ABSTRACT
Compared to the person, the situation has received relatively little attention in personality theorizing and research. This state of affairs is probably due to historical, political, social, and methodological factors. Historically, the early research on personality in this century grew out of the concern with the assessment of individual differences. (Freud's theorizing about personality development and dynamics was concerned with situations, but primarily as a context within which individual impulses were expressed.) The impetus for the study of individual differences stems, to a great extent, from the theorizing and research of Francis Galton (1907). Gallon's aim was to assess the inherited abilities of individuals. Hunt and Kirk (1979) have stated: "Galton appears to have hoped that his tests could function as a means of improving the human race through eugenics [p. 1J."
