The dynamics,processes, mechanisms,and functioning of personality: An overview of the field

Personality psychology has long focused on structural trait models, but it can also offer a rich understanding of the dynamics, processes, mechanisms, and functioning of individual differences or entire persons. The field of personality dynamics, which works towards such an understanding, has experienced a renaissance in the last two decades. This review article seeks to act as a primer of that field. It covers its historical roots, summarizes current research strands – along with their theoretical backbones and methodologies – in an accessible way, and sketches some considerations for the future. In doing so, we introduce relevant concepts, give an overview of different topics and phenomena subsumed under the broad umbrella term ‘dynamics’, and highlight the interdisciplinarity as well as applied relevance of the field. We hope this article can serve as a useful overview for scholars within and outside of personality psychology who are interested in the dynamic nature of human behaviour and experience.     

Personality Processes in Anger and Reactive Aggression: An Introduction

ABSTRACT The situational factors precipitating anger and reactive (i.e., emotional) aggression have been well documented in the social psychology literature. However, there are pronounced individual differences in reactivity to hostile cues that are equally important in understanding such outcomes. Indeed, in predicting tendencies toward anger and reactive aggression, it appears critical to simultaneously consider both individual difference and situational factors. This case is first made. Subsequently, the utility of this individual difference realm in understanding wider personality processes related to social cognition, reactivity, and self-regulation is highlighted. Individual difference frameworks of this type are scattered across multiple literatures. For this reason, the present special section of the Journal of Personality invited contributions from experts in developmental, social, cognitive, trait, and biological subdisciplines of psychology. The final section introduces the invited papers and makes a brief case for broader process-related conclusions that are generally apparent.     

Reflections on the recent history and the present challenges of personality psychology

The recent history of personality psychology is rapidly reviewed with the aim of indicating significant cues of the progress which has taken place and of the problems which are still pending. In this regard, a three-stage model of progress provides the arguments which introduce personality psychology into the domain of ‘complexity’. Readmission of individual differences in the investigation of basic processes, attention to marginal perturbances in between non-significant deviations, and use of circumplex models to make sense of multiple facets of phenomena are indicated as viable avenues to the complexity of personality psychology.     

国际心理传记学研究述评

心理传记学是采用心理学的理论和方法来研究非凡人物生命故事的一门学问。文章对百余年来国际心理传记学的发展状况进行了回顾,将其发展分为三个阶段：案例研究阶段、理论探索阶段和学科发展阶段。该学科在传主资料的筛选与处理方法、解释模型等理论研究方面已获得了较丰富的成果,并已形成三个稳定的研究领域。在我国开展心理传记学研究,要避免人物研究的病理化倾向和艺术式的纯质化道路,并加强应用探讨以及着手进行中国杰出心理学家的心理传记研究。     

The neurotic wandering mind: An individual differences investigation of neuroticism,mind-wandering,and executive control

Cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience have recently developed a keen interest in the phenomenon of mind-wandering. People mind-wander frequently, and mind-wandering is associated with decreased cognitive performance. But why do people mind-wander so much? Previous investigations have focused on cognitive abilities like working memory capacity and attention control. But an individual's tendency to worry, feel anxious, and entertain personal concerns also influences mind-wandering. The Control Failure?×?Concerns model of mind-wandering. Psychological Bulletin, 136, 188–197] argues that individual differences in the propensity to mind-wander are jointly determined by cognitive abilities and by the presence of personally salient concerns that intrude on task focus. In order to test this model, we investigated individual differences in mind-wandering, executive attention, and personality with a focus on neuroticism. The results showed that neurotic individuals tended to report more mind-wandering during cognitive tasks, lower working memory capacity, and poorer attention control. Thus the trait of neuroticism adds an additional source of variance in the tendency to mind-wander, which offers support for the Control Failure?×?Concerns model. The results help bridge the fields of clinical psychology, cognitive psychology, affective neuroscience, and cognitive neuroscience as a means of developing a more complete understanding of the complex relationship between cognition, personality, and emotion.     

Tell me where you come from and I know what makes you tick: Managing the consumer personality–satisfaction link in diverse cultures

Marketing programs that evoke high satisfaction and marketing success in one culture often fail in others, but the understanding of those cultural differences is insufficient. The question of how culture is linked to consumer satisfaction is still not answered satisfactorily. One promising paradigm for exploring such questions comes from progress in cross-cultural personality psychology. Thus, we examine the influence of individual-level cultural orientations on personality, and the role of personality and affect in satisfaction formation across cultures. Based on experimental data, we show that a high individualism orientation triggers higher levels of extraversion; a high uncertainty-avoidance orientation triggers higher levels of neuroticism. Based on field data from Japan, Spain, and the United States, we identify equivalent relationships amongst personality-related antecedent processes shaping satisfaction indicating universality across these cultures. The findings demonstrate the usefulness of cross-cultural personality psychology theory and methods for understanding and predicting consumer responses to marketing actions across cultures.     

The emerging self: the convergence of mind,personality and thinking styles

This paper aims to integrate research and theorizing about problem solving, self and personality into a comprehensive theory. With this purpose, the paper attempts to answer three questions: how do humans become aware of themselves and how do the products of self-awareness interrelate to produce an integrated self-system, which includes the domains of cognition and personality? How do persons know and influence each other? How do these processes change with development? The answers given to these questions by self, personality and cognitive developmental psychology are critically examined. It is concluded that an overarching model would have to assume a multilevel and multidimensional architecture. This would involve three main levels: the first includes general-purpose processes and functions, such as processing efficiency and working memory, which define current cognitive potentials; the second includes several domain-specific systems directed to different aspects of the environment; the third includes self-oriented processes that register, represent and regulate processes at the other two levels. Each person’s self-concepts result from the application of the third level on the other two and they differentially reflect their condition. Personality reflects the interaction between these self-concepts and dispositions to act in particular ways. Because humans share this architecture they can negotiate and affect each other’s self- and reflected representations. Thus, the formation of mind, self and personality results from a continuous flow of interactions between the levels and domains of mind within and across persons. The article summarizes a series of studies lending support to this general model.     

A biopsychosocial formulation of pain communication

We present a detailed framework for understanding the numerous and complicated interactions among psychological and social determinants of pain through examination of the process of pain communication. The focus is on an improved understanding of immediate dyadic transactions during painful events in the context of broader social phenomena. Fine-grain consideration of social transactions during pain leads to an appreciation of sociobehavioral events affecting both suffering persons as well as caregivers. Our examination considers knowledge from a variety of perspectives, including clinical health psychology, social and developmental processes, evolutionary psychology, communication studies, and behavioral neuroscience.     

作为分支学科的心理传记学：当前困境与应对

通过近百年的发展,心理传记学作为心理学的一个分支学科逐渐被认可。然而,在科学社会学和科学哲学的视角下,作为分支学科的心理传记学当前还面临以下两大困境：研究对象的非匿名性和知情同意难以实施使得研究的伦理风险受到前所未有的挑战;该领域如何实现学科共同体间的代际传递……在总结国内外研究成果的基础上,本研究回顾解决该领域伦理困境的相应方案和分支学科研究成果如何获得学科共同体的社会承认的尝试性方案,并为推进该领域知识形成自己独特的分支学科范式提出相应的建议。     

心理学质性研究：历史、现状和展望

心理学质性研究具有漫长的过去,却只有短暂的历史。心理学自诞生起就具有质性研究传统,但被主流所忽视。从组织机构、出版渠道和研究成果方面看,当前国内外心理学质性研究的发展态势暗示质性研究传统正在回归到主流当中。尽管仍存在误解和急功近利等众多问题和困难需要克服,但是心理学质性研究方法在研究复杂心理现象和产生新的概念、新的理论方面展现了潜力。心理学质性研究的复兴正使心理学处于一个多元化转向的阶段。     

Biographical Transitions From a Midlife Perspective

Recent advances in life-span developmental psychology suggest that individual lives can be characterized as a series of interrelated transitions. The question of when and how past transitions have been experienced and how they affect subsequent ageing may be critical to understanding midlife adjustment. The aim of this study is (a) to investigate timing and emotional valence of experienced normative and silent transitions of middle-aged persons, and (b) to discover the impact of past transitions on current well-being and on anticipation of old age. Analysis of interview data from 268 persons suggest a considerable stability in the basic structure of human biography, but also evidence for age group, gender, and personality differences in the subjective perception of the life-course, adjustment and future anticipation in middle age. Emotional valence of puberty and that of personality variables were found to be important predictors of actual psychological well-being and anticipation of old age.     

Personality research—challenges for the future

This article is about the lessons that can be learned from the mistakes of the past. After a critical, constructive analysis of current theorizing and research, important directions of future personality psychology are described against the background of a general theoretical framework. It is argued that individual functioning cannot be understood or explained if the environmental factors that are operating in the individual's interactions with the environment and the biological factors that are constantly interacting with the cognitive-emotional system are not considered. Finally, the article focuses on conceptual and methodological issues that are of major importance for further progress in personality psychology, viz. (a) the match between level of psychological processes and type of data, (b) the nature of psychological phenomena studied in terms of variables, (c) the use of chronological age as the marker of individual development, and (d) the comparison between a variable and a person approach.     

Achievement,affiliation, and group incentives: A test of the overmotivation hypothesis

The theory of achievement motivation (Atkinson & Raynor, 1974) is seen as an important starting point for making theoretical predictions regarding the interaction of personality and situational determinants on group processes. However, progress in this direction has been slow, possibly because group situations may lead to overmotivation. Here, persons who might be expected to excel in such situations (e.g., success-oriented persons also high in affiliation motivation) may actually perform poorly as a function of being too positively motivated. The present study is an attempt to find a priori evidence for the overmotivation hypothesis in order to facilitate progress toward a motivational theory of group activity. Male and female subjects were run in either an individual or a cooperative performance situation. The achievement, affiliative, and extrinsic incentives in these situations were examined in conjunction with relevant personality dimensions. The results lend support to the overmotivation hypothesis. Implications for group activity are discussed.     

An analysis of mutual assistance

Why should community psychology be interested in mutual assistance? Mutual assistance organizations represent not an alternative to professional care by an addition to resources in the community of a kind that makes for a more competent community (Iscoe, 1974). Mutual assistance also reflects the values of empowerment that many community psychologists accept as primary (Rappaport, 1981). For those persons who suffer with conditions that may be attributed to oppressive social environments, there is no alternative to collective political and social action to produce change. The developing mutual assistance movement provides an unparalleled opportunity to enhance our understanding of the meaning and significance of social support and the conditions under which people change. Those of us in the field have every reason to embrace this movement for it is truly in keeping with the vision of community psychology.     

Individual differences in moral development: The relation of sex, gender, and personality to morality

Individual differences in moral development are examined, with a particular emphasis on sex and gender differences. This examination includes an extensive review of the empirical and theoretical literature in psychology on morality. Based on this review, it is concluded that sex differences occur with less frequency and with a less systematic favoring of males than is predicted by several theories of moral development. In addition, a study is presented which considers the relation of sex, gender, and personality to morality. Two age cohort samples, college sophomores (n = 169) and adults (n = 151), were assessed with the moral judgment scale of the cognitive-developmental model (Kohlberg, 1984) and a newly developed moral character template of the personological model (Lifton, in press). Participants also completed the CPI and MMPI personality inventories. Results of the study indicate (1) the absence of sex differences for either model, (2) the presence of gender differences favoring masculine persons for the cognitive-developmental but not personological model, and (3) that individual differences in moral development parallel individual differences in personality development. The implications of these findings are discussed with regard to Gilligan's (1982) claim that men and women differ in their moral orientations. Finally, it is argued that an individual difference approach, particularly one that emphasizes personality, would prove useful for future research on moral development.     

Modalities of Generalization Through Single Case Studies

The value of case studies for theory building is still doubted in psychology. The paper argues for the importance of case studies and the possibility of generalizing from these for a specific sociocultural understanding of human development. The paper first clarifies the notion of abduction within case studies, drawing on pragmatists James and Peirce and expanding it with the work of Lewin, and argues that it is the core mechanism that allows generalization from case studies. The second section presents the possibility of generalizing from individual single case studies, for which not only the subjective perspective, but also the dynamics by which the social and cultural environment guide and enable the person’s development, have to be accounted for. The third section elaborates the question of institutional case studies, where the challenge is to account both for institutional dynamics, and for persons’ trajectories within; this is exemplified with an ongoing study on the process of obtaining citizenship in Switzerland. The paper briefly concludes by highlighting two possible implications of the paper, one concerning the process of theoretical reasoning, the other, the fact that sociocultural psychology could itself be seen as an institution in-the-making.     

Levels and Domains In Personality: An Introduction

ABSTRACT This special issue is centered around the problem of levels and domains in personality functioning. What kind of constructs—and at what levels and in what domains—are needed to understand what a person is like? To account for the complexity and scope of human lives, personality psychologists have traditionally put forth lists and taxonomies of factors, features, and variables that must be taken into consideration in formulating an adequate psychological portrait of the whole person. The five-factor model of personality traits has recently been offered as a comprehensive framework; however, critical analyses of the trait concept have revealed the limitations of a trait-based model of personality. Recognizing that the concept of trait is indispensable to a vital psychology of personality, this special issue aims to (a) communicate recent developments and organizational frameworks for understanding the person at multiple levels and in varied domains, and (b) articulate and elaborate units of analysis that, when combined with trait assessments, yield a psychology of personality that is commensurate with the complexity of individual functioning and that offers greater potential for the attainment of the original goals of the discipline.     

Supplication and the Muslim personality: Psychological nature and functions of prayer as interpreted by Said Nursi

Efforts to describe an Islamic psychology of religion must include the relationship that Muslims maintain with God through supplication. The Turkish theologian and scholar Said Nursi (1877–1960) offered useful theoretical guidance for understanding this issue. His perspective rested on the assumption that supplication finds its motivation in humanity’s innate shortcomings. Such imperfections encourage a person to communicate with God through supplication, and supplication then provides a source of felt closeness to God that defines how the Muslim personality should function. In broad terms, Nursi subdivided supplication into verbal (petitionary) and doing (behavioural) types. Verbal supplication helps persons respond to innate weaknesses by trusting in their own strengths, and this trust then manifests itself in the behavioural supplications that the individual uses to meet the demands of life. Nursi’s views suggest opportunities for empirically understanding supplication within an Islamic psychology of religion.     

How Can Evolutionary Psychology Successfully Explain Personality and Individual Differences?

ABSTRACT— Although evolutionary psychology has been successful in explaining some species-typical and sex-differentiated adaptations, a large question that has largely eluded the field is this: How can the field successfully explain personality and individual differences? This article highlights some promising theoretical directions for tackling this question. These include life-history theory, costly signaling theory, environmental variability in fitness optima, frequency-dependent selection, mutation load, and flexibly contingent shifts in strategy according to environmental conditions. Tackling the explanatory question also requires progress on three fronts: (a) reframing some personality traits as forms of strategic individual differences; (b) providing a nonarbitrary, evolutionary-based formulation of environments as distributions and salience profiles of adaptive problems; and (c) identifying which strategies thrive and which falter in these differing problem-defined environments.