Relation of temporal stability and cross-situational consistency in personality: Comment on the Mischel-Epstein debate.

Where Does Personality Have Its Influence? A Supermatrix of Consistency Concepts

“…The fifth alternative type of consistency was discovered by several researchers who explicitly separated out consistency across time from consistency across situations (Conley, 1984; Mischel & Peake, 1983; Ozer, 1986). There is some overlap between time and situations, but not perfect overlap, and keeping their separate parts distinct can help clarify the nature of consistency.…”

“…Each of the existing consistency concepts was created, in contrast, by proposing a variation in only one component at a time. Mischel and Peake (1983) and Conley (1984) provided the only cases of which we are aware in which two of these components were combined and compared simultaneously. They crossed two competing determinants of behavior (time and situations) with two definitions of enactment (single and aggregated) to test four consistency concepts.…”

“…They crossed two competing determinants of behavior (time and situations) with two definitions of enactment (single and aggregated) to test four consistency concepts. Conley (1984) even pointed out that this formed a 2 × 2 matrix. However, there are three components, so all three components can and should be specified simultaneously in the study of consistency.…”

Varieties of Religious Experience:Continuity and Change in Religious Involvement

“…The methods applied in the present investigation, however, were explicitly intended to permit an adequate assessment of stability. In accordance with the recotnmendations of Conley (1984), Epstein and O'Brien (1985), and Humphreys and Parsons (1979), multiple indicators of the latent religious involvement variables were used. Furthermore, these indicators were obtained in reasonably well-defined developmental periods, and relationships were established at the latent variable level.…”

The Two Disciplines of Personality Psychology

“…Recent decades have seen a "crisis period" (as West, 1983, labeled the 1970s) during which many of the field's traditional assumptions were challenged, and a subsequent era in which theoretical and methodological advances (Epstein, 1979;Mischel & Peake, 1982) seemed inevitably to elicit criticism and prolonged debate (Conley, 1984;Epstein, 1983;Masters, 1980;Mischel & Peake, 1983;Peake & Mischel, 1984). Throughout this period, personality psychologists were reminded frequently of their past, one in which grand theoretical structures and ambitious assessment projects were succeeded by paradigm shifts and empirical failures that, at times, seemed to threaten the very existence of the field.…”