Interactive Styles or Single-Subject Psychometric?)

Abstract

The scientific production related to the concept of interactive styles, one of the dispositional factors described in the theory of behavior of Ribes and López (1985), is analyzed with the purpose of pointing out both the achievements and the issues that are still open after a decade. We have structured this analysis as a comparison with the assumptions and methodology developed in the frame of psychometric theories of personality. This comparison is carried out at three levels: the first refers to the role attributed to styles in the psychological field; the second, to the methodology developed for their identification with respect to designs of data collection, and the third, to the methodology of data analysis. As in psychometric theories, the identification of interactive styles involves the search of consistencies in individual behavior over time and in different situations. The divergence between the two approaches is reflected in those aspects of behavior in which consistency is predicted, in the situations in which this consistency will be manifested, in the kind of measures that are appropriate, and in the inferences allowed by them. The problem is to know at what extent the concept of interactive styles allows us to give new answers to an old question, and whether old limitations remain when asking new questions.