Toward an Idiot He Tic Psychology of Personality

8/8/2019 Toward an Idiot He Tic Psychology of Personality

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Toward an Idiothetic Psychologyof Personality

J A M E S T. L A M I E L L University of Illinoisat Urbana-Champaign

A B S T R A C T : Because individual differences researchfails to confront th e most basic problem of all in thescientific study of personality that of providing anadequate framework fo r personality description suchresearch is fundamentalhj inadequate for the purposesof a science of personality. The author therefore pro-poses that a clear distinction be maintained betweendifferential psychology an d personality psychology an dthat individual differences research be recognized asrelevant to the concerns of the former. An alternativeto the individual differences paradigm, termed idio-thetic, is suggested as a general framework for the sci-entific study of personality. Within this framework, thebasic problem o f personality description would be ap-proached in an explicitly idiographic manner, while th esearch fo r nomothetic principles would center aroundquestions of personality development.With in t h e i n t ro d u c to ry pages of most personal i tytexts , one of ten f inds some s ta tement to the e f f e c ttha t consensus is lac kin g in the f ield on m any issues.The mere exis tence of personal i ty texts , however ,and thus of an identifiable subdiscipline of psy-chology , suggests th a t at least some very basic con-cerns are shared by all or most personali ty theorists ,concerns tha t there fore def ine the o v e r r i d in g (i .e . ,meta theore t i ca l ) objectives of the scienti f ic studyof perso nal i ty . Based on h is considera t ion o f a widevarie ty of personali ty theories, Levy (1970) sug-gests that these basic concerns might reasonablybe def ined as fo l lows:Colloquially, it might be said that in personality we areinterested in learning the best way to describe what kindof a person a man is, how he got t ha t way , what keepshim that w a y , what might make him change, and howwe might use all this to explain why he behaves as hedoes an d predict how he will behave in the future ,(p . 29)

This art icle is predica ted on the assumpt ion tha tLevy's remark s do indeed i d en t i fy a set of basicconcerns tha t are (and have long been) widelyshared among personali ty theorists . With this inmind, I argue below that the individual differencesresearch parad igm, which has t h o ro u g h ly d o mi -nated empirical personali ty research t h ro u g h o u t276 A M E R I C A N P S YC HOLOGIS T M A R C H 1981

the present cen tury , is f u n d a m e n t a l l y i n a d e q u a t efo r the purposes of a science of personality. Thea r g u m e n t , in a nutshel l , is t h a t th e assessment ofd i f f e r ences between ind iv iduals on various com-mon attributes, and the s tudy of the stabilities (andinstabil i t ies) of those d i f fe rences over t ime andacross si tuat ions, fai ls to confront what i s c lear lyth e most basic problem of a l l w i t h i n th e discipl ine:the development o f a f r am ew ork for empir ica l lydescribing the personali ty of any given ind iv idual .Fa i l ing in th is regard , it is di f f icul t to see howindividual di f ferences research could possibly beadequate for addressing the rema in in g me ta th e -oret ical issues identi f ied by Levy (1970) , howeverusefu l it may be for other purposes.

A f t e r developing th is a rgum ent be low, I proposean al ternat ive parad igm for the sc ien t i f ic s tudy ofpersonal i ty . For lack of a b e t t e r t e rm, but for rea-sons that wil l become apparent , this proposed al-t e rna t ive has been labeled idiothetic. With o u toverly an t ic ipa t in g the la ter d i scuss ion , i t sufficesto note here tha t this term is intended to suggestan orientat ion in wh ich (a) the problem of per-sonali ty descript ion would be approached in anexplicitly idiographic manner (cf . Allport, 1962)and in w h i c h (b) nomothet ic pr inc ip les would besought with respect to quest ions of personal i ty de-velopment .The Need for an Alternative to theIndividual Differences ParadigmA s jus t ment ioned , th e most basic (though clearlynot the only) problem for a science of personal i tyFor their reactions to countless earlier versions of this work, theauthor is especially grateful to the following individuals: Gera l dClore, M ichael Coles, Dona ld Fiske, M a r k Foss, L eslie La mie ll,Frank Landy, Thomas Lapic, Joseph McGr a th , Leon Rappo-port, Joseph Rychlak, E d w a r d Seidman, H arry Triandis , SteveTrierweiler , and Robert Wyer . He is also grateful to the anon-ymous reviewers of earl ier versions, m a n y of whose criticismswere very helpful .Requests fo r reprints should be sent to Jarnes T. Lamiell ,Department of Psychology, Universi ty of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , C h a m p a i g n , Illinois 61820.

Vol . 36, No. 3, 276-289Copyr i ght 1981 by th e Ame r i c a n Psychological Assoc ia tion , I n c .

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is that of empirically describing the personalit iesof i ndiv idua l s , t ha t is , ident i fying those qual i t ies ,a t t r ibutes , or characteris t ics whic h are ma ni fes tedby ind ivid ua ls at certain levels with some degreeof reg ula rity or consistency over t ime and acrosssituations. To see why ind ividua l di f feren ces re -search does not and cannot resolve this basic prob-lem, i t will be h elpf ul to review briefly the essentialfeatures of such research. This discussion will alsofacilitate the later presentation of the proposeda l t e rna t ive f r amew ork for the s tudy of personal i ty.

B R I E F O V E R V I E W OF THE I N D I V I D U A L DIFFERENCESS T R A T E G Y

Ind iv idua l dif ferences research typica l ly beginswith the investigator 's attempt to measure the sta-tu s of each of a numbe r of persons on some un -der ly ing a t t r ibute of a set of empirical observa-tions. This process can be formally described interms of the f ol lowing genera l model :

(1)where S pn refers to the raw score assigned to personp to represent his or her s ta tus on some unde r ly ingat t r ibute a, V,,, re fers to a variable i in te rms ofwhich some empirical statements about person pcan be expressed, an d R la re fers to the relevanceof the info rma t ion conta ined in var iable i to at-t r ibute a. Eq ua t i on 1 thus states that th e score as-signed to person p to represen t h is or her sta tus ona t t r i bu t e d is some funct ion ( t rad i t ional ly addi t ive)of m empirical statements about person p, eachof which is weighted by its presumed re levanceto a.The numbe r and na t u r e of the V,s depends , ofcourse , on the particular assessment procedure inuse. For example , they might consis t of coded re -sponses to projective test st im uli , check ma rks onth e i tems of a se l f - repor t inven tory , observer rat-ings on m di f ferent Var iables , or direc t observat ionson those variables. M oreover, observations on theV,s might be recorded categorically (e .g. , true/false, occurred/did not occur) or continuously(e.g. , on scales ra ng in g from "strongly agree" to"strongly disagree" or f r om "occurred v ery fre -q ue n t l y" to "did not occur at all").

A s Eq ua t i on 1 indicates, there mu st also be someimplici t or expl ic i t definition of the relevance ofth e i n fo rmat ion contained in each Vt to the at-t r ibute being measured (cf. Bern & Al len , 1974;

Bern & F u n d e r , 1978; Funder, 1980). These "rel-evance values" can be determined i n tu i t ive ly , de -duced ra t ional ly f r om a theory, or def ined ac-cording to s t r ic t ly em pir ica l c r i te r ia (c f . Ha s e &G oldberg, 1967) . E xamples of the la t te r would in -clude th e loadings denned for the V,s on the basisof a fac tor analysis of their intercorrelations or thescale values of the V,s de f ined on the basis of amul t id imens iona l scaling analysis of pairvvise(dis)similarity j udgments (c f . Shweder , 1975). Inessence, the R la values of Equat ion 1 re f lec t theprocess of abstrac t ion tha t is norma l ly an integra lpa r t of per sona l ity measurement (c f . G oldf r i ed& Kent , 1972) . That is , they indica te th e degreeto whi c h a given V ,- is presumed to "contain" or"reveal" th e unde r ly ing a t t r ibute be ing measured .It should be noted here that while several pos-sibilities exist for interpre t ing th e Spa value as-s igned to any one ind ividua l (C at te l l, 1944; N or-m a n , 1967), th e interpretation implicit in i ndiv idua ldif ferences research is tha t "a l l meaning for agiven score of a person derives f r om compar inghis score with those of othe r pe rsons" (K le inm untz ,1967, p. 45) . A l thoug h slightly overs im pl i f ied, thismeans that single Spa values are interpreted interms of contras ts of the general sort (S pa - S p.0),where S p.a refers , collectively, to the measured sta-tus of persons other than person p on a t t r ibute a.1Contras ts of this kind are great ly fac i l i ta ted by (ifnot strictly dependent on) the use of s tandardized"tests," that is , procedu res w hereb y all of the per-sons in one's sam ple are scored on the sam e V,sand whereby the R (a values applied to the V (s areheld constant across persons.

H aving gene ra ted da ta tha t reflect dif ferencesbetween indiv idua ls a long some common a t t r ibu tea , an inves t iga tor n orm al ly seeks to de te rmine th estability of those di f f eren ces over t ime and acrosssituations. Empir ica l evidence tha t speaks to thisques t ion, which might be presented in the fo rmof re l iabi l i ty and val idi ty coefficients, omega-square ratios, and/or coeff ic ients of genera l izabi l -ity (c f . G olding , 1975), has long been widely ac-

1 O n in fre q uen t occasions, some invest igators have exploredthe possibi l i t ies offered by "ipsative" measurement , in whichthe score assigned to an individual on a given attribute is in-terpreted by contrast ing it ei ther w i t h th e scores assigned tothat same indiv idua l on other at t r ibutes (cf . Block, 1957; E d-wards, 1959; H ei lbru n, 1963) or with th e scores assign ed to t h a ti nd iv idua l on the same at t r ibute at d i f f e r e n t points in time (cf .Baldwin, 1942, 1946). However, ipsat ive measurement ha snever been widely accepted as an adequate basis for scient i f icperso nality research (cf. B eck, 1953; E ysenck, 1954; Falk, 1956;N u n n a l ly , 1967) and, as a resul t , has never played a very prom-inent role in the l i terature.

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cepted as (a) g ro u n d s f or generalizat ions about th edegree of temporal/ transsi tuational consis tencyw i t h w h ic h the ind ivid uals assessed have ma ni-fested the a t t r i b u t e in ques t ion and , thus , as (b)grounds for an in fe rence concern ing the relevanceor i r re levance of tha t a t t r ibu te to a descript ion ofth e personali t ies of those ind iv idu a ls .

There can be l i t t le doubt tha t this orientat io ntoward the basic problem of personali ty descrip-tion has been an d co ntin ues to be wide ly endorsedby personali ty investigators. 2 T he rat ionale justdescribed was, a f t e r all , precisely the one on whichM ischel (1968) based his highly in f luent ia l discus-sion of the evidence relevant to the critical pre-sumpt ion inheren t w i th in th e very concept of per-sonality: the "consistency of particular pre-dispositions within any individual" (M ischel, 1968,p. 9, italics added).

Simi la r ly , and with explici t reference to the va-l id i ty coefficients tha t M ischel (1968) and m a n yothers have brought to bear on the issue, Bern andAl l en (1974) comment on the "sharp discrepancybetween our in tui t ions , whi ch te l l us that individ-uals do in fact display pervasive cross-situationalconsistencies in their behav ior , and the vast em-pir ica l l i teratu re , which te l ls us that they do not"(pp. 507-508, italics added). Bern and Al l e n go onto suggest that f indings more consonan t w i th ouri n tu i t ionstha t is , higher validi ty coeff ic ientscan be obtained in individual d i f fe r ences research,provided that th e inves t iga to r is wil l ing to abandonthe assumption that any single at tr ibute will berelevant to a description of the personali t ies of alli nd iv idua l s . An extension of this line of t h in k in gcan be f o u n d in the recent work by Kenrick andStr ingf ield (1980).The Bern and Al l en proposal has not, of course,been the only major response to the issues raisedby M ischel (1968). Some personologists have em-phasized the need for improved theorizing andmore sophisticated procedures for assessing indi-v idua l differences (see, e.g. , A l k e r , 1972; Block,1968,1971, 1977; E pstein, 1979; H irsch berg , 1978;H ogan, DeSoto , & S olano, 1977; M cG owan &G o r m l y , 1976; B lock, N ote 1) . O thers have stressedth e impor tance of s tudy ing th e in teractive ef fectsof individual dif ferences and si tuational variableson behavior (e.g. , A rgy le & Little, 1972; Bowers,1973; B uss, 1977; E k e h a m m a r , 1974; Endler &M agnusson, 1976; M agnusson & E n d le r , 1977;M ischel , 1973, 1977, 1979).

Whatever improvements of or depar tu res f rornclassical personology might be reflected in the rel-atively recent developments just discussed, there

is no indication in the current l i terature of any realdepar tu re f ro m the basic notion that gave rise tothose developments in the first place , namely, thatempirical evidence concerning the s tab i l i ty of d i f -ferences between individ uals on commo n attr i -butes (a) wil l adequately support gen eralizat ionsabout th e degree to which ind iv idua ls are consis-tent in the i r mani fes ta t ions of those at tr ibutes and(b) t h e r e f o r e is d irec t ly relevant to the problem ofdescribin g the person alities of ind iv iduals . Indeed,the arguments developed in the above-ci ted l i t -erature would seem, if a n y t h i n g , to have rein-forced most personality investigators' beliefs in theessential correctness of th is notion.

TH E N E E D F O R A N A L T E R N A T I V E T O T H EI N D I V I D U A L D I F F E R E N C E S S T R A T E G YO ne im por tan t assumpt ion on which trad i t iona lind iv idua l differences research has been based isthat it will ul t imate ly lead to the isolation of those(presumably f ew) at tr ibutes that are necessary andsuf f ic ient to describe th e persona l i ty of any givenind iv idua l ( c f . M ehrab ian & O ' R e i l l y , 1980). A sis w e l l - k n o w n , th e validity of th is assumption hasbeen called into question f r o m t i m e to time dur ingthe past several decades ( A l lp o rt ,1937,1962,1966,1967; Bern & A llen, 1974; K enrick & St r ing f ie ld ,1980; Ro senz wei g, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1958; Tyle r,1959, 1978).

I make no at tempt in the present ar t ic le , how-ever, to recapitulate the arguments developed bythose authors . The vast majori ty of personali ty in -vestigators have been "unimpressed" (San fo rd ,1963, p. 547) by the arguments in the past (cf .Beck, 1953; Eysenck, 1954; Fa lk , 1956; H olt , 1962;K l e i n m u n t z , 1967; N un na lly , 1967) , and there isno compelling reason to suspect any i m m i n e n t re -versal of th is trend. The discussion that followsfocuses instead on a much more serious p ro b le m,nam ely, the previously discussed rat ion ale for de-termining the relevance of part icular a t tr ibutes toa description of the personalities of i n d iv id u a l s .

- I t is worth noting here that even those studies which ha veused individualized assessment devices, such as role constructrepertory (REP) tests and Q-sorts, have tended to end in theassessment and study of individual differences. Fo r example,th e in format ion contained in REP test protocolsha s been usedto define individual differences in such attributes as cognit ivecomplexity (C rockett , 1965} an d cognit ive di f ferent ia t ion/ in-tegration (Landfield, 1976). Similar ly, Q-sort protocols havebeen used in personality research as the basis for identifyingtypological or dimensional differences between persons (cf .Block, 1961; Stephenson, 1953). An excellent discussion of thisl i terature can be found in Tyler (1978).278 M A R C H 1981 A M E R I C A N P S Y C H O L O G I S T


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It was noted earlier that for most personologiststhe problem of describing an ind ividu al's personalityis essentially one of identify ing those qualities or at-tributes that he or she manifests with some degreeof regularity over time and across situations. Thereliability and validity coefficients (a s well as omega-square ratios an d generalizability coefficients) gen-erated by individual differences research do not con-front this problem, and it is this basic fact that un -dermines the adequacy of such research for thepurposes of a science of personality.

A ll of the so-called personali ty co ef f ic ients justmentioned index, in one way or another, the de-gree of consistency wi th which selected at tr ibutesare man ifest ed by groups of individ uals . In the lastanalysis , it is the simple fact t h a t all of those coef-ficients are aggregate indices, computed on thebasis of da ta summed across ind iv iduals , that vir-tua l ly precludes their appropriateness as groundson which to in fer any th in g about the consis tencyor inconsis tency of any one ind iv idua l ( c f . Eps te in ,1980). Indeed, such an inference could be justifiedonly u n d e r the rare ( if not altogether nonexistent)circumstance s when the p erson ali ty coef f ic ient isperfec t (i.e., un i ty ) because it is only then tha t th edegree of consistency (in relative position on somea t t r ibu te ) man ifested by the group of individ ualshappens to directly ref lect the degree of consis-tency (in relat ive posit ion) manifested by anygiven i n d iv id u a l in the group .Obviously, the personality coefficients generatedin individual differences research are rarely , if ever,perfect, an d there is little reason to believe that theirdeviations from unity can be entirely attributed toerror in the measurement of the attribute(s) in ques-tion. H owever, personality investigators have longmainta ined the view that whatever its size, a con-ventional personality coefficient serves as grounds fora generalization about the consistency or inconsis-tency of the individuals in one's sample with respectto the attribute(s) studied.This view is s imply erroneous. In f ac t , a per-sonality coefficient that deviates for any systematicreason from 1.00 is prima facie evidence that theind iv iduals in one 's sample were not equally con-sistent (or inconsis tent) in the i r mani fes ta t ions ofth e at t r ibute(s) in quest ion. Consequently , such acoefficient could not possibly support any infer -ence ab out the consistency or inconsistency of thoseind iv iduals in general. I t merely ref lects the( in)consistency of the in d iv id u a l s in the aggre-ga teas a g ro u p w h ic h is an en t i re ly d i f fe r en tmatter ( for a concrete empirical illustration of thispoint , se e Lamie l l & Trierwei ler , N o t e 2).

If one agrees that (a) the most basic problem inth e science of personali ty is to develop an adequatemeans of describing th e personality of any givenindividual and that (b) to describe an individual'spersonality is to ident i fy those qualities or a t t r i -butes that he or she mani fes ts at certain levels withsome degree of regulari ty over t ime and acrosssituations, then it should be clear why individualdif ferences research fails to confront th e most basicproblem in the science of personali ty . Given a re-l iability coefficient , va l id i ty coeff ic ient , omega-square ratio, or generalizabil i ty coef f ic ient thatdeviates f rom un i ty for any systematic reason, i tis simply not possible to tell how consistent orinconsistent any one individual was in the levelsat which he or she has mani fes ted th e under ly inga t t r ibu te in question. Consequently , it is not pos-sible to de te rmine , for any one individual , whetheror not (or to what degree) th e a t t r ibu te in questionis relevant to a description of his or her personali ty .I t is intere sting to note that the am biguities ofconventional personali ty coef f ic ients in this regardhave been hinted at in the past in the writ ings ofother authors (B aldw in, 1942, 1946; Block, 1971;C arlson, 1971; Epstein , 1979). U nf ortu nat ely , th eproblem has yet to be satisfactorily resolved. Con-temp orary p ersonali ty researchers co ntinu e to in-terpret these coefficients as if they were based onor conveyed inf orm ation about ( in)consis tency atth e level of the individual (see, e.g., Epstein, 1979,pp . 1105-1106; Kenrick & Stringfield, 1980, p. 93;Za n n a , Olson , & Fazio, 1980, pp. 437-438). M ore-over , the few depar tu res f r om the use of such coef-f ic ients tha t can be f o u n d in the l i terature actuallychange the original question in subtle but impor-tant ways.For example, in his recent study of stability inbehavior, Epstein (1979) reports (in add i t ion toconventional reliability coefficients) correlationsbetween at tr ibutes within individua ls over t ime.Such intras ubject correlations can, as Epstein pointsout , reveal th e pattern of covariat ion between pairsof attr ibutes with in an individual . They do not ,however, reflect (in)consistencies in the degree towhich tha t ind iv idua l mani fes ts any one of theattr ibutes , which was the original quest ion.

A high intrasubject correlat ion is, by def in i t ion ,evidence of var iab i l i tynot consistencywithinan ind iv idua l on two attr ibutes over m easurementoccasions (on what g rounds , the re fo re , can oneclaim that either of the two attributes is pertinentto a description of that individual's personality?) .M oreover , a low intrasubject correlation couldmean tha t an ind iv idua l was highly variable on



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tw o attr ib utes in ways that did not happen to co-incide o r that the individual was highly consistenton one or both attributes. In the l imi t ing case, per-fect consistency in the manifestat ion of one or bothat t r ibutes would result in a zero intrasubject cor-relation for that pair of attr ibutes .In short , in tra subject correlat ions such as thosereported by Epstein (1979) are no more adequa te

than conventional ( i .e . , intersubject) personali tycoefficients for the purpose of i den t i fy ing thoseat t r ibutes that are ma nifes ted by individuals wi thsome degree of consistency over time and acrosssituations, 3G i v e n the inadequacy of the i n d iv id u a l d i f f e r -ences paradigm with respect to the basic problemof personali ty descript ion, 4 it is di f f icu l t to see howresearch conducted wit hin this paradigm can ad-equa te ly address the remaining metatheoreticalissues identi f ied by Levy (1970) . H ow can em pir-ical research that does not even describe the per-sonalit ies of individuals possibly i l luminate th eprocess of personali ty development or, conse-quent ly , the way in w h ic h an u n d e r s t a n d in g oftha t process could be used to explain and predictan i n d iv id u a l ' s behavior? Based on w h a t I havepresented thus f a r , I believe that individual dif -ferences research is f u n d a m e n t a l l y il l su i ted forth e pur su i t of these objectives and tha t some al-ternative paradigm for the scienti f ic s tu d y of per-sonality is therefore needed.

K E D I S T I N G U I S H I N G D I FF E R E N T IA L P S Y C H O L O G YF R O M P E R S O N A L I T Y P S Y C H O L O G YDoes the above discussion im ply tha t indi vidu aldi f ferences research has no uti l i ty whatsoever?Cer ta in ly not . The i n fo rma t io n contained in reli-ab i l i ty , val idi ty , and generalizabil i ty coefficients(as well as omega-square ratios) can be of greatut i l i ty when one's objective is specifically to ac-count for i n d iv id u a l differences in var ious do-mains o f hum an ac t iv i ty . Th is w as precisely th eobjective in the early days of mental testing, atwhich t ime and for which purposes the technologyof i n d iv id u a l d i f fe r ences research was or ig ina l lydeveloped (cf . M ischel , 1976; Tyler , 1978).The above discussion does sugge st, how ever, th atit would be v e ry w o r th w h i l e to revive a dis t inc t ionwhich has u n f o r t u n a t e l y become rather obscuredover the years : that between differential psychol-og y ( c f . Anastas i , 1976) and personality psychol-ogy. The basic task of the fo rmer can be viewedas one of i d e n t i f y in g and va l ida t ing ind iv idua l

dif ferences constructs, that is , concept-measure-ment method units (C ampbell & Fiske, 1959). Tothe extent that the dif fe ren tial psychologist canshow that an individual differences construct isboth reliable and valid (or gene ralizable), he or shesucceeds in demo nstrat ing that w ithin some spec-ified d o ma in of behavior , it is possible to pred ic tor "postdict," with a degree of error that can bespecified only in the aggregate (i .e. , "the longrun") , the relat ive performances of "some, most ,or all of the people some, most , or 'a n a w f u l lot 'of the time" ( c f . Bern & Al l en , 1974; Epstein, 1979;Kenrick & Stringfield, 1980). Note that to the di f -fe rent ia l psychologist, the concepts of relia bili ty,val id i ty , and generalizability refer to properties ofthe ind ivid ual dif f erence s constructs , and one es-tablishes these properties w ith data aggregatedacross persons.To address th e basic problem of empir ica l pe r -sonality descript ion, however , an investigator mustbe able to detect temporal and t ranssi tuat ional con-sistencies within persons, that is, at the level of thei nd iv idua l . B y mistak ing empirical evidence tha treflects th e propert ies of i n d iv id u a l d i f fe r encesconstructs f or evidence concerning consistenciesand inconsistencies at the level of the individual ,personality invest igators have completely under-mined their abil i ty to detect th e la t ter .The central metatheoretical concerns of person-ality psychology cannot be addressed with empir-ical research aimed at de te rmin ing th e propert iesof ind ivid ual dif f erences constructs . The mere la-beling of these co nstructs wi th personal i ty l ikcte rms (e.g. , f r iendl iness , dominance , e tc . ) in noway alters this fact. It is for this reason that a cleardist inction between d i f f e ren t i a l psychology andpersonality psychology should be maintained.The ind iv i dua l d i f f e r ences research parad igmis well suited to the concerns of d i f fe r en t i a l psy-chology. The remainder of th is ar t ic le is devoted

J N or can this problem be satisfactorily resolved in terms ofQ-correlat ions based on a t t r ibu te profiles obtained for singleindividuals on di f f e ren t measurement occasions (c f . Block, 1961,1971; H arris , 1980). S uch corre lation s can be used to addressthe question of (in)consistency at the level of the ind iv idua lwi th respect to a se t of at t r ibutes or characteristics. Again , how-ever, this is r a the r dif ferent f rom the question of (in)consistencyat th e level of the ind iv idua l with respect to any o ne a t t r ibu teor characterist ic.

^ As a way of emphasiz ing my point , th e reader is invi ted toreflect briefly on the results of three major studies recent ly re -ported in the personali ty l i terature (E pstein, 1979; Harr i s , 1980;Kenrick & Stringfield, 1980). A s careful ly as these studies weredesigned, executed, an d r epor ted , it is still no t possible to tellon the basis of the results presented ho w (in)consistent any oneof th e subjects in any of the studies was with respect to any oneof th e attributes investigated.280 M A R C H 1981 A M E R I C A N PSYCHOLOGIST


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to th e presentation of an alternative research par-adigm tha t is at least formally suited to the con-cerns of scientific person ality psychology.

Toward an Idiothetic Psychology ofPersonalityThe f ramework for perso nality research to be pro-posed here is grounded in the basic n otion that anind iv idual ' s personality is best described in te rmsof information about what that person tends todonot in direct contrast with what others tendto do, but in direct contrast with what that persontends no t to do but could do (cf. Lamiell, 1980;Lamiell , Foss, & C avenee , 1980; S hweder, 1980).In the discussion tha t follows, a fo rmal measure-ment rationale consistent with this basic notion ispresented. Subsequently, I consider th e major im -plications of adopting this general orientation asth e basis for scientific personality research.A F O R M A L R A T IO N A L E FO R I D I O G R A P H I CM E A S U R E M E N T1 noted earlier that any empir ica l ly based proce-dure for operationally def ining an individual 's sta-tus on some underlying attribute of a set of ob-servations can be described in terms of the followinggeneral model:

- / (V pl)( R ia (1)This model is applicable in the present context aswell. N o less here than in individual dif ferencesmeasurement , one's measured status on some at-t r ibu te a is empirically def ined as some functionof m empirical statements about person p, eachof which is weighted by its presumed relevanceto a.It is at this point, how eve r, that the present ap-proach and the individu al dif ferences view p artcompany. The crucial difference between the twolies in the nature of the contrasts by which singleSp,, values are given meaning. As we saw earlier,th e logic of individual dif ferences measurementis such that the meaning of the score assigned toan y one person depends in part on the scores as-signed to other persons. Under th e present ratio-nale, however, th e meaning of a single S pa valueis directly dependent on the extreme alternativevalues that could possibly be assigned to person pwithin th e constraints imposed by the measure-ment operation itself. A concrete, if greatly over-

simplified, example may help to clarify what isbeing argued here (an application of this approachto more complex data has been presented by Lam -iell & Trierweiler , N ote 2).Suppose that the 11 items shown in Table 1 havebeen sampled by an investigator to represent adomain of activities tha t adolescents of high schoolag e engage in . (N ote tha t th e term sampled is usedhere. It is extremely un likely that an investigatorwould ever be able to deal, in practice, with acomplete domain of alte rna tive possible activities.)In the context of Equa t ion 1, this set of 11 itemswould consti tute the V, component .Suppose further that in the view of either th einvestigator or a given adolescent (depending onwhose perspective is being taken in the research),the activities referred to in these 11 items wereconstrued in terms of the attribute "compliant ver-su s rebellious" an d tha t th e coordinates of the ac-tivities on this un de rly ing attribute have been de-f ined (e.g., on the basis of a multidimensionalscaling of pairwise similari ty judgments) as in themiddle column of Table 1. These coordinateswould operationally def ine th e R la component ofEqua t ion 1.Final ly, suppose that some hypothetical adoles-cent I shall call "M ary" reports her activity overa given week as in the third column of Table 1.B y arbitrari ly coding M ary's yes responses as 1and her no responses as 0, the obtained informa tionabout M ary with respect to the 11 activities canbe qu anti tat iv ely represented. A pplying E quation1 to these data (and assuming the t radit ional ad-ditive integration funct ion) , one can see thatM ary 's protocol yields in this instance an S ftl valueof .61. In ef fec t , this value summarizes the ob-tained info rmation about M ary with respect to aset of empirical referents for the attribute "com-pliant versus rebellious."N oth ing in what has been said thus f ar runs con-trary to the conventions of individual dif ferencesmeasurement . Under the rationale proposed here,however, the meaning of the .61 value obtainedby M ary w ould not be defined with reference tothe valu es obtained by other persons using thesame measurement operations. Rather, the value'smeaning would be defined with reference to theex t reme alternative S pa values (denoted S 'pa mai andS ' p a m t n ) that could possibly have been assigned toM a r y within th e constraints imposed by the mea-surement operation itself.Given (a) the sample of activities, (b) the di-chotomous scoring of available information re -garding these activities, (c) the specification of

A M E R I C A N P S Y C H O L O G I S T M A R C H 1981 281


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T A B L E 1Illustrative Application of ProposedMeasurement Rationale

C oncep tua l i z a t ion Recordedof perceived behaviorbehavioral over a given

Perceived behavioral alternatives alternatives week1. Dr i n k i n g b e e r / li qu o r2. En g a g i n g in premar i t a l se x3. S t u d y i n g / r e a d i n g4. Par t i c ipa t ing in

ex t r acu r r i cu l a r activities5. Engaging in acts of

vandal ism6. Doing nothing in

par t i cu la r7. S m o k i n g mari juana8 . Par t i c ipa t in g in church-

related activities9 . Sk ipp ing school

10. Shopl i f t ing11. Participating in volunteer

work in c o mmu n i t y

-.24-.20.18

.32-.26-.23-.28

.36-.28-.29

.34

N o (0 )N o (0 )Yes (1)Y es (1 )N o (0 )Y es (.1)No(0)N o (0)N o (0)No(0)Y es (1 )

Note. A ssuming an addit ive integrat ion func tion , ( l ie applicat ion ofEquation 1 to these data yields an Spa value of .61 (see text for details).Th e da ta ar e based on a s tudy by Lam ie l l , Foss, an d Cavenee (1980).

particular relevance values for these activities, and(d ) the use of an addit ive integration funct ion , on ecan see that in the presen t example M ary migh thave been as "compliant" as 1.20 or as "rebellious"as 1.78. The former value would have been ob-tained had M ary reported yes for A ctivi ties 3 , 4,8, and 11 and no fo r Act iv i t ies 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, and10. The latter value would have been obtained forthe exact opposite response pattern.H a v in g d e fine d th e ma x im u m a n d min im u mvalues that can possibly be obtained on a measu reof some underlying at tr ibute of a set of empiricalobservations, an indi vid ual's status with respect tothat a t tr ibute on any given meas uremen t occasioncan be formal ly expressed as follows:

'-'pa pa mtnC' _ C'^ pa mai "pa min (2)

where 7)M refers to the idiographically defined sta-tu s of person p on a t t r ibu te a, S pa is def ined ac-cording to Equation 1, an d S 'pa max an d S 'pa , , aredefined in the ma n n e r just discussed.Under the terms of this measurement model ,S',,a mtn serves as the functional zero point on thescale used to operationally def ine at tr ibute a. Theabsolute dif ference between S pa and S 'pa mln thusdefines the deviation of an individual's protocolf ro m the funct ional zero point, and the absoluted i f fe r ence between S 'pa max and S 'pa min defines th e

length of the scale. The ratio of these two di f fe r -ences thus provides a qua nt ita tiv e expression of thedegree to which an individual's protocol reflectssome attribute a, relative to how much that pro-tocol could have ref lected at tr ibute a given theconstraints imposed by the measurement operationitself. In short , Equation 2 expresses th e status ofan ind ividu al on a given me asurem ent occasionwith respect to attribute anot in contrast withth e status of others on a t t r ibu te a , but instead withreference to wha t his or her measured status couldpossibly have.been given the procedure for mea-sur ing a t t r ibu te a .In th is exam ple , the absolute dif fer enc e betweenM ary 's obtained S pa value (.61) and S 'pa min (-1.78)is equal to 2.39. This quantity expresses the de-viation of M a ry' s reported activi ty pattern f romth e f u n c t i o n a l zero point of the scale. The absolutedif ference between S'pa m ax an d S 'pa is 2.98, andthis quantity defines th e length of the scale. Theratio of these tw o quan t i t ies is .802, and it is th isvalue that wou ld be used in the present perspectiveto defin e M ary's statu s over the week in questionwith respect to the at tr ib ute "com pliant versus re-bellious."In effect , what ha s just been presented is a fo r -m al ra t iona le f o r id iographic personali ty mea sure-men t (cf . A llport, 1962; se e also Cattell's [1944]discussion of " interactive measurement ," which hedistinguishes f rom both normative and ipsativemeasurem ent) . I t is a rat ionale by which the mea-sured status of an individual on a single attributeat a given point in lime hinges entirely on infor-mation available for that individual a t that pointin time with respect to a set of empirical referentsfor that attribute.With th e above discussion as "spadework," weare now in a position to consider th e major im -plications of adopting idiogr aphic measurem ent asth e f o u n d a t io n for a science of personali ty .D IS P E N S I N G W I TH TH E C O M P A R I S O N O FI N D I V I D U A L S A L O N G C O M M O N A T TR IB U TE SPerhaps th e most obvious implication of the mea-surem ent rat ionale i l lustrated above is that it wouldenable an inv estigato r to dispense completely w iththe comparison of individuals a long comm on at-tributes. Technically, th e reason for this is that th emeaning of the S pa value assigned to an ind iv idua lat a given p oint in tim e is not derived by com -paring it with S pV l values, that is , with th e measuredstatus of other persons on the same attribute. Con-sequen t ly , there is no need to assume that a t tr ibut e

282 M A R C H 1981 A M E R I C A N PSYCHOLOGIST


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a is applicable to al lor even t o anyothe r per-sons ( c f . Bern & -A l l en , 1974; Kenrick & Str ingf ie ld ,1980). I t is inte rest ing to note the com patib ility ofthis view with Tyler's (1978) recent observationthat "in a developed technology for assessing in -dividuals, w e will not give everybody th e sametest" (p. 113, italics added).

In pr inciple , any subset of the 18,000 or so per-sonal i ty adjectives identi f ied by A llport and O d-bert (1936) could be used to charac te r ize the ac-tions of an in d iv id u a l in a given si tuation. Whichsubset is in fact applied will be directly dependenton the perception and construal of that individual 'sa l te rna t ive possibilities for action in that s i tuation.Thus, for example , an indi vidu al would be char-acterized as " f r iend ly" if, in a given si tuation, heor sh e engaged in actions construed by the char -acter izer as " f r iendly" when actions construed byth e character izer as " u n f r i e n d ly " were perceivedas viable alternative possibilities. 5N ow it is cer ta in ly t rue tha t th e a l te rna t ive pos:sibilities for act ion which occur to an individual(o r to an observer of that i nd iv idua l ) in a givensituation depend in a large part on his or herknowledge (and memory) of how other personshave acted unde r s imila r c ircumstanc es . A s theabove example makes clear , however , it does notfollow tha t the degree to which an i n d iv id u a l ma n -ifests some under l y ing a t t r ibu te of a set of possibleactions either must be or is most usefully def inedin direct contrast to the degree to which iden t i f iedothers manifest that same at tr ibute . Within thef r amework being proposed here, knowledge aboutind iv idual di f f e rences in action c a n i nde e dshouldserve as the basis for def ini ng the V,s ofE q ua tion 1, tha t is, the alte rna tiv e possibilities foraction. H owever, once those V (s (and their corre-sponding relevance values) have been specified,one has all the i n f o rma t io n one needs to charac-ter ize an i ndi vid ual 's act ions in a given si tuation,that is, to in te rpre t meaning fu l ly th e S pa value as-signed to an i n d iv id u a l on a given measurementoccasion.Be fore leaving this topic, I should emphasizet h a t there is n o th in g in the logic of id iographicmeasurement that precludes th e com parab i l i ty o fpersons along common attr ibutes . I t seems per-fect ly reasonable to assume that unde r certain con-ditions, dif ferent persons wil l perceive essentiallyth e same alternative possibilities for action andwil l , as a result of cultura l norm s and other factors ,constru e those alte rna tive possibilities in essentiallyth e same way. Under these condit ions , a single se tof "items" and "relevance values" might reason-

ably be applied to all of the i n d iv id u a l sbeing stud-ied. M oreover , under these specif ic condit ions , dif -ferences between two individuals in their actionsm igh t well reflect diff eren ces in their personalities.The point is that the com para bil i ty of personsalong common a t t r ibu tes is not cr i t ica l to the sys-tema tic , empirical char acteriz at ion of any one per-son's actions at a given point in t ime . The essenceof id iograph ic measurement is not tha t it rejectsth e assumption of universal applicabil i ty (cf . Bern& A llen, 1974; Kenrick & Stringfield, 1980) buttha t i t renders this assumption im m ate ria l .I D I O G R A P H I C M E A S U R E M E N T A N D TH E P R O B L E M O FP E R S O N A L I T Y D E S C R I P T I O NIn the long run , a matte r of far greater s ignif icancethan tha t just discussed is the fa ct that idiograph icmeasurement provides an invest igator with ameans of empirical ly i den t i fy ing those qualities orat tr ibutes that a re mani fes ted by an individualwith some degree of regularity or consistency overtim e and across situations . This is, of course, theessence of personali ty descript ion. In the light ofthe earlier d iscussion of person ality coef ficien ts,the im porta nce of this topic is no doubt apparent .To i l lustrate how an invest igator w ould actuallyapproach this task f rom an idiographic perspective,consider th e data shown in Figure 1, obtained aspar t of a recent s tudy by Lamiel l and Trierweiler( N o te 2) , The specific purpose and procedura l de-tails of that s tudy need not concern us here. It issufficient to note that th e da ta in Figure 1 arebased on a straightforward applicat ion of the mea-surement rat ionale i l lustrated previously . In thiscase, however, four underlying dimensions ( ratherthan just one) were identified for a set of 18 ac-tivities through mult idimensional scaling proce-dures . Self - reports of activi ty f requencies duringspecified two-day intervals (recorded on con t inu -ous 10-point scales rather than dichotomously, asin th e above example) were then obtained fromeach of 19 undergraduate respondents on threeseparate occasions. Figure 1 presents the data forthree of those respondents.

G lanc ing at Figure 1, one can see tha t Respon-dent 1 ( lef t panel) tended to be relatively consistentover time with respect to At t r i b u t e I I and relat ively

5 If no viable alternative possibili t ies ar e perceived for (or by)an ind iv idua l in a given si tuat ion , then his or her actions in thats i tuat ion are not l ikely to be regarded as i n fo rm a t ive abou t (orindieat ive of) his or her personal i ty . This deduct ion is, of course,consistent with f ind ings reported in the a t t r i bu t i on l i t e r a tu r e( c f . K rug l ansk i , 1980).



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I.UUtoLJ>_ _ J .80j J

_3/

V1 2 3

T I M E

i i iRESPONDENT #10

A t t r i b u t e s

*~-\

1 1 I1 2 3

T I M E

i i iRESPONDENT #17

A t t r i b u t e sm ^

'"X ^ .". s- _.;--

1 2 3T I M E

M E A S U R E M E N T O C C A S I O N SFigure 1. Idiographic measures for three respondents on four attributes at three points in time.

inconsistent wi th respect to A t t r ib ute s I , I I I , andIV ; tha t is , shifts in the id iographica l ly def ineds ta tus of Responden t 1 on A t t r ib u t e I I across th eth ree measurement occas ions were small in com-par ison with shif ts in the id iographica l ly def inedstatus of tha t same respondent on A t t r i b u te s I , I I I ,and IV. A ppl y in g th is same ra t ionale , one can seethat Respondent 10 (center panel) was relativelyconsistent over t im e with respect to A t t r ibute s Iand IV and re lative ly incons istent wi th respect toA t t r i b u t e s II and I I I . F ina l ly , Responden t 17 (r ightpanel) was most consistent wit h respect to A t t ri b u t eI and quite inconsistent with respect to A ttr ibutesI I , I I I , and IV .

Obv ious ly , one would not ser iously a t temp t tod r a w f i rm conclusions about the personalities ofan y one of these thre e resp onde nts on the basis ofsuch a limited set of observatio ns. The inten t hereis merely to i l lus tra te how one would apply thef o r m a l me asure me nt ra t ionale out l ined above tothe problem of personality description. In connec-tion wi th this illustration, two matters deserve spe-cial c o m m e n t .First , in data of the sort shown in Figure 1, theobserved shifts in any one respondent 's status ona given a t t r ibute do not depend in any way on theshifts of the other respondents with respect to thata t t r ibu te . This could not be assumed had the datain Figure 1 been derived in accordance with the

normative measurement ra t ionale employed in in -d iv idua l dif ferences research .

B y the logic of a normative measurement ratio-nale , an ind iv idual ' s measured s ta tus on a givena t t r ibu te could change over time despite perfectconsistency on the par t o f tha t indiv idual with re -spect to the set of empirical referents for that at-tribute, that is, the [(V p,)(R,a)] units of Equation 1.This could happen merely as a result of inconsis-tencies on the par t of others with whom that in -div idual happens to be compared. S imi la r ly , anind iv idual ' s s ta tus on a given attribute could, bythe logic of individual dif ferences measurement,remain constant over time despite marked changesin tha t indiv idual with respect to the set of em-pirical referents for that attribute. This could hap-pen if the others wit h whom the person is com-pared happen to change in the same way .

In idiographic me a s u re me n t , ambigui t ies o f th issort are el iminated; tha t is, th e degree of consis-tency with w hich an indiv idua l manifes ts var iousattributes is completely independent of the( in)consistencies of other individuals with respectto those attributes and hinges entirely on the(in)consistencies of that individual with respect tothe set(s) of empirical referen ts for those attributes.

A second point is tha t in the last analysis, th enature of the knowledge produced in the scientif icstudy of personality will depend in part on the

284 M A R C H 1981 A M E R I C A N P S Y C H O L O G I S T


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quality of the "raw" observations that are accu-mulated (cf. Fiske, 1978a, 1978b, 1979) as well ason th e perspective from which they are accumu-lated (i.e., the investigator's or the subject's; cf.Golding , 1978; H ar re & S ecord, 1973; K elly , 1955;Rychlak , 1968). H ow ever , the nature of thatknowledge will also depend to a considerable de-gree on how those observations are organized oncethey are obtained, that is, on the w ay in which rawdata are transformed into data (Coombs, 1964).Unl ike th e personality coefficients generatedwithin the ind ivid ual differences paradigm, dataof th e sort shown in Figure 1 would permit aninvestigator to ident i fy those qualities or attributesthat are manifested by individuals with some de-gree of regular i ty or consistency; that is , theywould provide the investigator with an empiricalbasis for personality description. If the present ar -ticle has but one point to stress, it is that the cre-ation of such databy one means or anotherisabsolutely necessary for the purposes of a scienceof personal i ty .I D I O G R A P H I C M E A S U R E M E N T A N D TH E S E A R C H FO RG E N E R A L P R I N C I P L E S O F P E R S O N A L I T Y

Historical ly , the single most persistent response toprevious proponents of idiography has been thatwhatever descriptive advantages idiography mighthave, i t would u l t imate ly underm ine th e overrid-in g objective of establishing general principles ofpersonality (cf. Beck, 1953; Eysenck, 1954; Fa lk ,1956; H olt, 1962; K le in mu n tz , 1967). N u n n al ly ,(1967) has provided perhaps th e most forcefulexpression of this view:T he idiographists may be ent i rely correct, but if theyare it is a sad day for psychology. Idiography is an an-tiscience point of view: it discourages th e search for gen-eral laws and instead encourages the descript ion of par-t icular phenomena (people).E f f o r t s to measure personal i ty traits are based on thehypothesis that th e idiographists are not entirely correct,tha t there are some general traits of h u m a n personality.The nomothet i c point of view should be tested to thelimit; otherwise, to accept an idiographic point of viewin advance is to postulate that only chaos prevails in thedescription of h u m a n personalities, (p. 472)

Because this view has so thoroughly dominatedempi r i ca l personality psychology for so long, veryl i t t le research of a t ru ly idiographic nature hasbeen reported in the l i t e ra tureeven by those whohave advocated such research most earnestly (cf.Hal l & Lindzey 's [1978] discussion of Gordon All -

port's career). M oreover, it has never been madeclear how to reconcile what little idiographic re -search has been done ( cf. A llp or t, 1965; Lev inson,Dar row, Klein, Levinson, & M cKee, 1978; White,1972, 1975) w ith the nom oth etic ob jectives of ascience of personality.The key to any such reconciliation lies in un-derstan ding that there is not hin g in the search f orgeneral principles of personality which logicallyrequires that th e status of an ind iv idua l on a givenat tr ibute be defined relative to the measured statusof others on the same attribute. Indeed, one mightargue, on the basis of what has been said thus far,that the nearly exclusive reliance by personalityresearchers on a norm ative measurem ent rationaleis impeding rather than facilitating th e search forgeneral principles of personality,

In an y event , there is nothing inherently "an-tiscientific" about an orientation which presumesthat certain basic principles govern th e emergenceof , maintenance of , and changes in the personal-ities of individuals in general without presumingt ha t the particular attributes which define the per-sonalities of individuals must be common to all ofthose individuals (cf. Tyler, 1978). Stated other-wise, there is no logical a priori reason to reject aparadigm for the scientific study of personality inwhich gener ality is sought with refere nce to theprocess of personality development but in whichcomparabi l i ty in the substance of individuals ' per-sonalities is neither presumed nor precluded.

Suppose, for example, that data of the sort il -lustrated in Figure 1 had been carefu l ly accu-mula ted for nume rous ind ividuals over extendedperiods of t ime. Unlike th e dif ferential psycholo-gist, the personality investigator might reasonablybe quite uninterested in determining the degreeof consistency with w hich certain comm on attri-butes were manifested by subjects in the aggregate.To the best of my knowledge, there is no person-ality theorist who is parti cular ly concerned wit hthat issue one way or the other . However , th e per-sonality inve stiga tor mig ht well be very interestedin whatever each individual 's data might revealabout the basic process of personality developm ent.This is an issue with which most personality the-orists are directly concerned (cf. H all & Lindzey,1978; L evy, 1970). M oreove r, as a mean s of for-mal ly testing hypotheses relevant to this issue wi thdata of the kind envisioned here , time series anal-ysis (Glass, Willson, & G o t t m a n , 1975; G ottman ,1973) comes readily to mind .To the extent that theoretically derived hy-



11/14

potheses per t inent to quest ions of personal i ty de-velopment could repeatedly be c o n f i r m e d in (the-oret ical ly relevant por t ions of) the d a t a of singleind iv iduals , one cou ld very wel l accumula te em-pi r ica l s u p p o r t f o r general pr inciples o f per sona l -i t y , th e ( i n ) co mp arab i l i t y of i n d i v i d u a l s on sub-s t an t i v e a t t r i b u t e s n o t w i t h s t a n d i n g . B y i ts v e r yn a t u r e , such research would be logical ly compat -ib le w i t h th e object ives o f l e a r n i n g th e best w ayto descr ibe what kind of a person a given i n d i v i d -ual is , how he or she got that wa y, wh at keeps himor her tha t w ay , w ha t migh t ma ke h im or he rc h a n g e , and how an u n d e r s t a n d i n g of all of thism i g h t c o n t r i b u t e to the e x p l a n a t i o n and predict ionof th e behav io r of i nd iv idua l s .

P rogrammat ic r esearch o f t he type just de-scr ibed would be idiographic in the sense that i two u ld be predicated on an i d iograph ic measure -me nt r a t iona le and w ould l i t e r a l ly i nvo lve thestudy of s ing le ind iv idu a l s over t im e . I t wo uld alsobe nomothet ic , however , in that i t would seek toc o n f i r m , across i nd iv idua l s , th e app l i cab i l i t y ofcer tain basic pr inciples to an understanding of the-ore t ica l ly r e l evan t phenomena . In a word , t he r e -sea rch would be idiothetic.

O b v i o u s l y , no one can claim that such researchwo u ld lead u n fa i l i n g ly to genera l pr inciples ofpersonal i ty . N o one knows fo r ce rt a in tha t genera lpr inciples of per sona l i ty can conv inc ing ly be es-tabl ished by any m e a n s . The reader can be c e r t a i n ,however , that such research would be nei ther log-ical ly incompat ible wi th th e search f o r such pr in-ciples nor in any other w ay "ant iscient i f ic . "A N O T E O N T H E R O L E O F TH E P S Y C H O L O G I C A LS I T U A T I O ND u r i n g the past decade, considerable at tent ion hasbeen given to the problem of spec i fy ing the roleof the psychological si tu ation in the scien tific stud yof pers ona lity (see, e.g., Bern & Funder, 1978; Buss ,1977; Ekehammar, 1974; Endler, 1975; Endler &M agnusson, 1976; Frederiksen, 1972; H oward ,1979; M agnusson & Ekehammar, 1975; M agnusson& E ndler , 1977; M ischel , 1973,1977,1979; P e r v i n ,1977; Wachtel , 1977).

Space l imi t a t ions p rec lude a thorou gh discussionof this topic here. I t is wo r th not ing , how ever , tha tf rom an idiothetic perspective, a psychological si t -ua t ion would be def ined in empirical research interms of the at t r ibu te (or , possibly , the at t r ibutes)that i s central to the const rual of one's perceivedal ternat ive possibi l i t ies for act ion wi thin a givenin te rva l of t ime.

Thus , fo r example , a "competitive" psycholog-ical s i tuat ion w o u l d be de f ined as an in te rva l oft i m e d u r i n g w h i c h th e a t t r ibu te "compet i t i venessversus noncompet i t iveness" is cen t r a l to the con-s t rua l of the in divid ual ' s perceived al te rna t ive pos-sibilities for act ion . S i m i l a r l y , a "love and a f f ec -t ion" s i tuat ion (cf . R ot te r , 1955) wou ld be def inedas an i n t e rva l o f t ime dur ing which th e a t t r ibu te"a f f ec t i o n a t e ver sus nona f fec t iona te" is cen t r a l tothe cons t rua l of one's perceived alte rna tive possi-bi l i t ies for act ion . From this perspect ive , an indi -v idua l would be said to r e m a i n in the same psy-chological si tuation to the extent that there isconstancy in the at t r ibu te(s ) that i s cen tral to theconst rual of h is or her perceived al tern at ive pos-sibilities for act ion , whether or not there i s con-stancy in the perceived al te rna t ive possibil it iesthemselves.

This perspective on the role of the psychologicalsituation in the scient i f ic s tudy of personal i ty seemsto be qu i t e compat ib l e wi th the approach recent lytaken by Bern and Funder (1978) a n d , more gen-e ra l ly , wi th wha t some au thor s have t e rmed anorganismic--as contrasted wi th mechanisticin-teractionism (cf . Bow ers , 1973; Buss , 1977; E ndle r ,1975 ; H owa rd , 1979). Its u t i l i t y , of cour se , r emainsto be f i rmly establ ished.

Concluding RemarksIn his recent discussion of the past , present , andf u t u r e (?) of personal i ty theory, Rych lak (1976b)notes that a d i s t ingu i sh ing fea tu re of the person-al i ty theor is t has a lways been his or her concernw i t h the ident i ty of the i nd iv idua l . He elaboratesthis point as follows:It is the ability to both have an idea or be doing some-th ing and yet at the same time grasp transcendentallythat on e is thinking an d doing these things, to commenton them, an d to know that o ne could be doing andthinking otherwise, that leads a personality theorist topostulate the identity factor, (p , 220, latter italics added)

Rychlak 's concept ion of the individual ident i tyseems qui te s imi lar to Tyler 's (1978) recent dis-cussion of individuality:Through encounters with a very large number of situ-ations an d persons exemplifying different possibilities f orstructuring reality, one puts together one's ow n reper-toire of possibility-processing structures, (p . 232)What characterizes an individual is the pat tern of re-sponses, the likelihood that di f fe ren t tasks and situationswill be dealt with in one way rather than another, (pp.159-160, italics added)

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More than on anything else, one's individuality dependson the choices one makes, (p. 204)

Both Rychlak and Tyler emphasize th e g e n e r a l ,fa i lure of personality research to come to gripswith the concepts of iden tity and indiv iduality . A sa result , R yc hla k argues, the research has simplynot served th e person ality theorist very well at all,a point seemingly corroborated by Sechrest's (1976)observation that despite the proliferation of em-pirical research, personality psychology has failedto achieve any major theoretical advances in de-cades. The present article has a t t empted to clarifyth e fundamenta l r eason for this problem and tooutline one possible approach to its resolution.To recapi tula te , it has been noted that most per-sonality theorists are concerned wi th describing th epersonalities of individuals and, subsequently, withunders tanding how personalities develop, aremainta ined , and change . The presumption of per-sonality theorists is that an understanding of thesematters would (a) cont r ibute impor tant ly to theexplanation of why any given individual acts theway he or she does and (b) provide a means ofant ic ipat ing how any given individual will behavein th e future .

Unfor tunate ly, th e vast majority of personalityresearchers have long been working within th econstraints of a paradigm which, however usefulit may be for other purposes, is inherently ill suitedto the most fundamental of the above concerns:describing the personalit ies of indiv idua ls . Con-seque ntly, research conducted with in this para-digm cannot possibly adequately address the re-maining concerns of the personality theorist . Theen d result , of course, is tha t a large conceptual gapcont inues to exist between th e theoretical and em-pirical branches of the discipline.With the objective of even tual ly nar row ing thisgap, I hav e proposed and il lustrated a f o rma l ra -t ionale for idiographic personal i ty measurementand have discussed the potential uti l i ty of adoptingthis rationale as the basis for scientif ic perso nalityresearch. The compat ibi l i ty of the proposed mea-surement ra t ion ale wi th R ychlak's (1976b) conceptof identi ty and with Tyler's (1978) concept of in-dividuali ty cannot be overlooked. It is a rationalebased squarely on the notion that the "kind ofperson" one is is directly reflected in the kind ofperson on e is not bu t could be and is only inci-dentally, if at all, reflected in the kind of personsomeone else is.To be sure, what has been presented to this poin tis nothing more than a bluepr int for f u tu re per-

sonality research ( cf . E pstein, 1980; M ischel , 1977,1979). A s the reader is doubtless well aware, thefield of personality psychology is current ly bese twith numerous difficulties an d controv ersies (Fiske,1978b), and I certainly make no pretense here tohave resolved them all .

This much seems clear , however: If the overrid-ing metatheoretical concerns of a science of per-sonality are at all well represented by the quota t ionof Levy (1970) cited at the outset of this article,then some viable alternative to the individual dif-ferences paradigm is going to have to be devel-oped. Above al l else, a viable alternative will beone within which th e search for general principlesof personality can proceed w ithou t simu ltaneo uslycompromis ing th e fideli ty with which th e inves-tigator ca n address theoretically relevant questionsat the level of the individual.

Although it s empirical uti l i ty obviously awaitssystematic documentation, th e framework pro-posed here seems to provide at least a reasonablestarting point . As this paradigm develops, the sci-entif ic study of personality will l ikely become lessan d less syno nym ous with th e assessment an d studyof i ndiv idua l d i f fe rences (which is the business ofdif ferent ia l psychology) and increasingly synony-mous wi th th e search for the general principlesthat govern th e development o f personal identi-ties (cf. Breger, 1974; Rychlak, 1976a). There aregood reasons for believing that this is what mostpersonality theorists have wanted to unders tand allalong.

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Toward an Idiot He Tic Psychology of Personality

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