CONSISTENCY OF PERSONALITY (Consistency Paradox)

1. CONSISTENCY OF PERSONALITY(Consistency Paradox) by Katie Jung (KyungHee Graduate School of International Legal Affairs) Oct. 12, 2004

2. What is Personality? • Definition of Personality 1. The complex of set psychological qualities that influence a person’s characteristic patterns of behavior across different situations and time. Focal issue: How do personality and situational influences combine to lead to behavior?

3. Cross-Situational Consistency • Consistency paradox While personality ratings are consistent across time and observer, behavioral ratings across situation are not very consistent • Issue: Specific behavioral traits vary by the nature of the situation. • Psychological features of a situation are relevant to specific traits • e.g. behavior in threatening situations will be associated with harm avoidance or anxiety traits.

4. Consistency Paradox • The paradox is that although lay people believe that behavior is consistent across situation, psychologists find it difficult to demonstrate. Two possible reasons. 1) lay people are wrong and people are inconsistent 2) psychologists have been ineffective in demonstrating consistency

5. Lay people are wrong • Physical appearance, voice, situations make us see a person as more similar than they are • Dispositional attribution error: tendency to attribute behavior to a person’s character rather than situation. • Experimental demonstrations: Jones and Harris(1967), Gilbert and Jones (1986), Ross et al (1977)

6. Psychologists not measuring not properly • Allport argument that different behaviors may be internally consistent. • Block criticizes the review of Mischel as biased and focusing on poor studies • Epstein and Rushton and reliability • Mischel and Peake’s conscientiousness study and rely to reliability criticism

7. Psychologists not measuring not properly • Beem and Allen (1974) and moderator variables • Snyder (1987) and self-monitoring, high self monitors more likely to show behavioral inconsistency. • Funder and 0.4 is not bad, comparison with situational effects.

8. Research Methods • Longitudinal v. Cross sectional studies • a. Longitudinal: Same group followed over time • b. Cross-sectional: Different groups, different ages, tested once ( One of basic issues in Developmental Psychology)

9. The Cross-Sectional method • Definition by Baltes (1968): “Samples of different ages are observed on the same dependent variable once at the same time of measurement” (two or more cohorts are tested at one time to see if differences exist across ages) • Age differences may be confounded with differences in generations or cohorts.

10. The Cross-Sectional method • Observes people of different ages at one point in time • Compares performances of different age groups • (+) Tells how performances changes (develops) with age • (+) Quick & inexpensive, points out developmental trends • (-) Provides no information about change over time in individuals • (-) Confounded by cohort effects

11. Longitudinal method • Defined by Baltes : “One sample is observed several times on the same dependent variable at different age levels, and therefore by definition at different times of measurement” • One group of individuals within cohort is tested at least twice over time. • Cook and Campbell (1979) would define this method as time-series design

12. Longitudinal method • Observe people of one age group over time • Watch a single set of people ‘grow’ • Describes age changes • (+) can link early behavior to later behavior • (+) individual differences in aging (how individuals are alike & how they are different in the way they develop or age) • (-)May actually be time or measurements (historical effects) • (-) Time consuming, expensive, subjects ‘drop out’, retest effects