680 vI. SELF‑ AND S OCIAL P ROCESSES
one or convince someone of something.” 
The assumption is that in a situation that 
is accurately described by this property, a 
skeptical and critical person has an excellent 
opportunity to act accordingly, whereas the 
opposite sort of person may reveal his or her 
gullibility.
The RSQ is proving useful for researchers, 
particularly those interested in understand -
ing both the separate and interactive effects 
of persons and situations. For example, one 
study using the RSQ found that individu -
als experience similar situations over time, 
compared to situations experienced by other 
people (Sherman, Nave, & Funder, 2010). 
Moreover, behavior is more consistent across 
similar situations, but personality charac -
teristics predict individual behavioral con -
sistency even after researchers statistically 
control for situational similarity. Similarly, 
researchers using the RSQ have begun to ex -
plore the nature and implications of various 
kinds of situational construals. In an experi -
mental study, participants used the RSQ to 
describe situations portrayed on video clips. 
Construing a situation “distinctively” (i.e., 
differently from most other observers), was 
associated with personality attributes in -
cluding neuroticism and openness (Todd & 
Funder, 2012). A larger, experimental study, 
which placed participants in three video- 
recorded three-  person interactions, found 
that that personality is associated with how 
positively people construe the situations they 
experience, and that this positivity is associ -
ated with beneficial social outcomes, such as 
being liked (Morse, Sauerberger, Todd, & 
Funder, 2015). Similarly, in a separate study, 
Morse, Sweeny, and Legg (2015) found that 
personality traits predicted how people con -
strued their medical visits, and more posi -
tive construals were associated with better 
health outcomes. All these studies suggest 
that focusing on the good rather than the 
bad aspects of situations can be advanta -
geous, although the limits to this advantage 
remain to be explored.
These findings reflect fundamental points 
regarding personality, situations, and be -
havior, but they had not been reported in 
the empirical literature before, because a 
method for assessing and comparing situa -
tions was previously unavailable. The RSQ 
and similar instruments offer psychologists new tools for pursuing important directions 
in personality theory and research.
Conclusion:  
Beyond  the Person–Situation  Interaction
It is easy, perhaps too easy, to view situa -
tional and dispositional causes of behavior 
as locked in opposition to each other. Except 
in extreme cases, they are not. Dispositions 
and situations both have important, robust 
main effects. Going beyond these main ef -
fects, dispositions and situations have pow -
erful interactive  effects on behavior.
But precisely how do dispositions and situ -
ations interact to determine what people do? 
How do people shape their environment? 
How does personality determine one’s inter -
pretation of situations? Which dispositions 
and which aspects of situations (specifically) 
affect which behaviors? The search for spe -
cific answers to these question, and other 
interactional types of questions addressed in 
this chapter, lays out a formidable research 
agenda.
Importantly, this agenda goes beyond 
person–  situation interactions to the three 
interactions derived from the personality 
triad  of persons, situations, and behaviors, 
in which any element of the triad can be 
conceptualized in terms of the other two 
(Funder, 2006; also see Bandura, 1978). Be -
havior can be seen as a function of the per -
son and the situation, as we have discussed 
in this chapter. In addition, a person can be 
seen in terms of the behaviors he or she per -
forms in all the situations of his or her life 
(cf. Mischel & Shoda, 1995), and a situa -
tion, psychologically, can be conceptualized 
in terms of the behaviors that different peo -
ple perform in it (cf. Bem & Funder, 1978). 
Another way to summarize these points is 
in the classic terms used by Lewin (1951): 
It is true, as he observed, that behavior is a 
function of the person and the situation, or 
B = f (P,S). But it is also the case that P = f 
(B,S) and S = f (P,B). Pursuing the research 
implied by this conception moves the field 
of personality psychology far beyond the 
competitive tug between person and situa -
tion that has characterized so much of our 
history. Fortunately, many personality psy -
chologists are now conducting creative and 