560 Part VI Learning-Cognitive Theories
over life events and success is not due to luck or chance (as people with an exter-
nal sense of control would believe). To use Rotter’s language (Rotter, 1966), those
with internal controls are people who have a generalized expectancy that their acts
would be successful in saving the lives of their persecuted neighbors. Other vari-
ables Midlarsky and her colleagues examined were autonomy (having a sense of
independence), risk taking, social responsibility, authoritarianism (related to holding
prejudiced attitudes toward minority groups and the opposite of tolerance), empathy,
and altruistic moral reasoning (high levels of which require abstract reasoning
including the use of internalized values). All personality variables were measured
using standard self-report measures, and participants completed the measures, dur-
ing face-to-face interviews with one of the researchers in the participant’s home.
The researchers found that possessing an internal sense of control was posi-
tively related to all the personality variables measured, which means that those who
had a high sense of internal control also were more autonomous, took more risks,
had a stronger sense of social responsibility, were more tolerant (less authoritarian),
were more empathetic, and exhibited higher levels of altruistic moral reasoning.
To test their primary prediction that personality could predict hero status, the
researchers used a statistical procedure that allowed them to pool all the partici-
pants (heroes, bystanders, and the comparison sample of pre-war immigrants) and
then use each person’s scores on the personality variables to predict to which
category each participant belonged. In support of the researchers’ hypothesis, per-
sonality correctly predicted who was a hero and who was not 93% of the time,
which is a very high accuracy rate for this type of analysis.
Further analysis revealed that those who put their own life on the line to
assist their persecuted neighbors had a higher sense of internal control than those
who did not offer assistance. And this makes perfect sense: If a person has an
external sense of control, believing that the outcome of events is all chance, then
why would that person ever risk his or her own safety to take action to help ensure
the safety of others? Having a generalized expectancy that your actions will have
a positive effect, and that the outcome of events is not all chance, is a critical
element to being able to help others under extraordinary conditions.Person-Situation Interaction
Walter Mischel has conducted a great deal of research on the complexities associ-
ated with personality, situations, and behavior. His research and theory of cognitive
social learning has generated even more research by many scholars in the field.
Perhaps the most important of these has been the recent research on the person-
situation interaction. The essence of this approach is summed up by the contextual
contingency between behavior and context in the statement “If I am in this situa-
tion, then I do X; but if I am in that situation, then I do Y.” As we discussed
in the section on the cognitive-affective personality system, Mischel and Shoda
developed conceptual and empirical methods of investigating the person-situation
interaction by simply having participants respond to if-then situations.
In a recent study, elegant in its simplicity, one of Mischel’s students, Lara
Kammrath, and her colleagues demonstrated the “If... then.. .” framework
very clearly (Kammrath, Mendoza-Denton, & Mischel, 2005). The goal of the
study was to show that people understand the if-then framework and use it when