Mischel biography

In Honor Of Honoring scientists who have made important and lasting contributions to the sciences of mind, brain, and behavior. Walter Mischel led the way in reconceptualizing the nature of the consistency and variability in social behavior that distinctively characterizes an individual across situations and over time. Beginning with his monograph, Personality and Assessment, he challenged the most basic assumptions of classic trait theory about the consistency of personality, creating a paradigm crisis which his work ultimately resolved.

Mischel et al 1972

In his theorizing and research over more than forty years, he reversed the standard view and practice. By including, rather than removing, the situation as it is perceived and understood by the person, he predicted, and ultimately demonstrated, that stable patterns of if…then…situation-behavior regularities characterize individuals distinctively over time.

To understand the intrapersonal and interpersonal processes underlying such regularities, in he proposed a cognitive-social reconceptualization of personality structure, dynamics, and the role of the psychological situation. These range from more adaptive social and cognitive functioning in adolescence and much higher SAT scores, to protectively buffering individuals against the development of diverse dispositional vulnerabilities in adulthood.

Walter Mischel was born in Vienna in but when the Nazis took over Austria in emigrated with his family to the U. He received his B. He taught briefly at the University of Colorado in Boulder , and the Harvard Department of Social Relations, , moving to the psychology faculty of Stanford University , and then to Columbia University.

Walter mischel theory marshmallow test

He served as chair for 2 years at Stanford, and for 4 years at Columbia. His students and colleagues honored him in a festschrift, Persons in Context, Building a science of the individual. Mischel mentored many generations of graduate students many of whom became leaders and distinguished scientists in their own careers, and he influenced countless undergraduates, both as a passionate, inspiring teacher and with his Introduction to Personality textbook, now in its 8th edition.

He is past editor of Psychological Review, and has served on numerous publication boards and editorial-advisory roles.