Personality theory rests on three shared assumptions about dispositions, stability, and situational expression

Evidence

Despite some level of persisting disagreement, three assumptions are common to most contemporary accounts of personality. First, most researchers agree that personality refers to a set of “organized dispositions” that an individual brings to any given situation. Second, it is widely assumed that for the individual this set of dispositions is relatively stable and consistent over time. Third, most theorists assume that individual differences in “behavioral expression” will emerge in specific situations, so that different people will react differently to the same situation. As Allport (1937) put it, “The same heat that melts the butter hardens the egg” (p. 351). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 114

Categorization

• DEFINE: Spells out the three core assumptions defining personality as a construct—organized dispositions, temporal stability, and differential situational expression.
• CANDY: Allport’s ‘same heat that melts the butter hardens the egg’ is a delightful one-line way to explain differential reactivity to identical situations.