Moderators of self-other agreement: reconsidering temporal stability in personality

Accurate prediction requires information not only about central tendencies but also about variability. In personality prediction, however, most research has focused on trait-level central tendencies. Previously proposed moderators of personality prediction are all conceptually similar in comparing an individual's central tendency in response patterns with that of the normative person. This article proposes an alternative: Trait-level prediction is enhanced by measuring the temporal stability of response patterns within persons. Across 2 studies, individuals with temporally stable response patterns had higher self-other agreement on conscientiousness and extraversion than did individuals with less temporally stable patterns. By comparison, normatively based variables (interitem variability, scalability, or construct similarity) did not moderate self-other agreement. The implications for personality structure, assessment, and prediction are discussed.