What Do We Know When We Know a Person?

Abstract

Individual differences in personality may be described at three different levels. Level I consists of those broad, decontextualized, and relatively nonconditional constructs called "traits," which provide a dispositional signature for personality description. No description of a person is adequate without trait attributions, but trait attributions themselves yield little beyond a "psychology ofthe stranger." At Level II (called "personal concems"), personality descriptions invoke personal strivings, life tasks, defense mechanisms, coping strategies, domain-specific skills and values, and a wide assortment of other motivational, developmental, or strategic constructs that are contextualized in time, place, or role. While dispositional traits and personal concerns appear to have near-universal applicability. Level III presents frameworks and constructs that may be uniquely relevant to adulthood only, and perhaps only within modern societies that put a premium on the individuation of the self. Thus, in contemporary Western societies, a full description of personality commonly requires a consideration of the extent to which a human life expresses unity and purpose, which are the hallmarks of identity. Identity in adulthood is an inner story of the self that integrates the reconstmcted past, perceived present, and anticipated future to provide a life with unity, purpose, and meaning. At Level III, psychologists may explore the person's identity as an internalized and evolving life story. Each of the three levels has its own geography and requires its own indigenous nomenclatures, taxonomies, theories, frameworks, and laws.One of the great social rituals in the lives of middle-class American famihes is "the drive home." The ritual comes in many different forms.

Revealing dimensions of thinking in open-ended self-descriptions: An automated meaning extraction method for natural language

“…By many definitions of personality, it seems that the meaning extraction method produced factors that captured personality. More specifically, it seems that the meaning extraction method captured personality at the level of personal concerns, which McAdams (1995) describes as the level of personality at which we really begin to know a person'motivations, interests, and values.…”

“…From a personality perspective, the meaning extraction method assesses personal concerns (McAdams, 1995). The word factors reflect how people are structuring their worlds -how they are thinking about themselves and, other salient topics of self-relevance.…”

Impacto na qualidade de vida e no estado depressivo de idosas participantes de uma universidade da terceira idade

“…Porém, alguns autores defendem a idéia de que diferenças entre coortes refletem na personalidade de idosos, sendo que pessoas de coortes mais recentes parecem apresentar maior flexibilidade do que as de coortes anteriores (Hilgard, Atkinson & Atkinson, 1979;Ruth & Coleman, 1996;Schaie & Willis, 1991). Teorias atuais de personalidade indicam que, apesar da aparente estabilidade da personalidade na idade adulta, existe considerável potencial para mudança (Field & Millsap, 1991;Helson, Jones & Kwan, 2002;Labouvie-Vief, Diehl, Tarnowski & Shen, 2000;McAdams, 1995;Maiden, Peterson, Caya & Hayslip, 2003).…”

Channeling identity: A study of storytelling in conversations between introverted and extraverted friends

“…This expansion of the concept of personality to include life stories has enhanced the degree to which personality psychology attends to the whole person (McAdams, 1995), but the expansion has not been easy. A notable difficulty in connecting traits and life stories is that traits tend to be construed as genetic endowments, and life stories as psychosocial constructions (McAdams, 2001).…”