Detecting (in)consistencies in personality: reconciling intuitions and empirical evidence

After Mischel's (1968) critique of the traditional concept of personality, others have attempted to resolve the apparent discrepancy between intuitive (and theoretical) notions of consistency in the behavior patterns of individuals, and the available empirical evidence, much of which seems to suggest that the intuitive/theoretical notions are erroneous. Virtually all of these attempts have been grounded ultimately in some variation of the individual differences paradigm that has long dominated empirical personality research. In contrast, the present article suggests that this apparent discrepancy results from an attempt to reconcile essentially idiographic intuitions with aggregate empirical findings. Going beyond previous conceptual discussions of this point, the present article offers an empirical illustration of the problem, and suggests that the intuitions vs. empirical evidence discrepancy regarding questions of (in)consistencies in personality reflects the "incorrectness" of neither, but rather the fact that the intuitions and empirical evidence speak to fundamentally different questions. The implications of this fact for programmatic, theoretically oriented personality research are emphasized.