Abstract
The nature of individual inconsistency in per formance on trait measurements is an important topic in psychometrics because of its direct rele vance to measurement reliability. Several studies have supported short-term inconsistency as a sys tematic source of variation among individuals by finding some evidence for generalizability and rela tionship to behavioral predictability. However, these findings are questionable, since these studies con founded change with short-term fluctuation in their response inconsistency measure. The current re search separates these two sources of inconsistency in a reanalysis of the data from one major study on short-term consistency and finds little evidence for generalizability or a relationship to behavioral pre dictability. These results support the popular as sumption that measurement error from short-term fluctuations is not due to systematic individual dif ferences in response consistency, as well as sup porting a more limited definition of the individual inconsistency construct.
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