Abstract
<p>It is clear that both the person and the situation contemporaneously impact behavior. The temporal properties of this relationship, however, are less clear. To date, theorizations of a temporally dynamic person-situation system have not clarified the function of the situation within personality processes, with two conflicting perspectives emerging: the situation as an external input impacting the behavioral level we change to (i.e., equilibrium-shifting), and the situation as a coupled, dynamic process that changes with behavior toward a single, shared, homeostatic level (i.e., coupled-system). We sought to clarify this conflict through a model comparison approach between equilibrium-shifting and coupled-system continuous-time models. Crucially, we found superior predictive accuracy for the equilibrium-shifting approach over coupled-system models. Our findings advocate that situations function as external inputs associated with a unique behavioral state that is adapted to that environment. Critically, we also found that temporal processes do not explain a large amount of variance in our behavior, indicating that the situation’s impact on how behavior changes over time is not as important as the situation’s impact on current levels of behavior.</p>