Personality in Interaction

Abstract

To the ordinary man or woman in the street the proposition that different personalities will affect participation differentially must ap­pear trite, incontrovertible, obvious. However, personality theorists in their endeavours to measure personality clearly attempt to do and say more than this; they desire to measure personality to a sufficiently accurate and reliable degree to be able to predict behaviour. It is at this juncture that many of the problems for the personality theorist begin because it has been the inability of such theorists to predict actual behaviour that is the nub of the issue. However, there are other related issues. For instance, does a given personality inventory measure what it is designed to measure? Do such ‘entities’ as traits exist? To what extent is behaviour consistent and how far does impact of various situational factors modify an individual’s behaviour?