Concepts Cognitive-affective unit Self-perception Situation Person-situation interaction Proponents Walter Mischel Yuichi Shoda Relevant works A cognitive-affective system theory of personality[1] The cognitive-affective personality system or cognitive-affective processing system (CAPS) is a contribution to the psychology of personality proposed by Walter Mischel and Yuichi Shoda in 1995.

[1] Cognitive-affective theorists argue that behavior is not the result of some global personality trait; instead, it arises from individuals' perceptions of themselves in a particular situation.

However, inconsistencies in behavior are not due solely to the situation; inconsistent behaviors reflect stable patterns of variation within the person.

According to this model, personality depends on situation variables, and consists of cognitive-affective units (all those psychological, social, and physiological aspects of people that allow them to interact with their environment in a relatively stable manner).

The authors identified five cognitive-affective units: The cognitive-affective processing system theory attempts to explain seemingly conflicting evidence -- personality remains relatively invariant over time and throughout different social contexts, whereas social behaviors vary substantially across different situations.