What use is the analysis of social situations? Many social problems, such as various kinds of law-breaking and mental disorder, have nearly always been tackled by attempts to modify the behaviour of individuals. We now know that situations and P × S interaction are at least as important as personality in explaining behaviour; it follows that we ought to be trying to modify situations as well as persons, or to match persons to situations better. With our new understanding of situations we are in a position to modify existing situations, and even to invent new ones. We are also in a better position to select people who are going to enter a situation (e.g. a job), and to train them to cope effectively in it.

Law-breaking

One of the earliest studies of the effect of the situation on behaviour, by Harteshorne and May (1928), showed that there was great situational variability and little individual consistency in twenty-four tests of cheating and stealing, in laboratory settings. There was, however, a minority of individuals who were unusually honest and another group who were exceptionally dishonest; for members of these two groups there was some consistency across situations. A later analysis of their data by Burton (1963) showed that a weak general factor was present. Nelsen, Grinder and Mutterer (1969), in a later study of honesty in temptation situations, found considerable person variance as well as situational variability.