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Environment and Behavior, Vol. 17, No. 2, 147-192 (1985)
DOI: 10.1177/0013916585172001

Toward a Theory of Situational Structure

Roy F. Baumeister

Case Western Reserve University.

Dianne M. Tice

The independent variables for all studies published in odd-numbered volumes of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology were recorded. The variables were then sorted on the basis of resemblance into an emerging scheme of categories. This procedure resulted in a list of 51 categories; this list arguably contains all dimensions of situational structure that have been shown to exert a significant effect on behavior. The 51 categories were then organized into a scheme of situational structure. The following 5 aspects of situational structure were suggested: the stimulus environment, which is comprised of the physical environment and the situation's temporal and spatial structure, as well as any social structure that is external to the subject; characteristics of the subject, which involve all relevant attributes of the subject as well as relevant prior experience; cognitive and affective dynamics, which involve the subject's attentional, interpretive, and emotional states and processes, as well as the subject's expectancies and goals; relationship background, which involves prior or incipient interactions between the subject and other people in the situation; and matrix of possibilities, which involves the range of behavioral alternatives available to the subject as well as the potential consequences and implications of various alternatives. The scheme is discussed in terms of issues of environmental psychology, especially environmental controllability.


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