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Situational strength interactions: Are variance patterns consistent with the theory?

Kathleen R Keeler¹, Wenmo Kong², Reeshad S Dalal²

¹School of Business.

The Journal of Applied Psychology

|May 24, 2019

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Mischel's situational strength theory suggests strong situations reduce outcome variance. However, this meta-analysis found minimal variance differences between strong and weak situations, often in the opposite direction than predicted.

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Area of Science:

Organizational Psychology
Management Science
Behavioral Economics

Background:

Mischel's situational strength theory posits that strong situations constrain dependent variable variance, weakening predictions.
Restricted variance (RV) interactions are a key aspect of situational strength theory.
Other theories implicitly reference variance compression due to situational autonomy.

Purpose of the Study:

To empirically test whether situational strength differences lead to predictable variance differences.
To examine how often RV effects are explicitly linked to variance changes in research.
To investigate the empirical support for variance compression in strong versus weak situations.

Main Methods:

Meta-analysis of 132 articles implying restricted variance effects.
Analysis focused on 100 articles that allowed for variance comparisons.
Review of theoretical arguments and interaction hypotheses concerning variance changes.

Main Results:

Few authors explicitly connect theoretical arguments to variance changes.
Variance differences between weak and strong situations are generally minimal.
When variance differences exist, they are often larger in "strong" situations, contrary to theory.

Conclusions:

The empirical evidence for variance compression in situational strength theory is weak.
Theoretical assumptions about variance differences in strong vs. weak situations require re-evaluation.
Recommendations are provided for future study design and testing of RV interactions.