Contextualized Personality, beyond Traits

Abstract

Personality psychologists have become increasingly interested in how personality varies across social roles. Within this 'contextualized' approach, researchers almost invariably focus on assessing personality traits. Although these characteristics are no doubt important components of personality, there are many aspects of the person that are not adequately represented by traits. This article fleshes out the nature of these additional personality characteristics relevant to contextualized personality. I argue that, just as the study of personality in its generalized form has benefitted from recognition of three conceptual levels (viz. traits, goals and life narratives), so too would contextualized approaches to personality. Evidence of the predictive ability of context-specific goals and narratives is provided, as is discussion of the functional relations among variables at personality's three conceptual levels, and the interplay between contextualized and generalized self-representations. During this discussion, I argue for adoption of a relational meta-theory in the study of personality. Considerable gains can be made in understanding personhood by uniting appreciation of context with a multilevel conception of personality. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology Key words: contextualized personality; social roles; personality traits; personal goals; life narratives; relationalism This article is meant to say something novel about two rather seasoned and largely accepted ideas regarding the nature of personality. The first of these ideas is that personality is manifest in different ways within each of the contexts and social roles in which we participate (Donahue, Robins, Roberts, & John, 1993). The second of these ideas, popularized by McAdams (1995McAdams ( , 2013, is that personality, in its generalized 1 form, is best represented by three distinct conceptual 'levels' (viz. traits, goals and life narratives). The 'something novel' here is an attempt to marry these two ideas that, more often than not, have passed each other within the realm of personality psychology like ships in the night.Researchers interested in assessing personality in its contextualized and role-bound form have almost invariably equated 'personality' and 'personality traits'-that is, when assessing the manner in which individuals construe their personality within specific contexts, these researchers have usually assessed only traits. This is not to suggest that other personality characteristics have been entirely ignored. McConnell (2011), for example, posited that contextualized personality may contain other aspects and characteristics in addition to traits. These 'other things' (p. 6), however, are only rarely specified and even less frequently described in any manner of detail. This, I believe, is a problem, as consideration of additional personality characteristics holds potential to offer insights into the natures of a broader array of psychological constructs, while also contributing to a more compl...

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“…Over the last 30 years, psychological science has witnessed a seismic shift in the emphasis placed on stories and storytelling (e.g., Dunlop, , ; McAdams, ; Sarbin, ). This “narrative turn” is evident in most, if not all, corners of psychology, including the close relationships literature (e.g., Buehlman, Gottman, & Katz, ; Dunlop, Hanley, & McCoy, ; Frost, ; Sternberg, , ).…”

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“…Within personality psychology, few topics have received as much attention as the relation between the personality characteristics of the individual and the features of the environing context (e.g., Donahue, Robins, Roberts, & John, ; Kenrick & Funder, ). In the interest of best capturing the nature of this relation, several approaches have been adopted, including experience sampling (McCabe & Flesson, ; Fleeson & Jayawickreme, ) and a consideration of the manner in which personality characteristics manifest within recurrent social roles, the latter approach functioning under the moniker of contextualized personality (Donahue et al, ; Dunlop, ; Dunlop, Walker, & Weins, ; Heller, Watson, Komar, Min, & Perunovic, ; Roberts, ; Sheldon, Ryan, Rawsthorne, & Ilardi, ). Researchers studying contextualized personality have concerned themselves primarily with personality traits.…”