PERSONALITY PROCESSES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES ...

STABILITY OF INTRAINDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR PATTERNING 683
Number of shared features
Figure 2. Consistency of individual differences in behavior across situations
as a function of the number of shared psychological features,
agg. = aggression.
the present sample were characterized by distinctive and predictable
patterns of behavior variation across the particular psychological
situations. As predicted, the individual's distinctive
profiles of behavior variability observed at different times were
significantly similar to each other within a given person and thus
relatively stable. In contrast, such profiles from different individuals
on average would be expected to have a similarity coefficient
of 0, which also was verified empirically by computing
profile similarity correlations among all pairs of individuals and
calculating their means over many iterations.
Thus, the obtained intraindividual stable profiles reflected
distinctive and personologically meaningful, nonrandom variance
not shared normatively by others in the sample as a whole.
Moreover, the patterns of variation across just the three negatively
valenced types of psychological situations proved to be
significantly stable within individuals over repeated occasions.
The latter results indicated that the individuals' discriminations
among situations went beyond their overall valence and that
they encompassed subtler differences among situations of the
same (negative) valence.
In the social-cognitive view, these intraindividually stable
patterns of behavior variation across situations reflect underlying
person variables, such as beliefs and values, and the way
different social situations are encoded by the person (e.g., Forgas,
1983). For example, when personality is conceptualized in
terms of the goals pursued by the individuals (e.g., Pervin, 1989;
Pervin & Furnham, 1987; Read, Jones, & Miller, 1990), or by
the cognitive strategies used (e.g., Miller, 1987; Miller & Mangan,
1983; Norem, 1989; Showers, 1992), it is the patterns of
stable //. . . then. . . relations, rather than the average behavior
tendency, that are expected to reflect more directly the underlying
personality differences that distinguish individuals. Regardless
of specific theoretical orientation, it is this type of intraindividual
stability in the pattern and organization of
behavior that seems especially central for a psychology of personality
ultimately devoted to understanding and capturing the
uniqueness of individual functioning (e.g., Allport, 1937; Mischel,
1973). It is these patterns that also are the basis for inferring
underlying motivations and generating explanations about
the individual's behaviors (e.g., Shoda & Mischel, 1993; Weiner,
1991). By incorporating such distinctive, stable patterns of interaction
into the conception, assessment, and explanations of
behavioral coherence, it may be possible to understand in
greater depth how and why an individual's behavior varies
across specific situations (Mischel & Shoda, in press).
It should be noted that the present findings do not speak to
variations in behaviors across situations in their absolute levels,
for example, in the differences in the number of times people
smile at a party and at a funeral. Although confusion on this
topic has been frequent, no personologists really expect people's
behaviors to be "constant" across diverse situations in their absolute
levels. Instead, they have always focused on how an individual's
behavior deviates from the respective situation norms
(e.g., Joe is more sociable than most people at parties) and tried
to demonstrate that this will be consistent from situation to situation
(e.g., Joe is also more sociable than most people at the
office). Similarly, the present research also focused on how a
particular individual's behavior deviated distinctively from the
normative levels observed for the group as a whole. However,
we did not seek behavioral coherence in the form of consistent
individual differences in behavior (relative to situation norms)
from one situation to another. Instead, we sought—and
found—behavioral coherence in the stable intraindividual patterns
of behavior variation across situations that distinguish the
individual from others (i.e., from the normative patterns) and
that form a part of the person's characteristic behavioral signature—he
A when X, but B when Y, and does A most when Z.
Analyses of characteristic intraindividual variation of behavior
across psychological situations need not be limited to idiographic
analyses that identify the signature patterns in behavior
that uniquely characterizes a single individual (Nesselroade,
1990). The same type of analyses can be used in nomothetic
research to identify groups or "types" of individuals that share
certain key psychological processes (e.g., Contrada, 1991). For
example, as Kazdin (1990) noted, it has proved surprisingly
difficult to characterize disturbed children with such broad labels
as "conduct problems," "impulsive," and "socially withdrawn"
by identifying common maladaptive behaviors in general.
By focusing on the characteristic patterns by which their
behaviors vary across psychological situations, it may be possible
to identify individuals who share common types of maladaptive,
or adaptive, processes that are manifested in a common
if. . . then . . . pattern of behavior variation. Thus,
focusing on intraindividual, situation-behavior, patterns of
variation could address a clinical as well as a theoretical need.
Stable, Distinctive Intraindividual Patterns of Variability
Limit the Level ofCross-Situational Consistency
The obtained intraindividually stable profiles of //. . . then
. . . relations between psychological features of situations and
the person's behavior also have important implications for the
pursuit of cross-situational consistency in nomothetic research
that seeks behavioral consistency across situations. Namely, as
predicted from social-cognitive theory (e.g., Mischel, 1973;
Shoda & Mischel, 1993), and as shown formally elsewhere
(Shoda, 1990), to the extent that individuals are characterized
by stable and distinctive patterns of variations in behavior
across situations, there is an intrinsic limit to the levels of cross-