Toward a Shared Understanding of Important Consequences of Personality

Abstract

The assumption that personality makes a difference in people's everyday lives is probably the main reason why investigating personality seems worthwhile at all. Although the number of empirical studies addressing the everyday consequences of personality is considerable, an overarching conceptual framework is missing. We present such a framework, using a version of the SORKC model from cognitive-behavioral therapy. Our version of the model incorporates a full account of how personality may influence the ways in which people perceive and respond to situations, which may ultimately have important consequences for them and others. However, not everything that formally qualifies as a consequence of personality is equally relevant. In choosing criterion variables for their own research, researchers interested in personality consequences seem to have strongly relied on implicit assumptions regarding a “good life.” We review a sample of recent studies from the personality literature, using our own conceptualization of important personality consequences to assess the current state of the field, and deduce recommendations for future research.

Interpersonal Dynamics in Personality and Personality Disorders

“…The preceding interpersonal reformulation of personality dynamics proceeds naturally from recently proposed models in basic personality psychology (e.g. Back et al, 2011;Baumert et al, 2017;DeYoung, 2015;Fleeson, 2001;Roberts, 2018;Wessels et al, 2016;Wrzus & Roberts, 2017). It shares a general focus on a briefer time scale than has traditionally been emphasized by personality psychologists and attends specifically to variability in within-situation processes that could contribute to stability between situations and, ultimately, relatively dispositional patterns (Baumert et al, 2017;Wrzus & Roberts, 2017).…”

“…It shares a general focus on a briefer time scale than has traditionally been emphasized by personality psychologists and attends specifically to variability in within-situation processes that could contribute to stability between situations and, ultimately, relatively dispositional patterns (Baumert et al, 2017;Wrzus & Roberts, 2017). It formally incorporates the notion that behaviour in interpersonal situations is goal directed (DeYoung, 2015;Horowitz et al, 2006), balances trait and social perspectives on behaviour (Back et al, 2011;Fleeson, 2001), and distinguishes between actual and perceived behaviour (Back et al, 2011;DeYoung, 2015;Wessels et al, 2016;Wrzus & Roberts, 2017). Standing as it does upon these foundations as well as the evidence-based framework provided by interpersonal theory (Leary, 1957;Pincus, Lukowitsky, et al, 2009) and an evocative albeit scattered clinical literature, the perspective offered in this paper has the potential to significantly advance the empirical study of dynamic processes in three ways.…”

“…However, a number of theories have elaborated sequences that occur within situations. For instance, Wessels et al () suggested that certain situations trigger behavioural responses that vary in their consequences and emphasized the critical difference between an individual's internal perception and the external reality of situations, responses, and consequences. DeYoung () proposed a sequence in which cybernetic goals lead to certain actions that vary in consequences.…”

“…Critically, the other can be either a proximal individual with whom the self is interacting or an internal representation (e.g. a memory of someone else, a different aspect of the self) (Pincus, 2005; see also Back et al, 2011;Wessels et al, 2016).…”

“…Contextualizing traits in specific environments has compelled theorists to distinguish between aspects of personality that tend to get lumped together in more abstract, cross‐sectional, nomothetic conceptions (Borsboom & Cramer, ; Geukes et al, ). These elements have included dynamic goals (DeYoung, ), behavioural and perceptual social interaction processes (Back et al, ), distinctions between internal experience as opposed to observable behaviour (Back et al, ; Wessels, Zimmermann, & Leising, ), and situational perceptions (Rauthmann, ; Rauthmann et al, ; Rauthmann et al, ). The implication is that a satisfying model about how personality manifests in situations must make distinctions between the situation the person is in, how the person feels on the inside as opposed to how they are perceived on the outside, and what they are trying to do in contrast to an abstract description of their behaviour.…”