Do 'wise people' even exist? Do we have 'wise characters' or is our behaviour more influenced by 'wise situations'? And if so, what kinds of situations best support wise behaviour? Eranda Jayawickreme joins Igor and Charles to discuss the classic battle royale of the person-situation debate, whole trait theory and the ever-controversial Stanford Prison experiment. Igor outlines the actor-observer bias and suggests that westerners should be more sympathetic to grumpy waitstaff, Eranda considers the motivations behind blaming bad apples vs bad barrels and the implications for the justice system, and Charles learns that overestimating the robustness of his own virtue can lead to all manner of perilous situations. Welcome to Episode 5.

Special Guest: Eranda Jayawickreme.

Links:

• Eranda Jayawickreme - Growth Initiative Lab - Wake Forest University
• Aristotle & Virtue Theory: Crash Course Philosophy No.38
• Stanford Prison Experiment
• The Lifespan of a Lie - Medium
• The Big Five Personality Traits: VeryWell Mind
• Situational Salience and Cultural Differences in the Correspondence Bias and Actor-Observer Bias
• The person–situation debate in historical and current perspective: Epstein, S., & O'Brien, E. J. (1985)
• Character: The Prospects for a Personality-Based Perspective on Morality: William Fleeson*, R. Michael Furr, Eranda Jayawickreme, Peter Meindl and Erik G. Helzer (2014)
• Situation‐Based Contingencies Underlying Trait‐Content Manifestation in Behavior: Fleeson (2007)
• Whole Trait Theory: Fleeson, Jayawickreme (2015)
• In favor of the synthetic resolution to the person–situation debate: WilliamFleeson, Noftle (2009)
• On the interface of cognition and personality: Beyond the person–situation debate: Mischel, W. (1979)
• Persons, Situations, and Virtue Ethics: John M. Doris (1998)
• No Character or Personality: Gilbert Harman (2015)
• Virtue Ethics and Social Psychology: Julia Annas
• A cognitive-affective system theory of personality: Reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure: Mischel, Walter,Shoda, Yuichi (1995)
• Wisdom in Context: Igor Grossmann (2017)
• Moving Personality Beyond the Person-Situation Debate The Challenge and the Opportunity of Within-Person Variability: William Fleeson (2004)
• Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Hofmann