Behavior as a function of the situation.

B oston U niversityT he pow er of several w ell-know n and im portant situational factors to affect be-havior is assessed in term s usually reserved for m easuring pow er of disposi-tions. T he linear effects of incentive for counterattitudinal advocacy on attitudechange, of degree of hurry and num ber of onlookers on bystander intervention,and of proxim ity of authority and victim on obedience average slightly lessthan .40. T his m agnitude is quite com parable to that of im portant dispositionaleffects.T he com parative pow er of dispositionsversus situations to provide an account ofbehavior is an issue that has polarized thefield of personality and social psychology forseveral years. T his polarization has persisteddespite existence of a numbe r of studiesthat allow a com parative exam ination ofvariance com ponents and show extrem edispositional and extrem e situationalview to be equally lacking in em pirical sup-port (B ow ers, 1973; S arason, S m ith, G olding, 1975; O lw eus, 1977).N or has insight that both situational andpersonal factors can vary w idely in their abil-ity to affect behavior had m uch influenc e to-w ard m oderating controversy (cf. S nyder& Ickes, in press). R ather, it appears thatman y personality and social psychologistsw ould still endorse M ischel's (1968) assertionthat the initial assum ptions of trait-statetheory . . . sim ply have not been supportedadequately (p. 147) and believe that situa-tional factors generally overw helm disposi-tional ones in determ ination of behavior.