Consistency, Scalability, and Personality Measurement, Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1991 Recent Research in Psychology Series

In the last 25 years, there is no issue in personality psychology which has been as hotly debated as that of consistency. This book introduces scalability as a reasonable and theoretically satisfying conceptualization of consistency. Three empirical studies of scalability are described; their focus is on the role of scalability as a moderator in prediction. This book makes significant inroads in the field of personality measurement, and, by reviewing previous approaches to personality assessment, it provides a sound theoretical basis for the description and mapping of personalities.

1 Personality Traits and Psychological Explanation.- 1.1 Personality traits as psychological structures.- 1.2 Personality traits as psychological constructs.- 1.3 Structures versus constructs.- 1.4 Models of explanation.- 1.5 How traits can explain behavior.- 1.6 Implications.- 2 Consistency in Personality Measurement.- 2.1 Actor and observer viewpoints.- 2.2 Empirical studies of consistency: Overview.- 2.3 Consistency as a moderator variable.- 2.4 Consistency as scalability.- 2.5 Summary.- 3 Scalability and Elevation.- 3.1 Elevation.- 3.2 Scalability.- 3.3 Some statistical properties of elevation and scalability.- 3.4 Anticipated relations among measures of elevation, scalability, and variability.- 3.5 Scalability and response idiosyncrasy.- 3.6 Why measure scalability?.- 4 A Single Trait Measure of Scalability.- 4.1 Overview.- 4.2 Pretest: Scaling of behaviors.- 4.3 Main study.- 4.4 Discussion.- 5 Development of the Situation Behavior Inventory.- 5.1 Sampling considerations.- 5.2 Iterative refinement of the SBI.- 5.3 Scaling of behaviors.- 5.4 Summary.- 6 Scalability and Elevation as Measured by the SBI.- 6.1 Methods.- 6.2 Scoring and scale construction.- 6.3 Results - Internal analyses.- 6.4 Results - External analyses.- 6.5 Discussion.- 7 Scalability on Standard Personality Inventories.- 7.1 Four interpretations of individual differences in consistency.- 7.2 Distinguishing between different interpretations of consistency.- 7.3 Method.- 7.4 Results.- 7.5 Discussion.- 7.6 Summary.- 8 Scalability Re-examined.- 8.1 Review of findings.- 8.2 Traits reconsidered.- 8.3 Scalability and authoritarianism: Rationale.- 8.4 Scalability and authoritarianism: Reanalysis of the SBI data.- 8.5 Towards reconciliation of psychometric and idiographic approaches to personality.- References.- Appendix 1- Situation Behavior Inventory (SBI).- Instructions.- Items.- SBI Scale composition: Non-extreme scales.- Appendix 2 - Programs for Computing Scalability.- Pascal program for VM/CMS.- SAS program: Proc MATRIX routine.