fei75766_ch18_569-609.indd 601  02/24/20 10:50 AM
Chapter 18     Rotter and Mischel: Cognitive Social Learning Theory601
Control Scale (Trice, 1985; e.g.,“College grades most often reflect theeffort you
putintoclasses,” “There aresome subjects inwhich Icould never dowell”) andthe
Higher Education Values Inventory (Luttrell &Richard, 2011), which assess the
importance anindividual places onhigher education (e.g., “Imust dowellinschool 
tosatisfy myfamily”). 
Results showed, inlinewithpredictions, aninverse relationship between 
internalized racial oppression andthevalue participants placed onhigher education 
regardless ofgender. However, andinterestingly, thepositive relationship between 
internalized racial oppression andacademic locus ofcontrol wasonlysignificant for
young men. Inother words, African American menwhointernalized more racially 
oppressive beliefs weremore likely tofeelthattheydidnothavecontrol overtheir
academic outcomes atthecollege level, andthus, placed lessvalue andimportance 
onhigher education. Brown andhercolleagues concluded thatthere ismuch focus on
thelower academic achievement ofAfrican American boysandmenwithout under -
standing thefactors thatcontribute totheirbeliefs about theircapacity forsuccess. 
Interventions toincrease participation inhigher education inthispopulation should 
address theperniciousness ofinternalized racist stereotypes toengender amore inter-
nallocus ofcontrol inacademic settings. 
Person-Situation Interaction
Walter Mischel hasconducted agreat dealofresearch onthecomplexities associ -
atedwithpersonality, situations, andbehavior. Hisresearch andtheory ofcognitive 
social learning hasgenerated evenmore research bymany scholars inthefield. Per-
hapsthemost important ofthese hasbeen theresearch ontheperson-situation inter-
action. Theessence ofthisapproach issummed upbythecontextual contingency 
between behavior andcontext inthestatement “IfIaminthissituation, thenIdo
X;butifIaminthatsituation, thenIdoY.”Aswediscussed inthesection onthe
cognitive-affective personality system, Mischel andShoda developed conceptual and
empirical methods ofinvestigating theperson-situation interaction bysimply having 
participants respond toif-then situations. 
Inarecent study, elegant initssimplicity, oneofMischel’s students, Lara
Kammrath, andhercolleagues demonstrated the“If...then...”framework very
clearly (Kammrath, Mendoza-Denton, &Mischel, 2005). Thegoalofthestudy was
toshow thatpeople understand theif-then framework anduseitwhen making judg-
ments about others. Participants inthisstudy weregiven justonetraitofafictional 
female student andthenasked topredict howwarmly thestudent would behave in
several different situations. Thesingle traitdescriptor eachparticipant received was
determined randomly from thefollowing list:friendly, akiss-up, flirtatious, shy,or
unfriendly. With justoneofthese traits inmind, participants thenhadtopredict how
thefictional student would behave withpeers, withprofessors, withwomen, with
men, withfamiliar people, andwithunfamiliar people.
What theresearchers found perfectly supported theif-then framework of
person-situation interactions. Forexample, when thetraitdescriptor forthefictional 
student waskiss-up, participants predicted thatshewould actverywarmly toward 
professors butnotexceptionally warmly toward peers. Inother words, ifthetarget of
theinteraction wasofahighstatus (professor), thenthestudent wasverywarm; butFinal PDF to printer