MODELING PERSON-SITUATION CORRESPONDENCE OVER TIME - A STUDY OF 103 EVANGELICAL DISCIPLE-MAKERS

Recent studies of person-situation correspondence demonstrate that peo ple actively select environments that are congruent with their persona lity, attitudes, motives, and goals (cf. Emmons, Diener, & Larsen, 198 6). But do these individual difference variables also influence a pers on's propensity to remain in an environment over time? To answer this question, we administered the Multidimensional Personality Questionnai re (MPQ; Tellegen, 1982; Tellegen & Waller, 1990) and the Age Universa l I-E scale (Gorsuch & Venable, 1983) to a sample of 103 lay-ministers from a large, evangelical church in the upper Midwest. Subjects were participants in a church-sponsored disciple-making program, and our de pendent variable was length of involvement as a disciple-maker. Result s indicated that the lay-ministers endorsed an intrinsic religious ori entation and had high scores on the MPQ dimensions of Control, Harmavo idance, and Traditionalism. Using survival analysis, a statistical tec hnique for modeling event durations, we found that disciple-makers who were both low on Aggression and Harmavoidance remained in the program for the longest period. Our findings are discussed in terms of a temp orally oriented model of person-situation correspondence.