Personality Development and the Person-Situation Debate: It's Déjà Vu All Over Again

Abstract

In the two target articles and the series of perceptive responses we find a remarkable range of opinions on the empirical and conceptual viability of personality traits and about the nature of personality development. It seems we have stumbled upon the person-situation debate once again, this time in the context of personality development. We were under the impression that the person-situation debate was settled (Kenrick & Funder, 1988), but it appears to have been lying dormant. In this response we do three things. First, we rectify an omission on the part of the two target articles. Both target articles failed to cite critical empirical evidence demonstrating the continuity of temperaments and traits from childhood to adulthood. We attempt to briefly remedy this oversight. Second, we attend to several logical and methodological flaws in the situationist and contextualist criticisms of dispositional constructs that continue to plague the debate and unless dealt with directly will continue to do so. Third, we clarify our position on personality traits and argue that they should be included in the panoply of developmental constructs because they not only show remarkable levels of continuity, but they also demonstrate systematic changes throughout the life course.