Moving personality beyond the person-situation debate

ABSTRACT—The person-situation debate is coming to an end because both sides of the debate have turned out to be right. With respect to momentary behaviors, the situation side is right: Traits do not predict, describe, or influence behavior very strongly; the typical individual’s behavior is highly variable; and a process approach is needed to explain that variability. With respect to trends (e.g., a person’s typical way of acting), however, the person side of the debate is right: Traits predict and describe behavior very well over long stretches of time, behavior is highly stable, and a trait approach is needed to explain differences between people. Thus, proponents of both sides are right and should continue to conduct fruitful research, and both viewpoints are necessary for a full understanding of personality. The next exciting steps in personality psychology will include integrating these two approaches in the same re-search paradigm. KEYWORDS—intraindividual variability; personality; person-situation debate; interactionism; behavior How can we talk about the way a person typically acts if that way is always changing? The same person acts very differently on different occasions, and this simple fact has been one of the greatest challenges for personality psychologists to incorporate into the concept of per-sonality. Indeed, initial empirical confirmations of this variability created strong reactions among psychologists, leading many to con-clude that traits do not exist, people do not differ from each other, and there is no need for the study of personality. The purpose of this article is to organize and interpret the implications of such within-person variability for the study of personality. In particular, I describe my recent contributions to the growing consensus among experts that within-person variability is not a threat but an opportunity, that the stagnant person-situation debate is at an end, and that exciting new research directions lie ahead in personality psychology