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In this target article, we argue that personality processes, personality structure, and personality development have to be understood and investigated in integrated ways in order to provide comprehensive responses to the key questions of personality psychology. The psychological processes and mechanisms that explain concrete behaviour in concrete situations should provide explanation for patterns of variation across situations and individuals, for development over time as well as for structures observed in intra-individual and inter-individual differences. Personality structures, defined as patterns of covariation in behaviour, including thoughts and feelings, are results of those processes in transaction with situational affordances and regularities. It cannot be presupposed that processes are organized in ways that directly correspond to the observed structure. Rather, it is an empirical question whether shared sets of processes are uniquely involved in shaping correlated behaviours, but not uncorrelated behaviours (what we term 'correspondence' throughout this paper), or whether more complex interactions of processes give rise to population-level patterns of covariation (termed 'emergence'). The paper is organized in three parts, with part I providing the main arguments, part II reviewing some of the past approaches at (partial) integration, and part III outlining conclusions of how future personality psychology should progress towards complete integration. Working definitions for the central terms are provided in the appendix.

In this article, we present an integrative perspective on temperament and personality development. Personality and temperament are conceptualized as regulatory systems that start as physiological reactivity to environmental features early in life, but are increasingly supplemented by regulation efforts oriented toward reference values such as personal goals and social norms. These reference values change during development as society expects increasingly mature behaviors, but it takes regulatory resources and incremental practice before people can conform to these higher standards. Consistent with this view, a meta‐analysis of mean‐level development of personality traits in adolescence revealed a decrease in conscientiousness and openness during early adolescence. Negative discrepancies between reference values and actual behavior are apparently responsible for decreases in perceived maturity, but more direct evidence is needed to support this claim.

People may hold different understandings of race that might affect how they respond to the culture of groups deemed to be racially distinct. The present research tests how this process is moderated by the minority individual's lay theory of race. An essentialist lay theory of race (i.e., that race reflects deep-seated, inalterable essence and is indicative of traits and ability) would orient racial minorities to rigidly adhere to their ethnic culture, whereas a social constructionist lay theory of race (i.e., that race is socially constructed, malleable, and arbitrary) would orient racial minorities to identify and cognitively assimilate toward the majority culture. To test these predictions, the authors conducted 4 studies with Asian American participants. The first 2 studies examine the effect of one's lay theory of race on perceived racial differences and identification with American culture. The last 2 studies tested the moderating effect of lay theory of race on identification and assimilation toward the majority American culture after this culture had been primed. The results generally supported the prediction that the social constructionist theory was associated with more perceived similarity between Asians and Americans and more consistent identification and assimilation toward American culture, compared with the essentialist theory.

Research on similarity constructs (e.g., dyadic similarity, personality stability; judgment agreement and accuracy) frequently find them to be associated with positive outcomes. However, a methodological pitfall associated with common ‘overall similarity’ indices, which we term the normative-desirability confound (NDC), will regularly result in similarity constructs apparently having more positive effects than they do in reality. In essence, when an individual is estimated to be similar to another person by common indices, this will strongly indicate that the individual has desirable characteristics. Consequently, the correlates of overall similarity indices can often be interpreted as indicating the beneficial effects of having desirable characteristics, without needing to attribute any additional salutary effect to similarity. We show that this confound is present in overall similarity estimates for a wide range of constructs (e.g., personality traits, attitudes, emotions, behaviors, values), how it can be accounted for, and discuss larger implications for our understanding of similarity constructs.

Recently, researchers interested in personality development have begun to acknowledge the roles of motivation and self‐regulation for why traits change across adulthood. We propose three preconditions under which individuals may change their own levels of a personality trait through self‐directed efforts. Firstly, individuals need to desire changing their trait‐related behaviours either as an end in itself or in order to achieve other goals. Secondly, they need to consider behavioural changes feasible and be able to implement the desired changes. Thirdly, behavioural changes need to become habitual in order to constitute a stable trait. After elaborating on these three conditions, we review evidence attesting to the importance of motivation and self‐regulation for trait development. We conclude with a discussion of the mutual interdependence of traits and goals, as well as the limits of self‐regulated personality change. From our framework, we derive why personality changes across adulthood tend to be small to medium only, namely because they may require that all three preconditions for self‐regulated personality change are fulfilled. We provide reasons for why people might not view change as desirable, feasible or fail to maintain it over time. Finally, we propose ideas for potential study designs to research self‐regulated personality change. Copyright © 2014 European Association of Personality Psychology

Typical assessments of personality traits collapse behaviors, thoughts, and feelings into a single measure without distinguishing between these different manifestations. To address this lack of specification, the current study develops and validates a measure that assesses a number of broad behaviors associated with the personality trait of conscientiousness (the Behavioral Indicators of Conscientiousness; BIC). Findings suggest that the lower-order structure of conscientious behaviors is mostly similar to the lower-order structure in extant trait measures. Furthermore, a daily diary method was used to validate the BIC against frequency counts of conscientious behavior. Overall, the results identify specific behaviors that conscientious individuals tend to perform and highlight possible advantages of this approach over broad trait assessment.