title: The Situational Eight DIAMONDS: a taxonomy of major dimensions of situation characteristics.
abstract: Taxonomies of person characteristics are well developed, whereas taxonomies of psychologically important situation characteristics are underdeveloped. A working model of situation perception implies the existence of taxonomizable dimensions of psychologically meaningful, important, and consequential situation characteristics tied to situation cues, goal affordances, and behavior. Such dimensions are developed and demonstrated in a multi-method set of 6 studies. First, the "Situational Eight DIAMONDS" dimensions Duty, Intellect, Adversity, Mating, pOsitivity, Negativity, Deception, and Sociality (Study 1) are established from the Riverside Situational Q-Sort (Sherman, Nave, & Funder, 2010, 2012, 2013; Wagerman & Funder, 2009). Second, their rater agreement (Study 2) and associations with situation cues and goal/trait affordances (Studies 3 and 4) are examined. Finally, the usefulness of these dimensions is demonstrated by examining their predictive power of behavior (Study 5), particularly vis-à-vis measures of personality and situations (Study 6). Together, we provide extensive and compelling evidence that the DIAMONDS taxonomy is useful for organizing major dimensions of situation characteristics. We discuss the DIAMONDS taxonomy in the context of previous taxonomic approaches and sketch future research directions.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Psychologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
authors.forename: John F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Rauthmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Universitat de Barcelona.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gallardo-Pujol
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California-Riverside.
authors.forename: Esther M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Guillaume
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California-Riverside.
authors.forename: Elysia
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Todd
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Rutgers University.
authors.forename: Christopher S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Nave
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University.
authors.forename: Ryne A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Sherman
authors.affiliation: Institut für Psychologie.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ziegler
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University.
authors.forename: Ashley Bell
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California-Riverside.
authors.forename: David C
authors.initials: DC
authors.lastname: Funder
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010551:Personality / Q000145:classification*; D011779:Q-Sort; D012919:Social Behavior