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Abstract
This chapter reviews theory and research on intraindividual personality structures and processes. Principles for modeling the architecture of personality, that is, the overall design and operating characteristics of intraindividual personality systems, are addressed. Research demonstrates that a focus on within-person structures and processes advances the understanding of two aspects of personality coherence: the functional relations among distinct elements of personality, and cross-situational coherence in personality functioning that results from interactions among enduring knowledge structures and dynamic appraisal processes. Also reviewed are recent conceptual and empirical advances, which demonstrate that the interindividual personality variables that summarize variability in the population are wholly insufficient for modeling intraindividual personality architecture.
Key Words personality structures, personality dynamics, personality coherence
INTRODUCTION
In its earliest days, contributors to the Annual Review of Psychology treated personality psychology as a whole (Bronfenbrenner 1953, Eysenck 1952, Mackinnon 1951, Sears 1950). More recently, the series has cleaved the field in two, with the division resting on a distinction between personality processes (Mischel & Shoda 1998, Revelle 1995) and structures (Digman 1990, Wiggins & Pincus 1992).l A thesis of the present contribution is that a division of labor is necessary but the process/structure distinction is not the right one. This conclusion is compelled by recent conceptual and empirical advances, which constitute the primary focus of the present chapter.
The Two Meanings of Personality "Structure"
Anyone seeking to understand the scientific literature in personality psychology, including the import of recent advances, faces an obstacle: Writers refer to two different phenomena with the same term. One phenomenon is the within-person content and organization of personality systems. Psychologists from Freud (1923) to the present day (Magnusson & Torestad 1993, Mischel 2004) have provided scientific models of intra individual mental systems that underlie people's distinctive patterns of experience and action. The other phenomenon is betweenperson variation in the population at large. Here, investigators summarize interindividual variations by identifying between-person categories or dimensions of population variation (e.g., Asendorpf 2003, Ashton et al. 2004, Saucier 2003).
The obstacle to understanding involves the word "structure." In its naturallanguage usage, it refers to the stable organization among the parts of a whole entity. If the whole entity being studied is the individual person and if the withinperson organization of personality systems is...