Behavioral Tendencies of Hostility: A New Approach to Personality Assessment Based on Person-in-Context Units

There is a great deal of interest in person-in-context approaches to assessment, but such approaches typically result in idiographic conclusions. The present two studies (total N = 350) pioneer a new approach to personality assessment that integrates person-in-context units, obtained from a situational judgment test, with prototype scoring, with the present research applying a hostile person prototype. Participants who matched this prototype to a greater extent were prone to aggressive, deviant, antisocial, risky, and impulsive behaviors. Peers characterized them as hostile (Study 1) and discriminant validity was supported (Study 2). The research demonstrates the value of a new approach to personality assessment that is reliant on person-in-context units of responding rather than trait ratings.