title: Situation Change: Stability and Change of Situation Variables between and within Persons.
abstract: When, how, and why situations flow into one another is important for understanding dynamic personality processes, but the topic of situation change has traditionally been a thorny issue in personality/social psychology. We explore conceptual and methodological issues in research on situation change: (1) What is situation change, which variables could we measure, and how can situation change be methodologically captured and analyzed (at between- and within-person levels)? (2) Which person-situation transaction mechanisms (situation management strategies) could entail stability and change of situations in daily life? (3) How do single or repeated instances of situation change impact short-, middle-, and long-term outcomes (e.g., intra- and interpersonal adjustment)? Besides laying out a research program for situation change, we present preliminary data from participants who wore mini-video cameras recording their situations so that they could be rated later in the lab. We demonstrate rater consensus on when situations change, mean-level changes of situation characteristics across situations, similarity of situation characteristics across adjacent situations, and inter-individual differences in intra-individual situation change in change networks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Personality Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: John F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Rauthmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL, USA.
authors.forename: Ryne A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Sherman
keywords: Situational Eight DIAMONDS; individual differences; person-situation transactions; situation change; situation management strategies; situations