ABSTRACT
Walter Mischel was born in Vienna, close to Freud’s house, on February 22nd, 1930. Walter was the third child to Salomon Mischel and Lola Leah Schreck. Francis Henry’s study of the tribes in the Caribbean Islands necessitated a move to Trinidad where Mischel found an exotic, sun-drenched haven where he could enjoy rum and Coca-Cola while exploring the locals’ responses to the Rorschach test. Mischel obtained a PhD from Ohio State University in 1956. His mentors Julian Rotter and George Kelly had the most significant influence on his work, introducing him to personal construct and social learning theories, work that would later become central to his work on personality. Eventually, in 1962, Mischel could move to Stanford University. Mischel died in his New York home of pancreatic cancer on September 12th, 2018. The cognitive affect personality system proposed by Mischel and Shoda moved away from personality as a dichotomy by arguing that inconsistencies in behaviour, are not in fact inconsistent.
