PERSONALITY PROCESSES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES ...

686 Y. SHODA, W. MISCHEL, AND J. WRIGHT
has demonstrated that rather than threatening the existence of
the personality construct, an explicit focus on the relationships
between psychologically relevant contexts and the individual's
behaviors in them are vital for the conception of personality and
expand its domain (also see Mischel & Shoda, in press).
Although intraindividual coherence has long been a central
concern for personologists, it has proved difficult to find objective,
systematic methods for assessing and identifying its behavioral
manifestations. The intraindividual patterns of behavior
variability, the configuration of if. . . then . . . , situationbehavior
relations illustrated here, far from undermining the
concept of personality actually enable idiographic studies of
personality and thus provide a systematic method for personality
psychology's most enduring basic goal (e.g., Allport, 1937;
Bern & Allen, 1974; Magnusson & Torestad, 1993; Mischel,
1968). By addressing not only the average level of behavior (e.g.,
overall agreeableness) but also when, where, and with whom it
occurs, one can see the individual's distinctive, coherent, and
systematic patterns of behavior variation and glimpse the psychological
processes and person variables that underlie them.
Most earlier work within an idiographic framework has been
restricted to the individual case, and most nomothetic research
has tended to be focused on the hypothetical "average mind"
that Allport (1937) hoped the psychology of personality would
transcend. In contrast, the present study suggests a new route
that is not limited to a single individual and allows potentially
generalizable findings of broad relevance while still retaining an
essentially idiographic, person-centered focus. First one analyzes
the intraindividual organization and regularities of individual
functioning, as seen in the stable, intraindividual patterns
of behavior variability. Then one seeks features of such
patterns that are common to groups and types and other categories
of persons who share similar underlying personality processes.
Finally, one identifies the mediating personality processes
that underlie and generate these patterns.
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