Trait personality and state variability: Predicting individual differences in within- and cross-context fluctuations in affect, self-evaluations, and behavior in everyday life

•Individuals meaningfully differ in the level and variability of states.•Prior research has focused on global analyses of state variability.•The contextualized WAC framework disentangles within- and cross-context variability.•Affect, self-esteem, and behavior were examined in everyday social interactions.•Within- and cross-context variability were differentially linked to personality.

Prior research on the effects of personality on the variability of states has either not assessed states in real-life contexts or not incorporated meaningful contextual information when analyzing state variability. Providing an integrated contextualized approach, we introduce the Within and Across Context (WAC) Variability framework that disentangles real-life within-person fluctuations occurring within and across real-life contexts. To illustrate the utility of this framework, we investigated effects of Big Five personality traits on the level and the within- and cross-context variability of experience-sampled states (affect, self-esteem, behavior) of psychology freshmen (N = 118). Results provide initial empirical support for the meaningful separation of within- and cross-context variability and their distinct relations to personality.