Discovering the Second Side of the Coin
Integrating Situational Perception into Psychological Assessment
Within the last editorials, several issues directly related to manuscript rejections have been discussed. To this end, issues of validity (Ziegler, Booth, & Bensch, 2013; Ziegler & Vautier, 2014), item selection (Ziegler, 2014b), and the test construction process itself (Ziegler, 2014c; Ziegler & Bensch, 2013; Ziegler, Kemper, & Lenzner, 2015) were addressed. Goal of these endeavors was to influence the content and quality of the papers being submitted to the journal by providing general guidelines to authors. This editorial has a different goal. It sets out to demonstrate how research on situational perception affects psychological assessment. Providing some theoretical background, additional chances and challenges for psychological assessment are outlined. We thereby hope to attract submissions that take on these challenges and provide possible solutions, leading ultimately to an improvement of psychological assessment.
Some Theoretical Background
When looking back across the issues of the last few years it becomes evident that the vast majority of tests, questionnaires, and interviews portrayed in the European Journal of Psychological Assessment are aiming to capture interindividual differences between persons (Alonso-Arbiol & van de Vijver, 2010). Certainly, there is a lot of research supporting the notion that traits such as cognitive ability or personality predict important life outcomes (Poropat, 2009, 2014; Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner, Caspi, & Goldberg, 2007; Salgado, 1997). Thus, the work published is important and constitutes a cornerstone of psychological assessment. Nevertheless, when it comes to one of the main tasks of psychological assessment – the prediction of human behavior – this important and seminal work only covers one side of the coin. Most researchers would agree that behavior is influenced not only by personality but also by the situation a person is in (Funder, 2006). However, the other side of the coin, the influence of the situation on behavior, is oftentimes a blind spot when it comes to psychological assessment. There are few examples of papers in this journal, which tackle this issue from various perspectives (Breevaart, Bakker, Demerouti, & Hetland, 2012; Fahrenberg, Myrtek, Pawlik, & Perrez, 2007; Schmukle & Egloff, 2005; Steyer, Ferring, & Schmitt, 1992). However, despite the generally agreed upon theory that behavior is determined by personality and by the situation (Fleeson & Noftle, 2009; Funder, 2006; Mischel & Shoda, 1998; Mischel, Shoda, & Mendoza-Denton, 2002; Van Mechelen, 2009), assessments of situations are hard to obtain.
The Phenomenon
Figure 1 exemplifies the general phenomenon. In the beginning there is an everyday situation, in this case a discussion round. Our focus is on the person at the top of the right-hand side of the table. This person has a unique experience of the situation, that is, the information is filtered through his or her situational perception. The resulting behavior now depends on these influences and might, for example, either be the person taking a leading role in the discussion or remaining silent. 
The question of the importance of situational and personality factors in determining behavior is already quite old, considering the age of psychology as a science (e.g., Lewin, 1946). In fact, in 1975 Sarason, Smith, and Diener (1975) already provided an overview of the literature and summarized that there are small effects for all determinants of behavior, that is, the situation, the personality of the person, demographics, and interactions between these variables (also see Richard, Bond, & Stokes-Zoota, 2003). The important message from this research is that in order to predict interindividual differences in behavior more accurately, it is mandatory to cover both, the person and the situation side. The role of psychological assessment as pointed out above oftentimes is to predict how a person would behave in a situation or a class of situations comparable to the assessment situation. In other words, psychologists aim at predicting things like job success, educational success, or therapy success. To this end, questionnaires (Rowold & Kersting, 2008) or even assessment centers (Kolk, Born, & van der Flier, 2004) are designed. The mostly encouraging test-criterion correlations provide support for this approach in general. However, as we have also already said above, this is just one side of the coin. According to Figure 1, these tools help to assess personality. Yet, what about the situation?
In accordance with Figure 1, the general idea is that situational information is processed, reduced, and integrated into behavior planning. Figure 2 shows a simplified process model. In the beginning there are a number of situational stimuli which, given enough time, could all be named and described. However, based on information reduction processes, these stimuli are not only reduced but interpreted. This interpretation of the situation now interacts with the personality of a person resulting in behavior. Thus, it might be easier to conceive of the situational influence as the impact of situational perception (Ziegler, 2014a). The open question is whether situational perceptions are unique and idiosyncratic for each and every person or whether there are also general situational characteristics structuring this process. Only the existence of such an underlying nomothetic framework would allow providing assessments of situational perception easily applicable in psychologists’ everyday work. 
The Problem
The main reason why situation assessments are not easily obtained lies within the fact that there is no agreed upon definition of what a situation actually is – in other words, the lack of a situational taxonomy. Without such a definition it is almost impossible to define the nomological network of what is actually to be measured (Ziegler, 2014c) when talking about situations or situational perception. In a groundbreaking work Rauthmann et al. (2014) not only give an excellent overview of the general issue but also present a taxonomy of major situational characteristics, the DIAMONDS which is based on the Riverside Situational Q-Sort (Sherman, Nave, & Funder, 2010, 2012). In a recently published test, Ziegler (2014a) also suggests a taxonomy of situational perception which is called the Situation 5 that covers situational characteristics affecting behavior in the workplace.
For the DIAMONDS model a questionnaire version (Rauthmann & Sherman, 2015) as well as a short form (Rauthmann & Sherman, 2014) are freely available. Information regarding the RSQ can be found at www.internationalsituationsproject.com. Finally, the Situation 5 can be assessed with the Big Five Inventory of Personality in Occupational Situations (Ziegler, 2014a).
Thus, there are now tools that can be used to assess both sides of the coin. This is a major step forward on the way to provide a complete assessment underlying the prediction of behavior.
Possibilities and Challenges for Psychological Assessment
Assessing Situational Perception
With the existence of tools to measure situational perception based on a taxonomy it is now possible to assess both sides of the coin as shown in Figure 1, that is, personality and situational perception. So, we could say: Case closed. Unfortunately, it is not that easy. The tools mentioned so far use two different approaches to measuring situational perception. The RSQ and the DIAMONDS measures ask test takers to rate a specific situation (e.g., they are currently in or have recently been in). The definite advantage of this approach is that it can be applied to virtually all kinds of situations. However, in order to capture both sides of the coin, another tool is needed. The approach operationalized in the B5PS uses situational vignettes and asks test takers how they perceive this hypothetical situation and how they would behave. Based on the ratings, scores for the Situation 5 as well as the Big 5 can be obtained. However, such an approach has the disadvantage that only a limited number of hypothetical situations are used to measure situational perception. The B5PS tried to overcome this problem by using a large number of different work situations, which, however, affect test time. Clearly, the two different approaches are useful under different circumstances.
Thus, even though some assessment tools already exist, there is still a challenge for the field of psychological assessment to provide tools that are not only psychometrically sound but also easily adaptable to different kinds of assessment goals, for example, personnel selection or development, educational assessment, clinical assessment, or research.
Using Different Technologies
The tools mentioned above to assess situational perception use paper-pencil questionnaires or computerized questionnaires. However, considering the technological devices easily available now, other approaches seem viable and promising. For example, virtual reality has been used in psychological assessment related to personnel selection or forensic assessment (Aguinas, Henle, & Beaty, 2001; Mertens & Allen, 2008). Other promising approaches can be found in means of ambulatory assessment or experience sampling (Fahrenberg et al., 2007). There are even examples where personality and situational perception have been simultaneously assessed in an educational context (Frenzel, Pekrun, & Goetz, 2007; Goetz, Frenzel, Stoeger, & Hall, 2010; Nett, Goetz, & Hall, 2011).
Thus, ultimately, the contribution of psychological assessment to the person situation debate will be to improve the prediction of human behavior by providing psychometrically sound tools and methods.
Yet, even though some tools and a theoretical foundation already exist, a valuable contribution also has to overcome a number of further obstacles: The integration of situational perception in a prediction model, the differentiation between personality and situational effects (and their interaction), and finally the definition of appropriate criteria for successful validation.
Integrating Person and Situation in a Prediction Model
The first challenge lies within the assessment itself, or more specifically, within the theoretical underpinnings of the nomological network as already outlined above. As stated by Cronbach and Meehl (1955):
“1. Scientifically speaking, to ‘make clear what something is’ means to set forth the laws in which it occurs. We shall refer to the interlocking system of laws which constitute a theory as a nomological network.
2. The laws in a nomological network may relate (a) observable properties or quantities to each other; or (b) theoretical constructs to observables; or (c) different theoretical constructs to one another. These ‘laws’ may be statistical or deterministic.” (p. 290).
Taxonomies like the DIAMONDS or the Situation 5 can only be a first necessary step. However, the laws within the nomological net of personality and situational perception remain to be elaborated further. The leading question behind these elaborations from an assessment perspective should be how to integrate personality and situation (perception) when predicting behavior. Related to this is the question how studies that empirically test such prediction models have to look like in order to tease apart and test all the different contributions (person effect, situation effect, interaction). There are several theories which suggest integrating models and mechanisms. Of these the trait activation theory by Tett and Burnett (2003) is a good example for an assessment-related background. This theory defines situational circumstances under which interindividual differences in personality affect or do not affect job performance. There is empirical evidence supporting the model (Mussel & Spengler, 2015; Ziegler et al., 2014). At the same time, the model lacks a thorough integration of situational perception or situational taxonomies as outlined above.
Thus, a step necessary to advance psychological assessment is to integrate situational taxonomies with personality theories and derive concrete predictions of personality and situation main effects and interactions in predicting behavior. Testing these hypotheses with psychometrically sound measures will provide the framework under which psychological assessment of personality and situational perception can thrive.
Teasing Apart the Variance
Another substantial challenge will be to differentiate between person(ality) and situation (perception) effects in psychological assessment. Above we have stated that both contribute to the prediction of behavior, as does their interaction. The latter part makes it difficult to get a pure measure of either of both. Research on states has shown that the interaction between person and situation contributes substantially to the variance of trait assessments (e.g., Deinzer et al., 1995; Ziegler, Ehrlenspiel, & Brand, 2009). Thus, sophisticated measurement approaches as well as sophisticated modeling approaches are required to overcome this obstacle (Horstmann, 2015).
Choosing the Right Criterion
Another vital challenge to overcome lies on the side of the actual criteria. For example, in research on personnel selection it is often the goal to show that an assessment tool works across different jobs and job demands. However, accepting that there is a situational influence also means accepting a change in this general approach. The effect of the interaction between situational perception and personality also means that the main effects of either one can be moderated by the other one. In other words, there might be jobs in which personality trait A is predictive because the situations typical for this job often favor a specific situational perception, which fosters the manifestation of differences in trait A. This variance can now be measured and its influence on job success can be determined. Another job might favor completely different situational perceptions, which in turn hinder or even block the manifestation of interindividual differences in trait A. Without such manifestations there will be no variance which means that all test-criterion correlations are severely restricted. However, this seemingly negative result is not due to the incapacity of the trait measure to predict performance. Instead the zero correlation is due to picking the wrong situational circumstances for the test-criterion relation. Thus, validation strategies for psychological assessment tools need to take situational perceptions into account, not only as main effects improving the overall prediction but also as potential moderators. Of course, the same is true for validation studies of tools assessing situational perceptions and personality as moderator. Ziegler, Dietl, Danay, Vogel, and Bühner (2011) could show that specific cognitive abilities only predicted training success in specific jobs with specific situational demands. This example of the influence of person and situation on the validation of psychological assessment tools generalizes across the different fields of (applied) psychology.
The Task and the Call
Based on these arguments and ideas the task presenting itself to researchers working on the construction or validation of psychological assessment tools should be clear. It is vital to integrate situational perception into the validation strategy. This should ultimately not only lead to improved test-criterion correlations but should also help to better understand the specific conditions or subpopulation a tool works best in. Thus, we can come back to the ABC of test construction (Ziegler, 2014c):
- A.What is the construct being measured?
- B.What are the intended uses of the measure?
- C.What is the targeted population?
Accepting that human behavior is affected by person and situation influences automatically impacts all three questions. Question A refers to the definition of the construct and moreover, the definition of the nomological net. The latter should include both sides of the coin in order to provide a complete picture. This, however, influences the validation strategy (e.g., testing specific person by situation interactions). Question B refers to the uses intended for a measure. Paying attention to the situation could mean that specific situational circumstances can be defined under which the tool makes the best predictions. This, of course, should then be tested during the validation. Finally, question C refers to the specific populations the tool is to be used in. This question has strong influences on the validation strategy for situational perception assessments as outlined above. Moreover, the validation of person(ality) measures needs to consider the situational circumstances of the target population and whether the manifestation of interindividual trait differences is likely under such conditions.
Summing up, the European Journal of Psychological Assessment encourages submissions that address any of these issues (e.g., tool construction, technical advances, integrated validation strategies, process models exemplifying an integrated psychological assessment). Ultimately, the test construction and validation process portrayed within the European Journal of Psychological Assessment should mirror the theoretical advances regarding the person situation debate. Reaching this goal will not only provide tools with better test-criterion correlations, it will also provide practical guidelines on how to achieve psychological assessments that better accommodate the complexity of human behavior.
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