Alternatives in the pursuit of the predictability and consistency of persons: Stable data that yield unstable interpretations

Journal of Personality
Walter Mischel

Abstract

After a review of the historical roots of current issues in personality psychology, useful sources for prediction are summarized and some current convergences in the search for coherence are identified. The value of people as expert assessors is reiterated and the stability, consistency, and predictability of behavior are distinguished as multiple issues. In the pursuit of consistency in social behavior, two major routes emerge. One route aggregates data across situations and response modes, thereby reducing the variance from those sources, and identifies the resulting stable individual differences. The second route assesses consistency from situation to situation, searches for its psychological bases, and focuses on the discriminativeness of behavior as well as its coherence. Each route serves different purposes and has value for those different goals; neither one preempts the other. Years of research on the consistency of social behavior from situation to situation have yielded stable results that sometimes are used to reach opposite interpretations. But these puzzling differences reflect the two contrasting routes and goals in the search for consistency, not instabilities in the data nor a neglect of psychometric principles....Continue Reading

References

Sep 1, 1975·Journal of Personality·R A Shweder
Jun 1, 1972·Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology·W Mischel
Sep 1, 1969·Behaviour Research and Therapy·T L Whitman
Jul 1, 1955·Psychological Bulletin·L J CRONBACH, P E MEEHL
May 1, 1965·Journal of Personality and Social Psychology·W MISCHEL
Sep 1, 1983·Journal of Personality·Seymour Epstein
Sep 1, 1983·Journal of Personality·David C Funder
Sep 1, 1983·Journal of Personality·Hazel Markus
Sep 1, 1983·Journal of Personality·Douglas T Kenrick, Arthur Dantchik
Sep 1, 1983·Journal of Personality·Frederick X Gibbons
Sep 1, 1983·Journal of Personality·Steven J Sherman, Russell H Fazio
Sep 1, 1983·Journal of Personality·Wm McKinley Runyan

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Citations

Jul 27, 2007·Progress in Neurobiology·Andrea BergerAvishai Henik
Oct 1, 1989·European Journal of Pediatrics·J P Van Wouwe
Jul 7, 2000·Perceptual and Motor Skills·J L NylandD M Kameda
Sep 1, 1983·Journal of Personality·Stephen G West
Mar 1, 1997·Journal of Personality·S Epstein
Feb 1, 1987·Psychological Medicine·P Tyrer, B Ferguson

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