Issues in the study of personality development

The study of personality requires that we understand what we mean by the te rms personality and development. Whereas the concept of personality-includi ng individual characteristics that are consistent over concert and time-is appealing, serious issues in regard to consistency of characteristics over different contexts and over time remain, suggesting to me that although cor relations may be significant, there is relatively little variance accounted for. As such, there is little consistency. The study of human development also has difficulties, especially the idea that earlier events lead to or c an predict later events. In this article, these 2 classes of difficulties a re addressed. The data suggest that individual characteristics, especially in children, are not consistent over context and time, and that earlier eve nts do not predict later ones. This leads to the conclusion that an analysi s of behavior in context may be the best way to understand the changing nat ure of personality growth and development.