Consistency of Personality Across Situations and Time

1. Consistency of Personality Across Situations and Time

2. Major Issues • Is personality consistent across situations? • Is personality consistent across time?

3. Is personality consistent across situations? • Trait psychologists have traditionally believed that people’s personalities show consistency from situation to situation • Example: a “really friendly” man is expected to be friendly at work, at school, toward strangers, toward authority figures, etc.

4. Research shows less cross-situational consistency than expected • Study of elementary school students at summer camp, focusing on honesty • Observed honest and dishonest behavior in several situations: while playing field games at camp, while taking at exams at school • Correlation between honesty measured in each of these two situations was low • Similarly low correlations for helpfulness and self-control

5. Situationalism • Mischel (1968) published groundbreaking book reviewing many studies • Reported low correlations between behaviors in different situations • Reported that attempts to predict behavior in a particular situation from knowledge of a person’s trait rating were rarely successful (r = .3). • Argued that concept of personality traits should be abandoned; should shift focus to situations

6. Situationalism (continued) • position that situations, not traits, influence behaviors

7. 20 Years of Debate • Trait psychologists formulated new theories and gathered new data to rescue idea of traits • Mischel countered with new ideas and new data of his own intended to reinforce his position that the concept of traits was limited

8. End Result • Trait psychologists now advocate • Person-situation interaction • Aggregation as a tool for assessing personality traits

9. Person-Situation Interaction • Behavior is a function of the interaction between personality traits and situational forces • Example • Trait: hot temper, easily frustrated • Situation: vending machine takes money • Acquaintances of person with hot temper might not know about it until he loses money on vending machine

10. Strong vs. Weak Situations • Strong situations • Situations in which nearly all people react in similar ways • Examples: funerals, religious services, crowded events • Weak situations • More ambiguous; personality has stronger influence on behavior • Examples: stranger looks you in the eye and holds the stare a bit too long

11. Situational Selection • Tendency to choose the situations in which one finds oneself • Choice of situations probably influenced by personality characteristics

12. Diener, Larsen, & Emmons (1984) • Subjects wore pagers for 6 weeks • Paged 2x per day resulting in 84 occasions • Asked about situations they were in • Found that subjects’ personality traits predicted the situations they were in • Need for achievement was correlated with spending more time in work situations • Need for order was correlated with spending more time in familiar situations • Extraversion was correlated with choosing social forms of recreation (team sports).

13. Predicting Behavior in a Particular Situation • Remember • Mischel found that attempts to predict behavior in a particular situation from knowledge of a person’s trait rating were rarely successful (r = .3). • Why not? • error of measurement • multiple determination

14. The Principle of Aggregation • A single measure of behavior may not provide an accurate index of a person’s characteristic behavioral tendencies • Possible to obtain more accurate index of characteristic behaviors by observing person on several occasions and averaging (or aggregating) scores. • Can aggregate across occasions, situations, instruments, or observers

15. Cross-situational Aggregates • Moskowitz (1982) • observed 56 children in daycare setting for 8 weeks (1/2 hour per child per week) • noted whether child engaged in behaviors relevant to dominance (displacement, verbal commands, verbal suggestions, verbal threats, verbal directions) • assessed in various situations, with various targets

16. attempted to predict score on dominance by combining (aggregating) scores on other 4 indices • found average correlation was .66 • Moskowitz & Schwarz (1982) • obtained teacher ratings on each of 5 indices of dominance; these were summed to create aggregate index • correlation of aggregated teacher ratings was positively correlated with aggregated behavioral indices (r = .59)

17. Small, Zeldin, & Savin-Williams (1983) • studied dominance among adolescents at summer camp • observed for 1/2 per day for 8 weeks regarding whether or not they engaged in 1 of 8 behaviors related to dominance • were observed in different settings (meals, camping, free time) • average correlation across settings was .78

18. To Sum Up • Personality is best thought of as an interaction between traits and situations • Personality traits are average tendencies to behave certain ways

19. Is personality consistent across time? • Important concepts • During infancy • During childhood • During adulthood

20. Important Concepts • rank order stability: • maintenance of individual position within a group • mean level stability • average level of a trait within a group or population • personality coherence • behavioral manifestations of traits change over time • individual maintains his/her rank order in relation to other individuals, even though behavioral manifestation of trait has changed

21. During Infancy • Most commonly studied personality characteristic is temperament • Individual differences that • emerge early in life • are likely to have a heritable basis • are often involved in behaviors linked with emotion or arousability

22. Rothbart (1981; 1986) • studied group of infants at 3, 6, 9, and 12 mos. • caregivers completed measures of • activity level • smiling and laughter • fear • distress to limitations • soothability • duration of orienting

24. Results • cross-time correlations were positive • infants who scored high on a dimension at one time period also scored high on that dimension at later time periods • correlations in top two rows were higher than bottom 4 rows • activity level and smiling and laughter showed higher levels of stability than other traits • 9-12 mos correlations are higher than 3-6 and 6-9 • personality tends to become more stable toward the end of infancy

25. Limitations • infants’ caregivers may have developed certain conceptions of their infants • could be that these conceptions (rather than infants’ traits) were stable over time

26. Study reveals some important points • stable individual differences appear to emerge very early in life • for most temperament variables, there are moderate levels of stability over the first year of life • stability of temperament tends to be higher over short intervals than long intervals • level of stability of temperament tends to increase as infants mature

27. Stability During Childhood • Note: longitudinal studies are costly and difficult to conduct • Thus, there are few to examine • Some examples • activity level • aggression

28. Buss, Block, & Block (1980) • followed a sample of more than 100 children from Berkeley-Oakland, CA from age 3 into adulthood • kids tested at ages 3, 4, 5, 7, and 11 • one of the variables measured at each time was activity level • actometer: recording device attached to wrist during several play periods • teacher ratings

29. Results • correlations between actometer and teacher ratings (validity coefficients) were positive • age 3: r = .61 • age 4: r = .53 • correlations between measurements taken at earlier ages and measurements taken at later ages (stability coefficients) were positive • actometer: 3 to 4 r = .44 • teacher ratings: 3 to 4 r = .75, 3 to 7 r = .48

30. Results • activity level shows moderate stability during childhood • correlation coefficients decrease as size of interval between testing increases • the longer the time interval, the lower the correlation coefficient

31. Olweus (1978; 1979): Empirical studies • conducted longitudinal studies of “bullies” and “victims” • bullies: pick on other children (trip them, push them into lockers, demand lunch money) • victims: anxious, fearful, lacking in social skills • in one study, bullies and victims were identified through teacher nominations in grade 6. After moving to junior high in grade 7, were nominated by different group of teachers.

32. vast majority of boys received similar classification a year later • among 35 boys classified as bullies in grade 6, 24 were classified the same way in grade 7 • among 27 boys classified as bullies in grade 6, 16 were classified the same way in grade 7 • among 224 boys classified as neither in grade 6, 200 were classified the same way in grade 7. • despite different setting and different teachers

33. bullies in childhood were more likely to become juvenile delinquents during adolescence • Brody (1996) • 65% of boys classified as bullies in grade 6 had felony convictions by age 27

34. Olweus (1979): Literature review • reviewed 16 longitudinal studies of aggression during childhood • studies varied on dimensions • age at which children were first tested (2 -18 yrs. old) • interval between first testing and final testing (half a year to 18 years) • measure of aggression used (teacher ratings, direct observation, peer ratings)

35. Findings • marked individual differences in aggression are present early in life (by age 3) • individuals retain their rank order stability to a substantial degree • stability coefficients decrease as intervals between the two times of testing increase

36. General conclusions about stability during childhood • individual differences in personality emerge very early in life • most likely in infancy for some traits, by early childhood for others • individual differences are moderately stable over time • stability coefficients gradually decline over time as the distance between testings increases

37. Stability During Adulthood • many longitudinal studies have been conducted • some have used NEO-PI; others have used different measures that correlate with individual scales on NEO-PI • many age brackets have been examined, ranging from 18-year-olds through 80-year-olds • time intervals between first and last testings have ranged from 3 years to 30 years

38. Self-Report: General Conclusions • across self-report measures of personality, conducted by different investigators, over differing intervals of adulthood • big five show moderate levels of stability • average correlation across traits, scales, and time intervals is .65

39. Other-Report • Costa & McCrae (1988): • 6-year longitudinal study of adults using spouse reports • stability coefficients ranged from .77 to .83 • Costa & McCrae (1992) • 7-year longitudinal study of adults using peer reports • stability coefficients ranged from .63 to .81

40. Traits and Marital Satisfaction • Method • 50-year longitudinal study • Five acquaintances rated engaged couples on personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, and impulsivity). • Also collected data on attitudes toward marriage, economic status, illness, tragedies during adult lifespan.

41. Results • Best predictors of marital satisfaction and divorce were trait ratings. • Among women • those high in neuroticism more likely to divorce • Among men • those high in neuroticism and/or impulsivity were more likely to divorce

42. When does personality consistency peak? • Roberts & DelVecchio (2000) • meta-analysis of 152 longitudinal studies of personality • looked at personality consistency: correlation between time 1 and time 2 • found that personality consistency increases with increasing age, then peaks in the fifties • average correlation during teens was .47, during twenties was .57, during thirties was .62, during fifties was .75 • as they age, people become more “set”

43. Personality Change in Adulthood • In general, big five personality traits show moderate-to-high levels of mean stability over time • openness, extraversion, and neuroticism to gradually decline with increasing age until around age 50 • conscientiousness and agreeableness increase over time • magnitude of these effects is small

44. Marriage: one potential source of change • Caspi & Herbener (1990) • studied middle-aged couples over an 11-year period • found that individuals who were married to spouses highly different from themselves (with regard to personality) experienced the most change

45. Summary: Consistency of Personality Over Time • During infancy • infant temperament shows moderate levels stability over the first year of life • stability increases with increasing age • During childhood • activity level and aggression show moderate levels of stability

46. Summary (continued) • During adulthood • big five personality traits show moderate-to-high levels of stability during adulthood • personality stability increases with age, peaking in the fifties • Across all periods of life • measurements taken closer together in time show higher stability than measurements taken further apart in time