A situation is a set of fleeting(Lasting for very short time), dynamic, and momentary circumstances that do not lie within a person (i.e., they are neither own mental processes nor own behavior), but in their surroundings. Rauthmann, 2015 Or Situation constitutes everything that is outside the person. A person (Psychologically ) is made up of goals, motives, values, interests, skills, abilities, etc., Situations are everything else, including other people. Every thought, feeling, desire, and behavior is embedded in a situation. Three different kinds of situational information provide a lens to define situation : Cues Characteristics Classes

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Situations and SSB Part 1
Ref- The Situation of Situation Research: Knowns and Unknowns
By
John F. Rauthmann & Ryne A Sherman

2. Introduction
 A situation is a set of fleeting(Lasting for very short time), dynamic, and
momentary circumstances that do not lie within a person (i.e., they are
neither own mental processes nor own behavior), but in their
surroundings.
Rauthmann, 2015
Or
 Situation constitutes everything that is outside the person.
 A person (Psychologically ) is made up of goals, motives, values,
interests, skills, abilities, etc.,
 Situations are everything else, including other people.
 Every thought, feeling, desire, and behavior is embedded in a
situation.
 Three different kinds of situational information provide a lens to define
situation :
 Cues
 Characteristics
 Classes

3. cues
 The situation consists of objectively quantifiable stimuli, so-called
cues (e.g., Pictures ,Words ,SRTs ,GTO tasks,IO’s questions (In
SSB),illumination, noise, persons ,trees, animals, books, etc.)
 It may be perceived and interpreted by a person, yielding
psychological situation characteristics (e.g., whether work needs to
be done, how intellectually stimulating a situation is, etc.).
 Different situations may be grouped together into classes (e.g.,
medical situations, travel situations, happy situations, etc.) based on
their
similarities regarding cues and/or characteristics.
 Noftle and Gust (2015) summarized cue-related “w-questions” (Who?
What?Where? When? ) in the acronym of PEARLS:
 Persons (other persons),
 Events (anything happening),
 Activities (what others are doing),
 Roles (social and formal roles of people),
 Location (space and time), and
 States (mental states of the self and others),

4. Major psychological characteristics of situations
 Characteristics(are the perceived qualities or attributes of situations)
 Contain psychologically important interpretations and meanings.
 Allow for a differential psychology of situations where each
situation can be described and compared on continuous
dimensions like personality of a person.
 The Riverside Situational Q-Sort has 81 to 90 items to assess situation
characteristics.
 Characteristics are psychologically meaningful interpretations of situations
formed from single or multiple cues once they have been implicitly or
explicitly processed.
 One taxonomy of situation characteristics called The Situational Eight
DIAMONDS are
 Duty (Does work need to be done?)
 Intellect (Is deep cognitive information processing required?),
 Adversity (Is someone under threat?),
 Mating (Does the situation involve romantic potential?),
 Positivity (Is the situation enjoyable?),
 Negativity (Could the situation cause emotional turmoil?),

5. Situation Perception Dimensions or Domains
 A six-factor solution –referred e as the “Replicable Six” –
seems to materialize from empirical and conceptual overlaps
between the different dimensions (see Rauthmann et al.,
2020b). These may be:
● I (Threat: Does the situation pose a threat, problem,
obstacle, risk, or danger to me or others?)
● II (Stress: Does the situation yield distress or frustration?)
● III (Tasks: Does the situation involve tasks, work, or jobs that
need to be done?)
● IV (Processing: Does the situation call for intellectual
engagement?)
● V (Fun: Does the situation allow for a good time?)
● VI (Mundaneness: Does the situation involve routine,
automaticity, or repetition?)
Notably, the first five dimensions correspond in content quite
well to “Big Five”personality traits (i.e., disagreeableness,

6. Convergence between person and Situation Perception Dimensions
 There may be different reasons for this content convergence
between person and situation perception dimensions, such as
that
 (a) people form perceptions of situations as if they were
coherent entities, leading to similar judgment patterns
(Rauthmann & Sherman, 2019);
 (b) human perception modules for judging persons and
situations have evolved similarly, and the same cognitive and
effective mechanisms apply for both person and situation
perception (Nystedt, 1981); and/or
 (c) people understand situations in terms of the persons present,
their
personalities, and their social effects (Asendorpf, 2020).
 Six domains could mean that we are progressing towards a
consensual and reasonably comprehensive taxonomy (Scheme of
Classification)of situation characteristics dimensions.
Exact structure of situation characteristics still remains to

7. Figure 1. Overview of Seven taxonomies(Scheme of
Classification) of situation characteristics and Possible Common
Structure
Situation Perception Dimensions Emperical taxonomies
Diamonds (1) B-5(2)
I Threat Adversity Dominance
Deception Aggression
II Stress Negativity Negative Affect
III Tasks Duty Achievement
IV Processing Intellect Situation Stress
V Fun Mating Positive Affect
pOositivity
Sociability
VI Mundaneness

8. Figure 1. Overview of Major Dimensions in Situation
Characteristics Taxonomies and Possible Common Structure
Situation Perception
Dimensions
Lexical (Relating to vocabulary of language)
taxonomies
CAPTION(3)(English) SIT 5(4)(German) SIT
6(5)(Hebrewas)
I Threat -ve Valence Psych &Phy Load Oddness
II Stress Adversity Cognitive Load -ve
Demandingness
III Tasks Importance Outcome
expectancy
Straightforwardn
ess
IV Processing Complexity Cognitive Load
V Fun +ve Valence Briskness Positivity
Humour

9. Figure 1. Overview of Major Dimensions in Situation
Characteristics Taxonomies and Possible Common Structure
Situation Perception Dimensions Theory taxonomy
SAAP (6) SIS(7)
I Threat Disease
Avoidance
Information
Certainity
II Stress Self Protection
III Tasks Future
Interdependences
IV Processing
V Fun Mate Seeking Interdependednes
s
Mate retentivity
Affiliation
Kin Care
Status
VI Mundaneness

10. Notes for taxonomy
 Empirical = taxonomy was created bottom-up (data-driven, e.g., via factor
analyses).
 DIAMONDS
 B5 (Big Five) Framework
 Lexical = taxonomy was created with adjectives as
descriptors of situations’ characteristics.
 CAPTION (with English adjectives)
 Situation 5 (with German adjectives)
 Situation Six (with Hebrew adjectives)
 Theory = taxonomy was created based on a theory.
 SAAP (Situational Affordances for Adaptive Problems; use of
evolutionary theory)
 SIS (Situational Interdependence Scale; use of interdependence theory)
 Future research will have to examine the exact position of each dimensions (and
taxonomy) within the proposed super-structure.
Domains I to VI denote the tentative “Replicable Six”: I = Threat, II = Stress, III =
Tasks, IV = Processing, V = Fun, VI = Mundaneness. The labels chosen here are

11. Classes.
 Classes are types of situations that are grouped together because
they tend to share similar constellations, or patterns, of
characteristics.
 Van Heck (1984) identified 10 classes of situations:
 Interpersonal conflict,
 Joint working and information exchange,
 Intimacy and interpersonal relations,
 Recreation,
 Traveling,
 Rituals,
 Sport,
 Excesses,
 Serving, and
 Trading.
(Though valuable, little has been done to follow up on these ideas
and insights.)
 Classes of situations are useful to describe and exchange
information about situations they have experienced.

12. Classes.
 For example, if your friend tells you they were “in a meeting with the
boss,” you have an idea of what that situation (work) is typically like.
 While situation classes can quickly convey large chunks of
situational information, they often leave many important
characteristics unspecified.
 That is, while “a meeting with the boss”
 Almost certainly involves Duty,
 It is not clear if the situation also involves
 Intellect (does one need to think hard?),
 Adversity (is the boss criticizing me?),
 Mating (is the boss making a pass at me?),
 Positivity (am I being praised for good work?),
 Negativity (is information about pending layoffs looming?),
 Deception (can I trust what my boss is saying?), or
 Sociality (is it just socializing about family and life?).
 Though classes are useful in everyday conversation but the most
scientifically productive way to study and measure situations—is at the

13. Situation Information of TAT Pictures
TAT Pic Cues
(PEARLS
)
Characteristic
s Taxonomy
“Replicable Six”
Perception
Dimensions
Class
Person
ADVESITY Threat Travelling
State
Negative Stress Intimacy and
interpersonal
relations,
Activity
Duty Task Trading
Role Role Intellect Serving
Event
Sociability Fun Joint working and
information
exchange
Location
Deception Processing Excesses

14. Situation Information of TAT Pictures
WAT Cues
(PEARLS
)
Characteristic
s Taxonomy
“Replicable Six”
Perception
Dimensions
Class
ABILITY Role Intellect Task Joint working and
information
exchange
DIRTY State Negativity Stress Rituals
ADULT Person Duty Task Joint working and
information
exchange
AFRAID Activity Adversity Threat Interpersonal
conflict
ACCEPT State Sociality Mundaneness Intimacy
DISLIKE State Negativity Stress Excesses
COMPEL Activity Negativity Tasks Interpersonal
conflict
ANGRY State Negativity Stress Interpersonal