Journal of Personality and Social Psychology1981, Vol. 40, No. 4, 761-769

Copyright 1981 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.0022-3514/81 /4004-0761 J00.75

The "Self-Disclosure" and "Self-Presentation" Views ofItem Response Dynamics and Personality Scale Validity

John A. JohnsonJohns Hopkins University

This study investigates whether objective self-report measures of personality arebetter regarded as sources of factual information about the self (i.e., as self-disclosures) or as ways to instruct others about how one is to be regarded (i.e.,as self-presentations). The two perspectives were compared by testing the unique,divergent predictions each perspective made about the kinds of personality vari-ables associated with consistency in self-description. For three groups of subjects(155 normal adults, 69 murderers, and 47 college students) almost all of the"self-presentation variables" were correlated significantly with consistency,whereas none of the "self-disclosure variables" was correlated with the criterion.Limitations of the study are discussed.

When people talk about themselves—whether in a laboratory experiment, in psy-chotherapy, or in everyday life—their verbalreports can be conceptualized as either sim-ple factual communications about the self(i.e., self-disclosure) or as ways to instructothers about how they are to be regarded(i.e., self-presentation). The distinction be-tween self-disclosure and self-presentationhas been a common topic of concern to socialpsychologists, personologists, and clinicians(Shaver, 1977, pp. 330-339; Snyder &Swann, 1976; Wylie, 1974, pp. 63-86).

Responses to items on objective self-reportmeasures of personality similarly can be re-garded as self-disclosures or self-presenta-tions. A self-disclosure view of item responsedynamics would hold that endorsement ofa personality item such as "I read 15 booksa year" is simply a factual communicationabout the self (i.e., how many books onereads). From a self-presentational view, en-dorsement of that item is not merely a de-scription of one's behavior but a social actintended to instruct others about how one

The author thanks Pam Horn for her assistance inscoring and coding the data and William S. Laufer forproviding his CPI data on the group of murderers.

An earlier version of this article was presented at the88th annual convention of the American PsychologicalAssociation, Montreal, Canada, September 1980.

Requests for reprints should be sent to John A. John-son, Department of Psychology, Johns Hopkins Univer-sity, 34th and Charles Streets, Baltimore, Maryland21218.

is to be regarded—in this case, perhaps asan intellectual, scholarly individual. (SeeJackson, 1980, for a review of these andother theories of item response dynamics.)

The present research examines the self-disclosure and self-presentation perspectivesand investigates which is more appropriatefor understanding the dynamics underlyingresponses to personality scale items. The twoviews are not completely mutually exclusive,of course. Self-presentation may entail giv-ing factual information about oneself; how-ever, it may involve providing false infor-mation to project a desired public self-image.The self-disclosure perspective, on the otherhand, conceptualizes item responses as ve-ridical information about the self withoutregard for their potential for projecting pub-lic self-images. The self-presentation viewtherefore incorporates the self-disclosureperspective, but goes beyond it.

Despite some overlap, the two viewpointsare nonetheless unique enough to generatedifferent propositions about the factors in-fluencing the validity of personality scales.After explicating each item response theory,this article presents a study that tests eachview's propositions about test validity.

Test Validity

Before examining the two item responsetheories' propositions about test validity, itmight be useful to review several standard

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762 JOHN A. JOHNSON

definitions of validity. "Test validity" hasmany different meanings (APA, 1974; Cron-bach & Meehl, 1955), but the notion can bereduced to one central meaning: A valid testfaithfully measures or represents what it isintended to represent. A "loneliness scale"is valid if it measures loneliness, not anxiety.One can test the validity of such a scale—that is, how well scores on the scale representactual loneliness—by observing whether scalescores covary in a meaningful way with othersources of information. Depending on thetype of other information gathered, one cancalculate different "types" of validity coef-ficients. Actually we do not have differenttypes of validity (in all cases we want toknow whether the scale measures loneliness)but, rather, different criteria for testing thevalidity of the scale.

First, one might want to see whetherscores on the loneliness scale correlate withscores gathered with the same scale at a latertime. Assuming that the trait of interest—loneliness—is fairly stable, we would expecta high correlation if the test is valid. Com-monly called a coefficient of reliability, ahigh test-retest correlation is usually con-sidered a necessary but insufficient indicatorof test validity.

Second, scores on the loneliness scaleshould have a meaningful pattern of corre-lations with other validated self-report ques-tionnaires. We might expect moderate neg-ative correlations with a measure ofsociability, moderate positive correlationswith measures of shyness and depression,and strong correlations with other measuresof loneliness.

Third, scores on the loneliness scale shouldhave a meaningful pattern of correlationswith observers' ratings of sociability, shy-ness, depression, loneliness, etc. If the lone-liness scale correlates in the right directionwith information reported by observers aswell as those taking the test, it lends a mea-sure of objectivity to the test.

Finally, scores on the loneliness scaleshould have weak but consistent correlationswith life events such as suicide. The expectedcorrelations are small because life events arecomplex and overdetermined. After all, thereare many reasons one might commit suicidebesides being lonely.

Considered individually, a correlation be-tween the loneliness scale and any single cri-terion indicates criterion-related validity(concurrent validity if there is no time lagbetween self-report and criterion but pre-dictive validity if the self-report precedes thecriterion). If scores on the scale are embed-ded in a meaningful network of relationshipswith other self-reports, observer ratings, andlife events, or what Cattell (1973) callsQ-, L(R)-, and L(O)-data, the test is saidto possess construct validity. The self-dis-closure and self-presentational views on testvalidity are presented below.

Self-Disclosure

The self-disclosure view holds that itemresponses are best conceptualized as simplereports (hopefully veridical) about one's ac-tual behavior or self-perceptions. The viewis predicated on the assumption that, ideally,we should observe over a period of time thepeople we wish to test in order to sampletheir social behavior (cf. Tyler, 1963). Be-cause such a task is inconvenient, we ad-minister personality questionnaires, hopingthe "testees" will honestly and accuratelyreport their actual behaviors, moods, andattitudes. To depend on each testee's honestyand observational skills, however, is to en-counter a number of special problems (e.g.,faking good or bad, unique anchor points forself-ratings; the inability of people to reportunconscious motives; acquiescence and ex-treme response sets). Because many psy-chologists subscribe to the self-disclosureview, the history of personality testing hasbeen a series of efforts to overcome theseimpediments to valid assessment.

Several solutions to the problems men-tioned above have been offered. One solu-tion, eloquently defended by Meehl (1945),is simply not to worry about why personsanswer personality items as they do, butrather to concentrate on the empirical cor-relates of these responses. Though logicallydefensible, this solution ignores the largerquestion: What are people actually doingwhen they respond to items?

Solutions to other, specific problems in-clude selecting items with neutral social de-sirability, balancing items of equal social

SELF-DISCLOSURE AND SELF-PRESENTATION 763

desirability in a forced-choice format, andusing only items that refer to concrete, spe-cific behavior or biographical facts. Finally,Rorer (1965) and Block (1965) present sub-stantial evidence showing that response setsand styles do not play an important role inpersonality testing.

The portion of the self-disclosure theoryof item response that explains test validity—that is, why personality scales predict otherbehavior, performances, and activities—ismostly implicit and unspecified, but seemsto take one of two forms. Personality scalespredict other phenomena because either (a)highly frequent behavior (as reported on thescale) is bound to recur or (b) the scalemeasures some underlying trait that has di-rected past behavior and will direct futurebehavior. In both cases, an item response isseen as reflecting veridical, factual infor-mation about the self (either behavioraltraits or underlying, dynamic traits) that canbe used to predict other information.

This explanation for validity implies thatany conditions that would encourage thesubject to lie or in some way misrepresenthimself or herself would detract from testvalidity. Consequently the most valid testscores should come from people who are hon-est, responsible, and well socialized. Validscores should also come from people who areself-controlled; conversely, people who areimpulsive and changeable should give scoreswith lower validity.

Self-Presentation

The self-presentation view of item re-sponse dynamics hypothesizes that an itemresponse is best conceptualized not as a de-scription of "how one really is" but, rather,as a picture of how one generally would liketo be regarded. The main impetus for thisview comes from the writings of Goffman(1959), Mead (1934), and Sarbin (1954);Gough (1948) was one of the first person-ologists to take a self-presentational view ofthe personality assessment process.

An example of the self-presentation viewis provided by the research on social desir-ability. The social desirability view claimsthat people will answer personality items soas to be regarded in a favorable light, re-

gardless of the item content and the truth-fulness of their responses. Subsequent re-search has demonstrated that the strongversion of this claim, if not simply false, isat least too simplistic. People do respond toitem content, not just the social desirabilityof the item (Block, 1965).

A more developed self-presentational view(e.g., Johnson & Hogan, in press; Mills &Hogan, 1978; Taylor, Carithers, & Coyne,1976) hypothesizes that people have an im-age of themselves that they would like othersto credit them with (e.g., as a conscientious,conservative banker or as a creative, unin-hibited artist) and that they evaluate thecontent of personality items, endorsing thosethat convey aspects of their self-image.

As was the case with the self-disclosureviewpoint, the self-presentation-position ex-planation of why personality scales predictother behaviors is not precisely developed.At first it would appear that test scores thatreflect the way people would like to be re-garded have little relation to the way theyare regarded. The theory assumes, however,that people's strategies for self-presentationare fairly consistent over time, and since testtaking is a form of self-presentational be-havior similar to what goes on in everydaysocial interaction, test scores covary withother social behaviors.'

From the self-presentation point of view,literal truth or falsity of item responses haslittle consequence for test validity; what isimportant is that the test taker has some(at least intuitive) awareness of the socialsignificance of the statements he or she isendorsing (i.e., the social identity one is

1 Mills and Hogan (1978) regard the self-presentationprocess as primarily automatic, reflexive, and uncon-scious; the habitual nature (in the Jamesian sense) ofself-presentation accounts for consistency in behavior.Self-conscious self-presentations are seen as infrequentevents that occur only under very specific circumstances.Furthermore, Hogan (Note 1) points out that self-con-scious performances are awkward, stilted, exaggerated,unnatural, affected, and unconvincing. Snyder (1974),on the other hand, regards self-consciousness as a char-acteristic of the most skilled social role players andmaintains that the greater the degree of self-monitoringand social adroitness, the less valid the resultant testscores (see Snyder & Swann, 1976). In my opinion,further conceptual and empirical research is needed toclarify the relationships among self-consciousness, socialskills, and test validity.

764 JOHN A. JOHNSON

painting through the test medium). Conse-quently, clarity of self-image and social role-playing and role-taking skills are expectedto increase the validity of self-reports.

Testing the Competing Viewpoints

From the above, we can see that the self-disclosure and self-presentation views ofitem response dynamics make unique, di-vergent predictions about which variableswill affect the validity of self-reports. Theself-disclosure view holds that honesty, co-operativeness, and self-control will moderatetest validity; the self-presentation view holdsthat variables such as clarity of self-imageand social acuity will moderate test validity.The present study tests the adequacy of thecompeting viewpoints by examining howwell each group of proposed moderator vari-ables predicts the consistency of self-descrip-tion, where consistency is operationalized asresponding in an identical fashion to itemsthat appear twice on a personality scale. Interms of the types of validity discussedabove, consistency is a form of concurrentvalidity and is similar to a split-half reli-ability coefficient.

Response consistency was chosen as a cri-terion because the self-disclosure and self-presentation views make clear but divergentpredictions about the personality variablesassociated with response consistency. Con-sider how each perspective would explainwhy a person might respond yes to an itemthe first time it is encountered and no thesecond time. According to the self-disclosureview, item responses represent actual behav-ior or self-perceptions; inconsistency fromthis perspective could be interpreted as (a)misrepresentation from an uncooperativetroublemaker or (b) accurate accounts fromsomeone whose behaviors and self-percep-tions are continuously changing. Inconsis-tency should covary with traits like impul-sivity, dishonesty, and behavioral lability;the most valid (consistent) test scores shouldcome from people who are honest, respon-sible, and well socialized, because they willdescribe themselves in a conscientious andfactual manner.

A self-presentational perspective, on the

other hand, suggests that self-report incon-sistency is a function of an ill-defined socialidentity or lack of skills in social commu-nication and interaction. Someone who isinconsistent might have little practice at orinterest in social interaction (have intro-verted as opposed to extra verted tendencies),might have a vague or complex self-conceptthat is not easily communicated through thetest medium, or might be unable to perceivetest items as vehicles from which an un-specified audience (generalized other; cf.Mead, 1934) will make inferences about hisor her identity or self-concept. The mostvalid test scores should come from peoplewho are sociable, socially aware, and self-assured and who are able to take the per-spective of others.

The present study operationalizes test va-lidity as consistency in self-description andoperationalizes the two sets of moderatorvariables proposed by each item responsetheory with several well-validated person-ality scales, described in the Method section.Positive correlations between consistencyand the proposed moderator variables sup-port the respective theories; lack of corre-lations undermine them.

Method

SubjectsThe study used protocols from three separate groups.

The first group consisted of 155 normal adults (131 men,24 women). The second group contained 69 murderers(all men) serving life sentences at the Maryland StatePenitentiary. The third group consisted of 22 male and25 female undergraduate students from Johns HopkinsUniversity. All subjects had completed the personalityscales described here as a part of previous investigations.The present study reanalyzed the data that were on file.

Personality Measures

The first two groups had completed the CaliforniaPsychological Inventory (CPI; Gough, 1975). In addi-tion, the first group took a version of Sarbin and Har-dyck's (1955) Stick Figure Test (SFT). The third grouphad completed the Philosophies of Human Nature Scale(PHN Scale; Wrightsman, 1974) and the AdjectiveCheck List (ACL; Gough & Heilbrun, 1965).

Criteria. The criterion of response consistency forthe first two groups was the number of times a consistentresponse was given to the 12 items that appear twice onthe CPI. That is, a "consistency point" was given each

SELF-DISCLOSURE AND SELF-PRESENTATION 765

time a person answered true or false on both encounterswith the same item. Scores could range from 0 to 12 onthis "consistency scale."

To ensure that any results obtained from the first twogroups were not artifacts of the instrumentation, a dif-ferent measure of response consistency was used for thethird group—consistent responses to items on the PHNScale. This 84-item scale is not as long as the 480-itemCPI, and it does not contain duplicate items. It does,however, contain item pairs that are nearly semanticparaphrases or opposites. An example of a paraphrasepair is "Some people are too complicated for me to figureout" and "People are so complex, it is hard to knowwhat 'makes them tick.'" An opposite pair is "I findthat my first impression of a person is usually correct"and "I find that my first impressions of people are fre-quently wrong." Six such paraphrases and 10 such op-posites were chosen to define a consistency scale. Here,consistency was computed as the number of responsesmade in the same direction to a paraphrase and in op-posite directions for an opposite pair. Scores could varybetween 0 and 16 on this scale.

Self-disclosure predictor variables. From the self-disclosure perspective, inconsistency is a function of im-pulsivity, dishonesty, and/or behavioral lability. In thefirst two groups, these tendencies were assessed with theResponsibility, Socialization, Self-Control, and Flexi-bility scales of the CPI. The ACL scales that correlatemost highly with these CPI scales—Self-Control, La-bility, Order, and Change—were used as self-disclosurepredictor variables in the third group.

Self-presentation predictor variables. The self-pre-sentation view holds that three major types of person-ality variables should covary with item response consis-tency: extraversion, what has been called perceptualconformance (see Sarbin & Hardyck, 19SS), and socialskills. Extraverts should be more consistent than intro-verts because (a) they have relatively simpler and moreclearly defined self-concepts that are easier to com-municate and (b) they have more interest and practicethan introverts in social communication (cf. Jung,1923). Extraversion was assessed in the first two groupswith the Dominance, Sociability, Social Presence, andSelf-Acceptance scales of the CPI. For the third group,the ACL scales that correlate highest with these CPIscales were used: Dominance, Self-Confidence, Achieve-ment, and Exhibition.

Perceptual conformance is defined by Sarbin andHardyck as the tendency to perceive social situationsas one's peers do. Persons who interpret social situations(and personality items) idiosyncratically, rather than astheir peers do, would tend to be unpredictable and in-consistent in their responses. Perceptual conformancewas measured in the first group with the Stick FiguresTest and in the first two groups with the CPI Com-munality scale. Gough (1968) says that those who scorehigh on Communality will "be in tune with their peersand surroundings, will perceive as their peers perceive,and will form impressions that are sound, stable, andsensible" (p. 15).

Finally, role-taking and role-playing skills are impor-tant from the self-presentation view. These skills areassessed in the first two groups with Hogan's (1969)

Empathy scale, scorable from the CPI. Empathy—"thedisposition or ability to anticipate or construe the feel-ings, expectations, and informational requirements ofothers" (Grief & Hogan, 1973, p. 280)—is a social skillrelated to perceptual conformance and hence is pre-dicted by self-presentation theory to be related to itemresponse consistency.

Results

Means, standard deviations, and skewnessof consistency scores were calculated for thethree samples. For the 155 normal adults,M = 10.66, SD = 1.39; for the 69 murderers,M = 9.25, SD = 2.55; and for the 47 stu-dents, M = 11.12, SD = 2.24. All three dis-tributions were markedly skewed toward thehigh end of the scale. This is not surprising,given the previous study by Goldberg andRorer (1964) that showed between 76% and97% consistent responses to items appearingtwice on the CPI. This skewness, along withthe fact that the consistency scale for thethird group was different from the one usedfor the first two groups, makes statisticalcomparisons between groups inappropriate,unless one were to use elaborate trans-formations.

Pearson correlation coefficients betweenthe consistency scores and the moderatorvariables proposed by the two item responsetheories were computed. Because the con-sistency scores are skewed, two nonpara-metric correlation coefficients (Spearman'srho and Kendall's tau) also were calculated.The results for the nonparametric correla-tions were nearly identical to those using thePearson correlations; hence only the Pearsonrs are reported here.

The pattern of correlation coefficients,shown in Table 1, clearly demonstrates thatthe "self-presentation variables" account formore variance in response consistency thando the "self-disclosure variables." Of the 17correlations between the self-presentationvariables and consistency, all are in the pre-dicted direction, and 15 of the 17 are sta-tistically significant. In contrast, of the 12correlations between self-disclosure vari-ables and consistency, five are in the wrongdirection and none reached statistical sig-nificance.

As a final test, composite self-disclosureand self-presentation scores were created for

766 JOHN A. JOHNSON

Table 1Personality Correlates of Item Response Consistency

Group

1 2 3Scale (155 normal adults) (69 murderers) (47 students)

Self-disclosure variables

California Psychological InventoryResponsibility .08 .03Socialization .08 -.18Self-Control -.05 -.10Flexibility" .02 .11

Adjective Check ListSelf-Control -.08Lability" .02Order .11Change' -.14

Self-presentation variables

Stick Figure Test .22***California Psychological Inventory

Dominance .21*** .20**Sociability .12* .27***Social Presence .07 .39***Self-Acceptance .21*** .38***Communality .28*** .75***Empathy .20** .14*

Adjective Check ListSelf-Confidence .22*Dominance .21*Achievement .21*Exhibition . 15

Note. Consistency for Groups 1 and 2 was measured with the California Psychological Inventory; for Group 3with the Philosophies of Human Nature Scale." Direction of scoring reversed.*p < .10. **/> < .05. ***p < .01. (All one-tailed tests.)

the subjects in Group 1 by summing the in- ports the findings of the first analysis—thatdividual CPI scores. Median splits were is, that self-descriptive consistency is relatedmade with the two composites, forming to extraversion, perceptual conformance,four subgroups: (a) low on both the self-dis- and social acuity but not to socialization,closure and self-presentation composites responsibility, and self-control.(n = 45), (b) low on the self-disclosure buthigh on the self-presentation composite Discussion(n = 35), (c) high on the self-disclosure butlow on the self-presentation composite Considerable research over the past de-(« = 33), and (d) high on both composites cade has sought to determine whether and(n = 42). A 2 X 2 analysis of variance on to what degree human behavior is consistentconsistency scores for these four subgroups and personality scales can predict nontestshowed a main effect for the self-presenta- behavior. Although some progress towardtion composite, F(l, 151) = 4.43, p< .05; resolving these issues has been made, mostno effect for the self-disclosure composite, contributions have been limited to empiricalF(l, 151) = .002, ns; and no interaction ef- demonstrations of consistency (e.g., Block,feet, F(l, 151) = .44, ns. This analysis sup- 1971) or to evaluations of the psychometric

SELF-DISCLOSURE AND SELF-PRESENTATION 767

prerequisites for finding consistency (e.g.,Epstein, 1979). These demonstrations areanalogous to those provided by early astron-omers who showed that the heavenly bodiesmove in regular, predictable ways. The po-sition of this article is that just as progressin astronomy required a theory to accountfor regularities in planetary movements,progress in personality assessment requiresa theory to account for consistency in testtaking and social behavior. Rather than takeone of two extremes—that people are totallyconsistent or inconsistent—the present studyexplores sources of systematic consistencyand inconsistency, as predicted by the self-disclosure and self-presentation views ofitem response.

The results of the present study show thatcertain personality variables do systematicallymoderate one type of behavioral consistency—consistency of self-description. (Clearly, othertypes of behavioral consistency should be stud-ied.) This is useful information for those whoare developing or revising personality scales.The results imply that the best strategy fordesigning a valid scale is not to make lying ormisrepresentation difficult, but to make self-presentation as easy as possible to accommo-date people with identity problems or modestsocial skills. It also suggests that social per-ceptiveness scales could be just as useful as"lie scales" for interpreting the validity of testscores.

Although the results of the present studyoverwhelmingly support a self-presentationconceptualization of test taking as con-trasted with a self-disclosure view, the mag-nitude of the correlations is low (medianr = .21). This suggests that there are othermoderator variables and factors to considerin dealings with item response consistency.I will mention three and then point out thelimitations of this study that can be cor-rected by future research.

First, properties of the t'est items need tobe considered. Goldberg (1963) and Gold-berg and Slovic (1967) have already dis-cussed how item ambiguity and endorsementfrequency affect the validity of personalityscales. Other aspects of item content (e.g.,whether the referent is to mood, self-percep-tion, or behavior) may also moderate validity

coefficients. There are also a myriad ofgrammatical and syntactic structures thatcould be studied (first vs. third person, activevs. passive voice, etc.)

Second, the present study is limited to self-report measures of personality. Although thescales used in the study have been shown tobe valid by previous research, the presentstudy suggests that scores on these scales arenot equally valid for everyone; that is, thescores are more valid for subjects high onextraversion, perceptual conformance, andempathy. Yet, in order to carry out the pres-ent study, it had to be assumed that the self-report measures of honesty, self-control, ex-traversion, empathy, and other moderatorvariables had acceptable validity for all in-dividuals. Future research can avoid thisdilemma by using observer ratings of thepersonality moderator variables. Also, asmentioned above, types of consistency withmore ecological significance than self-re-port/self-report consistency should be stud-ied, such as self-report/peer description,peer/peer description, and self-ratings withlife events.

Third, the study fails to deal with test con-ditions or instructional set. It is possible thatcertain test conditions (e.g., anonymity ormutual self-disclosure; cf. Jourard, 1964)make it more likely that self-disclosure offactual information will occur. Test admin-istrators also have recourse to a number of"tricks" for obtaining information that donot require total cooperation from the sub-ject (e.g., projective tests, cameras for mon-itoring nonverbal behavior, lie detectors, andfake lie detectors like the "bogus pipeline"cf. Jones & Sigall, 1971; see also Scheibe,1978, 1979). Other conditions (e.g., com-peting for a job) could encourage misrepre-sentation. In the only other study similar tothis one, responsibility and socialization—both self-disclosure variables—were foundto moderate consistency in self-description(Kilkowski, in press). If obtaining factualinformation is the goal of the tester, thetester should treat the testing situation as aform of social interaction by paying atten-tion to social dynamics, that is, the goals ofthe test taker and the social expectationsgenerated by the testing situation.

768 JOHN A. JOHNSON

A final comment concerns the need for astronger conceptual foundation for person-ality assessment. I pointed out earlier thatthe self-disclosure and self-presentation ac-counts of why people exhibit consistenciesand why scale scores predict behavior are,for the most part, implicit and unspecified.The trait version of self-disclosure theorypostulates some sort of psychic entity thatimparts regularity to behavior, whereas self-presentation theory attributes consistency tostable self-images. Clearly, whether one ap-peals to traits, self-images, or any other per-sonality concept, these terms need to be an-alyzed beyond their commonsense meanings.Furthermore, any theory of personality dy-namics will remain incomplete until it ex-plains how consistency is generated by per-sonality characteristics. This task will not beeasy, and it may involve philosophical issues(e.g., consistency as causal necessity vs. con-sistency as intentional, intelligent action; cf.Johnson, Note 2). Nonetheless, these ques-tions must be asked and these issuesaddressed if we are to progress froma technology to a science of personalityassessment.

Reference Notes

1. Hogan, R. Role theory as a depth psychology. Paperpresented at the 87th annual convention of theAmerican Psychological Association, New York,September 1979.

2. Johnson, J. A. A theory of action to account forpersonality consistency. Unpublished manuscript,Johns Hopkins University, 1980.

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Received February 7, 1980 •