Walter Mischel clarifies his theory of personality

Walter Mischel is most known for his famous 'Marshmallow Experiment', but his studies are often misinterpreted and falsely portrayed in order to support a conservative ideology. His study is often used to portray the idea that an individuals capacity for self-control, whether already possessed or if it can possibly be developed, leads to better outcomes for someone later in life (an individual-centered view). Though Walter's emphasis was really on the power of a situation to really shape an individuals behavior as well as their ability to delay gratification (a situation-centered view) and his study was designed in such a way as to vary the conditions to influence all of the subjects in their ability to wait. His work showed that he can make anyone give in quickly, or to wait for an extended amount of time, depending on the conditions he created. Though he did also acknowledge that self-control is also a cognitive skill that could be acquired using different tricks and tools which can be learned. The Marshmallow study was created to test his theory of personality summarized in this wiki quote: "In 1968, Mischel published the controversial book, Personality and Assessment,[7] which created a paradigm crisis in personality psychology. The book touched upon the problem in trait assessment that was first identified by Gordon Allport in 1937. Mischel found that empirical studies often failed to support the fundamental traditional assumption of personality theory, that an individual’s behavior with regard to an inferred trait construct (e.g. conscientiousness; sociability) remained highly consistent across diverse situations. Instead, Mischel cautioned that an individual’s behavior was highly dependent upon situational cues, rather than expressed consistently across diverse situations" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_... Help us caption & translate this video! http://amara.org/v/HlgK/