The Ego Trick (baggini, Julian) / quote 198 of 254
Few people are of consistent character
If people are indeed variable in this way, then what would that predict for the kinds of studies that Doris cites? We would expect to find that only a minority of people are actually of consistent good character, and, likewise, only a few of consistent bad character. We would expect that character is often under-developed and that people would indeed behave differently according to circumstances. And that is precisely what the evidence does suggest. In almost all the examples given, it is not the case that the situation entirely determines the action. There is a small but significant percentage of people who always do the right (or wrong) thing, regardless of the changes in situation. Some of these do so purely because they happen to be so disposed, others because they have developed their characters in good or bad ways.