Consistency and chaos in personality

Carl Middleton

Gary Fireman

Roseanne DiBello

pp. 275-281

in: Stam, Leendert Mos, Warren Thorngate, Bernie Kaplan (eds), Recent trends in theoretical psychology, Berlin, Springer, 1993

Abstract

The strange attractor construct of Chaos theory offers a new way to think about personality. Allport defined personality as "the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his characteristic behavior" (1961, p. 28). Within the field of personality research, there has been an ongoing debate over personality continuity. It is difficult to predict the specific behavior of an individual, yet if we know a person, his or her behavior seldom surprises us. As Allport said, "behavior is variable, but always within the limits and ranges set by the [person's] structure itself" (1961, p. 572). The observation that personality varies within limits may be understood within the context of Chaos theory. Specifically, the strange attractor construct is proposed to account for nonperiodic, nonrandom order (Ruelle, 1989).