The End of Average: How We Succeed in a World That Values Sameness

by Todd Rose

But Shoda wasn’t undermining the concept of personality—rather, by placing the person and context together, he was giving it life. Shoda demonstrated that, in fact, there is something consistent about our identity—it just wasn’t the kind of consistency anyone expected: we are consistent within a given context. According to Shoda’s results (as well as a great deal of subsequent research), if you are conscientious and neurotic while driving today, it’s a pretty safe bet you will be conscientious and neurotic while driving tomorrow. At the same time, what makes you uniquely you is that you may not be conscientious and neurotic when you are playing Beatles cover songs with your band in the context of your local pub. Shoda’s research embodies the second principle of individuality, the context principle, which asserts that individual behavior cannot be explained or predicted apart from a particular situation, and the influence of a situation cannot be specified without reference to the individual experiencing it.21 In other words, behavior is not determined by traits or the situation, but emerges out of the unique interaction between the two. If you want to understand a person, descriptions of their average tendencies or “essential nature” are sure to lead you astray. Instead, you need a new way of thinking that focuses on a person’s context-specific behavioral signatures.