in other area? Future studies may provide an answer. Overall, her intro -
verted, unadventurous personality seems consistent with her occupa -
tion.
Case 2 (Figure 6) is a retired minister and college professor who is
well-adjusted, average in Extraversion and Agreeableness, and high inOpenness and Conscientiousness. His scores show relatively morechange, particularly in facet scales, but stability predominates at thebroader level of domain scales. Although he seems to be somewhatlower in several facets of Openness at the second administration, hecompensates by higher Openness to Fantasy .
A 64-year-old social worker provides our third case (Figure 7). As
we might expect from her profession, we can see that she is a very socia -
ble person, high in Warmth and Gregariousness. Like the professor, she
shows some fluctuation for facet scales, but her domain scores are al -
most identical in 1980 and 1986.
These profiles are typical, showing neither the most stable nor the
most unstable of individuals in our sample. Scale scores are not identi-cal on the two occasions, but recall that scale scores are rarely identicaleven when the interval between tests is only a few weeks. Over the 6-year interval covered here, the resemblance in personality profiles isunmistakable. These people are still the same individuals with the sameunique configuration of traits.
IMPLICATIONS: PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE
Imagine the chaos that would result if personality were notstable! How
could we commit ourselves to marriage if the qualities we loved in ourspouse were subject to change at any time? Who would go to the trou -
ble of completing medical school without the faith that he or she would
still be interested in medicine years later? How could we vote wisely forpoliticians if their past diligence and conscientiousness were not a to -
ken of their future performance? On what basis would we decide to re -
tire early and move to Florida if we thought that at any moment we
might become compulsive workers with boundless energy?
With the exception of those closest to us (whom we may never give
up trying to change), we expect people to stay just as they are. Good orbad, we want them to be dependable and predictable so that we cancount on them in making plans for our own future. They feel the sameQualifications and Rival Hypotheses 137