 31. Persons, Situations, and Person–Situation Interactions  681
important research that takes seriously the 
concept of person–  situation interactions 
(e.g., for an extensive set of contributions by 
many of these researchers, see Rauthmann, 
in press). Such work may yield important 
new insights into what might be the most 
fundamental question in psychology: Why 
do people do what they do?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful for helpful comments from the 
Works in Progress Group with the Beacon Proj -
ect at Wake Forest University—  Will Fleeson, 
Eranda Jayawickreme, Mike Prentice, Christian 
Miller, Alan Wilson, Ashley Hawkins, and Lau -
ren Collier; errors and omissions that remain are 
the responsibility of the authors. Preparation of 
this chapter was aided by National Science Foun -
dation, Grant Nos. BCS-06422243 and BCS-
1052638, to D. C. Funder. Any opinions, find -
ings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed 
in this chapter are those of the authors and do 
not necessarily reflect the views of the National 
Science Foundation.
NOTE
1. The traditional interpretation, of course, is 
that the situational forces toward obedience (e.g., 
the experimenter’s orders) were stronger than dis -
positional forces toward disobedience (e.g., the 
participants’ tendencies to be empathic to the vic -
tim). However, it would be precisely as valid—and 
equivalently misguided—  to conclude that the dis -
positional forces toward obedience (e.g., the par -
ticipants’ conformist personalities) were generally 
stronger than situational forces toward disobedi -
ence (e.g., the victim’s protests).
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