Toward a Structure- and Process-Integrated Trait as Density Distributions
by Fleeson
Abstract
Three experience-sampling studies explored the distributions of Big-Five-relevant states (behavior) across 2 to 3 weeks of everyday life. Within-person variability was high, such that the typical individual regularly and routinely manifested nearly all levels of all traits in his or her everyday behavior. Second, individual differences in central tendencies of behavioral distributions were almost perfectly stable. Third, amount of behavioral variability (and skew and kurtosis) were revealed as stable individual differences. Finally, amount of within-person variability in extraversion was shown to reflect individual differences in reactivity to extraversion-relevant situational cues. Thus, decontextualized and noncontingent Big-Five content is highly useful for descriptions of individuals' density distributions as wholes. Simultaneously, contextualized and contingent personality units (e.g., conditional traits, goals) are needed for describing the considerable within-person variation.
Theoretical Framing
Core message:
Individual behavior over time forms a distribution about personality and the entire distribution matters.
Motivations
Three presumptions that motivated the framing :
The average individual routinely and regularly expresses all levels of traits, and this within-person variability is predictable as individual differences in reactions to situational cues.
Although single behaviors are less predictable, the mean of the distribution is among the most predictable variables in psychology.
Parameters beyond the mean are also meaningful aspects of personality (e.g., variability is itself a stable individual-differences characteristic)
Three benefits of examining personality as a whole distribution over time:
Improve understanding of how trait content manifests in everyday beahavior, and do individuals differ in such manifestation?
Integrate both structural/noncontingent approaches and process or contingent approaches.
Structural approaches: Explaining behavior through the stability of aggregated mean. (What kind of people tend to do what)
Process approaches: Explaining behavior through within-person variability. (What people tend to do in different situations)
Reveal additional aspects of everyday behavior that are relevant to personality over time.
Individual Differences as Density Distributions of States
The core assumption is that "behavior can be characterized as trait-relevant states."
Five empirical outcomes that would support the shift towards focusing on the entire distribution instead of just mean:
The wider the typical individual distributions, the more of any given individual's behavior is left undescribed by this or her mean alone.
Single states would not be stable (hard to predict state)
The means of distribution would be highly stable
At least one other parameter of distributions would also be stable
Within-person behavioral variability must be meaningful (predictable), and different for different individuals.
How Much Within-Person Variability is Present in Personality-Relevant Behavior
Within-person variability: a person's state variation from the person's mean
This can be compared against:
total variation in the dataset
between-person variation in traits
within-person variation in affect (a different construct with state & trait)
Are Individual Differences in Behavioral Manifestations of Traits Stable (Predictable)?
The view on personality is that the state is not predictable, but the trait is. The new proposed perspective is that full distribution matters.
Is Within-Person Variability Meaningful? The Role of Situational Cues
Within-person variability is not noise but a reaction to different situation cues.
Individuals are likely to differ in their sensitivity or reactivity to such cues.
Hypothesis: sensitivity to cues and individual differences in sensitivity provide within-person variance with psychological meanings.
Using extraversion as an example, four predictions:
If within-person variability represents meaningful variance in behavior rather than noise -> Within-person variability varies significantly with the time of day and with the number of present others
If personality is at least somewhat expressed in differential sensitivity to cues -> Individuals will differ in how their trait levels react to the cue
If sensitivity to cues is trait-specific -> Variability will not be strongly correlated across traits
If individual differences in the amount of variability in a trait represent sensitivity to that trait's cues -> variability of extraversion will be predictable from reactivity of extraversion to time and to number of others.
Main Result
Within-person variability is generally close to total variation and larger than between-person variations.
Individual states have a low correlation
Individual distribution parameters are stable, obtained by using split-half data to generate pairs of distribution and find parameters correlation (reported as stability)
Individuals with a tendency in one distribution parameter (e.g., skew) in one personality dimension are more likely to have the same tendency in other dimensions
Trait-relevant cues are significant when predicting within-person variation (state)
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