It turns out that much of the debate was due to disagreements about what we mean by behavioral consistency. Traits are relative, not absolute, characteristics. A talkative person is simply someone who is more likely to talk, relative to the average person. It is this relative nature of behavioral traits that tells us what we might reasonably predict with a personality test. Personality scores will not predict what you will do on a single occasion.
Nobody can predict human behavior that well with any method.
Rather, personality scores are like batting averages. Similarly, we can't predict what a person with a high or low score on a sociability test will do on a single occasion. But we do know that, over time, someone with a high score will behave more sociably and will be seen as more sociable than someone with a low score. All rights reserved. We value your feedback .