Tibbett, Thomas P (2017-05). The Personality Consistency Scale. Doctoral Dissertation. Thesis uri icon

abstract

  • Perceived personality consistency is the degree to which an individual believes their personality is reliable across situations. Perceived personality consistency may contribute to the personality variability literature because it is a separate individual difference measure, rather than measuring change in personality trait self-reports. Rather than assessing actual change, perceived personality consistency involves the extent to which people see themselves changing. This individual difference measure should be associated with specific attitudes, cognitive styles, and behavior beyond that of trait measures. To capture this construct, I created a Personality Consistency Scale (PCS), assessing perceived personality consistency between contexts. Next, I assessed incremental validity in order to compare this scale to similar measures in variability and creativity research. Results found psychometric support for a 5-item inventory, which correlated with authenticity, indecision, meaning in life, and creative flexibility performance on the Alternative Uses Task. This scale explained variance above that of the conceptually similar Self-Pluralism scale and in conjunction with the personality trait openness to experience. These results suggest that perceived personality consistency should be assessed in addition to standard trait measures when predicting creative performance.

publication date

  • May 2017