EJP Commentary Dunlop
Personality: Limit One per Customer
David G. Serfass, Nicolas A. Brown, Ashley Bell Jones,
Daniel E. Lopez-Chavez, & Ryne A. Sherman
Florida Atlantic University
Authors’ Note
Correspondence regarding this article should be sent to Ryne A. Sherman, Department of
Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, FL 33431. Email:
rsherm13@fau.edu.
EJP Commentary Dunlop
Abstract
Contextualized theories of personality claim that people possess different personalities
depending on their current context (i.e., situation). These approaches confuse behavior, which is
context specific, with personality, which is not. Dunlop’s (this issue) extension of contextualized
personality to include goals and life narratives similarly obfuscates this issue. While it may be of
interest to examine momentary behavior in relation to context specific goals and narratives, there
is only one personality per person. The scientific and practical utility of personality is its ability
to predict behavior across a variety of situations.
EJP Commentary Dunlop
Psychologists have made numerous attempts to contextualize personality. As noted by
Dunlop (this issue), this often involves having a person complete a trait inventory for each of
several roles (e.g., Donahue & Harary, 1998; Roberts & Donahue, 1994; Sheldon & Elliot, 2000;
Wood & Roberts, 2006). Other attempts to contextualize personality suggest that personality
consists of some unknown (or unlimited) number of interactions between the person and the
situations he or she encounters (e.g., Mischel, 2009; Shoda, Mischel, & Wright, 1994; Wright &
Mischel, 1987). An even more recently developed view suggests that personality is the entire
density distribution of one’s behavior across the many situations one encounters (Fleeson, 2001;
Fleeson & Jayawickreme, in press).
Unfortunately, all contextualized conceptions of personality obfuscate the issue of
personality because they equate personality with behavior. That is, someone who behaves
differently in different roles is said to have a different personality for each role. Someone who
behaves differently in different situations is said to have different personalities for each situation
(e.g., Mischel & Shoda, 1995), or, in an alternative view, the entire set of behaviors across all
situations is said to be explained by a single trait (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, in press).
There are two proximal and one distal problem with these interpretations of personality.
The first proximal problem is that these conceptualizations are empirically indefensible. The data
overwhelmingly show that personality trait measures robustly predict typical behavior across a
variety of roles (Donahue & Harary, 1998; Roberts & Donahue, 1994; Wood & Roberts, 2006)
and situations (Ching et al., 2014; Church et al., 2013; Fleeson, 2007; Fleeson & Gallagher,
2009; Judge, Simon, Hurst, & Kelley, 2014; Sherman, Rauthmann, Brown, Serfass, & Jones, in
press). Second, by inextricably linking personality and behavior components of the “personality
EJP Commentary Dunlop
triad” (Funder, 2006), contextualized conceptions of personality either (a) make personality
disappear altogether by calling it momentary behavior or (b) make behavior disappear altogether
by suggesting that people have a personality for every role or situation.
However, the root of the problem with contextualized personality theories lies not with
contextualization per se. Indeed, and as was noted many years ago (Allport, 1937; Murray,
1938), behavior is clearly contextualized (Ching et al., 2014; Church et al., 2013; Donahue &
Harary, 1998; Fleeson, 2001, 2007; Fournier, Moskowitz, & Zuroff, 2008, 2009; Funder &
Colvin, 1991; Mischel & Shoda, 1995; Roberts & Donahue, 1994; Sherman et al., in press;
Wood & Roberts, 2006; Zayas & Shoda, 2009). Instead the distal problem with contextualized
personality is that it confuses personality on the outside with personality on the inside (Hogan,
2007; Hogan, Hogan, & Roberts, 1996). Personality on the outside is the sum of your behavior
across all of your situations (Buss & Craik, 1983; Hogan, 1983; Wood, Gardner, & Harms,
2015). It is the ‘you’ that everyone else knows (i.e., reputation; Hogan, 1983) and that you can
learn about yourself by watching others’ reactions to you (Bollich, Johannet, Vazire, 2011;
Cooley, 1902; Hogan, 1983; Hogan & Blickle, 2013). Personality on the inside (i.e., motives,
values, preferences), is the ‘you’ that you know (i.e., identity) and take with you wherever you
go.
Personality on the outside (i.e., behavior) is caused by the joint influence of personality
on the inside and situations (Fleeson, 2007; Sherman et al., in press). Such an understanding
makes two points. First, it provides a parsimonious explanation for behavioral consistency: you
always bring your own motives, values, preferences with you wherever you go. Second, your
behavior at a specific point in time is partially dependent upon your current situation.
EJP Commentary Dunlop
Recent work has identified a sensible set of situation characteristics that are useful for
predicting momentary behavior (Rauthmann et al., 2014; Sherman, Nave, & Funder, 2010;
Sherman et al., in press; Wagerman & Funder, 2009). Moreover, situation characteristics
subsume the litany of haphazardly used terms to describe contexts including rules, norms,
expectations, roles, agendas, and affordances. For example, the three roles used by Donahue and
Harary (1998) were work, romantic partner, and friend. Roles are situation classes and generally
less useful than characteristics for behavioral prediction (Rauthmann, Sherman, & Funder, in
press). Fortunately, situation characteristics from the DIAMONDS (Rauthmann et al., 2014)
framework can be mapped onto these roles. Work roles are characterized by high Duty (i.e., a job
needs to be done), romantic roles are characterized by high Mating (i.e., a potential romantic
partner is present), and friendship roles are characterized by Sociality (i.e., close personal
relationships are present or have the potential to develop).
Dunlop’s (this issue) take on contextualized personality incorporates McAdams’ (1995)
three levels of personality – traits, goals, and life narratives – into the contextualization,
distinguishing it from other contextualized views that focus exclusively on traits. Unfortunately,
this broader conceptualization of personality is still a contextualized one and, as such, suffers
from the same problems that plague other contextualized views. Situation characteristics indicate
goal affordances (Neuberg, Kenrick, & Schaller, 2010; Yang, Read, & Miller, 2006), so of
course goals are contextualized. Likewise, situation characteristics undoubtedly shape
momentary self-conceptions (i.e., narratives). However, the fact that people have different goals
or narratives in different situations is not evidence of contextualized motives or identities any
more than variability in behavior is evidence of contextualized personality. Indeed, people have
EJP Commentary Dunlop
consistent goals and narratives across contexts (Dunlop, Walker, & Weins, 2013), pointing to
individual differences in underlying motivational systems and identities.
In sum, while it may be of interest to examine momentary behavior in relation to context
specific goals and narratives, the scientific and practical utility of personality is its ability to
predict behavior across a variety of situations. As such, contextualized approaches to personality
– the notion that we have different personalities for each situation – effectively make personality
meaningless.
EJP Commentary Dunlop
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