderates the conscientiousness–performance relationship, such that conscientiousness better predicts performance in characteristically weak occupations than in characteristically strong occupations.
Another important implication revolves around the idea of person-environment fit. One of the core ideas expressed in the fit literature is that a mismatch between individuals' needs and environmental supplies can have deleterious effects on performance, attitudes, and health. Within the context of situational strength, some employees may view highly constraining environments as stifling and frustrating, whereas others may find the regimented and predictable nature of constraining environments to be comforting and relaxing. If these differences do in fact exist, this would suggest that employees' psychological reactions are partially a function of their individual differences profile and partially a function of the nature of the situation they are experiencing.
Two critical aspects of situational strength can be fruitful for future study: