Personality Dynamics

Authors

  • Eranda Jayawickreme
    Department of Psychology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, USA
  • William Fleeson
    Department of Psychology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, USA
  • Emorie D. Beck Orcid
    Department of Medical Social Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA
  • Anna Baumert Orcid
    Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn, Germany; University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
  • Jonathan M. Adler Orcid
    Olin College of Engineering, Needham, MA, USA

Abstract

Traditionally, personality psychology has been understood as the study of stability in people’s dispositions. However, a different strand of personality research has highlighted the importance of acknowledging and explaining the meaningful intraindividual variation in human thoughts, feelings, and behavior across different contexts and time. The goal of this paper is to review this strand, highlight current research, and outline key questions for future research. We summarize historical perspectives on the dynamic processes underlying the emergence of personality within and across individuals (e.g. the pioneering theorizing of Allport; the person-situation debate), recent theoretical and empirical advances in incorporating dynamic processes into the definition and assessment of personality (e.g., the study of personality states; dynamic approaches to personality including Cognitive Affective Personality System [CAPS], Whole Trait Theory, the Knowledge-and-Appraisal Personality Architecture [KAPA] framework, and Nonlinear Interaction of Person and Situation [NIPS]), and new directions in current research (e.g. idiographic approaches; understanding variability in narrative identity). We end with suggestions for future research.