What Do We Know When We Know a Person?
Dan P. McAdams,
Corresponding Author
Dan P. McAdams
Northwestern University
should be addressed to Dan P. McAdams, Program in Human Development and Social Policy, Northwestern University, 2115 North Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208-2610.Search for more papers by this author
Dan P. McAdams,
Corresponding Author
Dan P. McAdams
Northwestern University
should be addressed to Dan P. McAdams, Program in Human Development and Social Policy, Northwestern University, 2115 North Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208-2610.Search for more papers by this authorPreparation of this manuscript was aided by a grant from the Spencer Foundation. I would like to thank David Watson, Jeff McCrae, and Bob Emmons for their helpful comments on an early draft of this article.
Abstract
ABSTRACT Individual differences in personality may be described at three different levels. Level I consists of those broad, de contextualized, and relatively non conditional 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 of the stranger.” At Level II (called “personal concerns”), 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 reconstructed 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.
References
- Allport, G. W. (1937). Personality: A psychological interpretation. New York : Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
- Banaji, M. R., & Prentice, D. A. (1994). The self in social contexts. In L. W. Porter & M. R. Rosenzweig, (Eds.), Annual review of psychology (Vol. 45, pp. 297–332). Palo Alto , CA : Annual Reviews.
- Baumeister, R. F. (1986). Identity: Cultural change and the struggle for self. New York : Oxford University Press.
- Bellah, R. N., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swidler, A., & Tipton, S. M. (1985). Habits of the heart. Berkeley : University of California Press.
- Blasi, A. (1988). Identity and the development of the self. In D. K. Lapsley & F. C. Power, (Eds.), Self, ego, and identity: Integrative approaches (pp. 226–242). New York : Springer-Verlag.
10.1007/978-1-4615-7834-5_11 Google Scholar
- Block, J. (in press). A contrarian view of the five-factor approach to personality description. Psychological Bulletin.
- Block, J., Weiss, D. S., & Thorne, A. (1979). How relevant is a semantic similarity interpretation of personality ratings Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1055–1074.
- Bouchard, T. J., Jr., Lykken, D. T., McGue, M., Segal, N. L., & Tellegen, A. (1990). Sources of human psychological differences: The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart. Science, 250, 223–228.
- Bowers, K. S. (1973). Situationism in psychology: An analysis and critique. Psychological Review, 80, 307–336.
- Breger, L. (1974). From instinct to identity: The development of personality. Englewood Cliffs , NJ : Prentice-Hall.
- Briggs, S. R. (1989). The optimal level of measurement for personality constructs. In D. M. Buss & N. Cantor, (Eds.), Personality psychology: Recent trends and emerging directions (pp. 246–260). New York : Springer-Verlag.
10.1007/978-1-4684-0634-4_19 Google Scholar
- Bruner, J. S. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press.
10.4159/9780674029019 Google Scholar
- Bruner, J. S. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press.
- Buss, A. H. (1989). Personality as traits. American Psychologist, 44, 1378–1388.
- Buss, D. M. (1991). Evolutionary personality psychology. In M. R. Rosenzweig & L. W. Porter, (Eds.), Annual review of psychology (Vol. 42, pp. 459–491). Palo Alto , CA : Annual Reviews.
- Buss, D. M. & Canton, N. (Eds.). (1989). Personality psychology: Recent trends and emerging directions. New York : Springer-Verlag.
10.1007/978-1-4684-0634-4 Google Scholar
- Cantor, N. (1990). From thought to behavior; “Having” and “doing” in the study of personality and cognition. American Psychologist, 45, 735–750.
- Cantor, N., Acker, M., & Cook-Flanagan, C. (1992). Conflict and preoccupation in the intimacy life task. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 644–655.
- Cantor, N., & Kihlstrom, J. F. (1987). Personality and social intelligence. Englewood Cliffs , NJ : Prentice-Hall.
- Cantor, N., Mischel, W., & Schwartz, J. C. (1982). A prototype analysis of psychological situations. Cognitive Psychology, 14, 45–77.
- Cantor, N., & Zirkel, S. (1990). Personality, cognition, and purposive behavior. In L. Pervin, (Ed.), Handbook of personality theory and research (pp. 135–164). New York : Guilford.
- Cattell, R. B. (1957). Personality and motivation structure and measurement. New York ; Harcourt, Brace and World.
- Charme, S. T. (1984). Meaning and myth in the study of lives: A Sartrean perspective. Philadelphia ; University of Pennsylvania Press.
10.9783/9781512801132 Google Scholar
- Cohler, B. J. (1982). Personal narrative and the life course. In P. Bakes & O. G. Brim, (Eds.), Life span development and behavior (Vol. 4, pp. 205–241). New York ; Academic Press.
- Cohler, B. J. (1994, June). Studying older lives: Reciprocal acts of telling and listening. Paper presented at annual meeting of the Society for Personology, Ann Arbor.
- Conley, J. J. (1985). Longitudinal stability of personality traits; A multitrait-multimethod-multioccasion analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 1266–1282.
- Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1985). The NEO Personality Inventory. Odessa , FL ; Psychological Assessment Resources.
- Cramer, P. (1991). The development of defense mechanisms. New York ; Springer-Verlag.
10.1007/978-1-4613-9025-1 Google Scholar
- Demorest, A. P., & Alexander, I. E. (1992). Affective scripts as organizers of personal experience. Journal of Personality, 60, 645–663.
- Denzin, N. K. & Lincoln, Y. S. (Eds.). (1994). Handbook of qualitative research. London ; Sage.
- Digman, J. M. (1990). Personality structure; Emergence of the five-factor model. In M. R. Rosenzweig & L. W. Porter, (Eds.), Annual review of psychology (Vol. 41, pp. 417–440). Palo Alto , CA ; Annual Reviews.
- Dunn, J., & Plomin, R. (1990). Separate lives: Why siblings are so different. New York ; Basic Books.
- Emmons, R. A. (1986). Personal strivings; An approach to personality and subjective well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1058–1068.
- Emmons, R. A. (1993). Current status of the motive concept. In K. H. Craik, R. Hogan & R. N. Wolfe, (Eds.), Fifty years of personality psychology (pp. 187–196). New York : Plenum.
10.1007/978-1-4899-2311-0_13 Google Scholar
- Epstein, S. (1979). The stability of behavior: 1. On predicting most of the people much of the time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1097–1126.
- Epstein, S. (1994). Integration of the cognitive and the psychodynamic unconscious. American Psychologist, 49, 709–724.
- Erikson, E. H. (1959). Identity and the life cycle; Selected papers. Psychological Issues, 1(1), 5–165.
- Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society ( 2nd ed.). New York : Norton.
- Eysenck, H. J. (1967). The biological basis of Personality. Springfield , IL : Thomas.
- Fiske, D. W. (1974). The limits of the conventional science of personality. Journal of Personality, 42, 1–11.
- Frederiksen, N. (1972). Toward a taxonomy of situations. American Psychologist, 27, 114–123.
- Funder, D. C., & Colvin, C. R. (1991). Explorations in behavioral consistency: Properties of persons, situations, and behaviors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 773–794.
- Funder, D. C., & Ozer, D. J. (1983). Behavior as a function of the situation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 107–112.
- Gardner, H. (1993). Creating minds. New York : Basic Books.
- Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice. Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press.
- Goldberg, L. R. (1981). Language and individual differences: The search for universals in personality lexicons. In L. Wheeler, (Ed.), Review of personality and social psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 141–166). Beverly Hills : Sage.
- Goldberg, L. R. (1993). The structure of phenotypic personality traits. American Psychologist, 48, 26–34.
- Guilford, J. P. (1959). Personality. New York : McGraw-Hill.
- Hankiss, A. (1981). On the mythological rearranging of one's life history. In D. Bertaux, (Ed.), Biography and society: The life history approach in the social sciences (pp. 203–209). Beverly Hills : Sage.
- Havighurst, R. J. (1972). Developmental tasks and education ( 3rd ed.). New York : McKay.
- Hazan, C., & Shaver, P. (1990). Love and work: An attachment-theoretical perspective. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 270–280.
- Hermans, H. J. M., & Kempen, H. J. G. (1993). The dialogical self. New York : Academic Press.
- Hogan, R. (1986). Hogan Personality Inventory manual. Minneapolis : National Computer Systems.
- Howard, G. S. (1991). Culture tales: A narrative approach to thinking, cross-cultural psychology, and psychotherapy. American Psychologist, 46, 187–197.
- Jackson, D. N. (1974). The Personality Research Form. Port Huron , Ml : Research Psychologists Press.
- Jackson, D. N., & Paunonen, S. V. (1980). Personality structure and assessment. In M. R. Rosenzweig & L. W. Porter, (Eds.), Annual review of psychology (Vol. 31, pp. 503–552). Palo Alto , CA : Annual Reviews.
- James, W. (1963). Psychology. Greenwich , CT : Fawcett. (Original work published 1892).
- John, O. P. (1990). The “Big Five” factor taxonomy: Dimensions of personality in the natural language and in questionnaires. In L. Pervin, (Ed.), Handbook of personality theory and research (pp. 66–100). New York : Guilford.
- Josselson, R. & Lieblich, A. (Eds.). (1993). The narrative study of lives. Newbury Park , CA : Sage.
- Kaiser, R. T., & Ozer, D. J. (in press). The structure of personal goals and their relation to personality traits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
- Kelly, G. (1955). The psychology of personal constructs. New York : Norton.
- Kenrick, D. T., & Funder, D. C. (1988). Profiting from controversy; Lessons from the person-situation debate. American Psychologist, 43, 23–34.
- Klinger, E. (1977). Meaning and void. Minneapolis ; University of Minnesota Press.
- Kotre, J. (1984). Outliving the self: Generativity and the interpretation of lives. Baltimore ; Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Krahe, B. (1992). Personality and social psychology: Toward a synthesis. London ; Sage.
- Lamiell, J. T. (1987). The psychology of personality: An epistemological inquiry. New York : Columbia University Press.
- Langbaum, R. (1982). The mysteries of identity: A theme in modern literature. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
- Lazarus, R. J. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. New York ; Oxford University Press.
10.1111/j.1432-2277.2005.00183.x Google Scholar
- Linde, C. (1990). Life stories: The creation of coherence (Monograph No. IRL90-0001). Palo Alto , CA : Institute for Research on Learning.
- Little, B. R. (1989). Personal projects analysis; Trivial pursuits, magnificent obsessions, and the search for coherence. In D. M. Buss & N. Cantor, (Eds.), Personality psychology: Recent trends and emerging directions (pp. 15–31). New York ; Springer-Verlag.
10.1007/978-1-4684-0634-4_2 Google Scholar
- Loevinger, J. (1976). Ego development. San Francisco ; Jossey-Bass.
- Luborsky, L., & Crits-Christoph, P. (1991). Understanding transference: The core conflictual relationship theme method. New York ; Basic Books.
- MacIntyre, A. (1984). After virtue. Notre Dame ; University of Notre Dame Press.
- Magnusson, D. (1971). An analysis of situational dimensions. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 32, 851–867.
- McAdams, D. P. (1984). Love, power, and images of the self. In C. Z. Malatesta & C. E. Izard, (Eds.), Emotion in adult development (pp. 159–174). Beverly Hills : Sage.
- McAdams, D. P. (1985). Power, intimacy, and the life story: Personological inquiries into identity. New York : Guilford.
- McAdams, D. P. (1989). Intimacy: The need to be close. New York ; Doubleday.
- McAdams, D. P. (1990). Unity and purpose in human lives; The emergence of identity as a life story. In A. I. Rabin, R. A. Zucker, R. A. Emmons & S. Frank, (Eds.), Studying persons and lives (pp. 148–200). New York : Springer.
- McAdams, D. P. (1992). The five-factor model in personality; A critical appraisal. Journal of Personality, 60, 329–361.
- McAdams, D. P. (1993). The stories we live by: Personal myths and the making of the self. New York ; Morrow.
- McAdams, D. P. (1994a). The person: An introduction to personality psychology ( 2nd ed.). Fort Worth ; Harcourt Brace.
- McAdams, D. P. (1994b). A psychology of the stranger. Psychological Inquiry, 5, 145–148.
10.1207/s15327965pli0502_12 Google Scholar
- McAdams, D. P. (1994c). Can personality change? Levels of stability and growth in personality across the life span. In T. F. Heatherton & J. L. Weinberger, (Eds.), Can personality change? (pp. 299–314). Washington , DC ; American Psychological Association.
10.1037/10143-027 Google Scholar
- McAdams, D. P. (in press). Narrating the self in adulthood. In J. Birren, G. Kenyon, J. E. Ruth, J. J. F. Schroots & T. Svensson, (Eds.), Aging and biography: Explorations in adult development. New York ; Springer.
- McAdams, D. P., Booth, L., & Selvik, R. (1981). Religious identity among students at a private college: Social motives, ego stage, and development. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 27, 219–239.
- McAdams, D. P., De St. Aubin, E., & Logan, R. L. (1993). Generativity among young, midlife, and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 8, 221–230.
- McAdams, D. P. & Ochberg, R. L. (Eds.). (1988). Psychobiography and life narratives. Durham , NC : Duke University Press.
- McClelland, D. C. (1951). Personality. New York : Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
10.1037/10790-000 Google Scholar
- McClelland, D. C. (1961). The achieving society. New York : D. Van Nostrand.
10.1037/14359-000 Google Scholar
- McCrae, R. R. & Costa, P. T., Jr. (1980). Openness to experience and ego level in Loevinger's Sentence Completion Test: Dispositional contributions to developmental models of personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 1179–1190.
- McCrae, R. R. & Costa, P. T., Jr. (1990). Personality in adulthood. New York : Guilford.
- McCrae, R. R. & Costa, P. T., Jr. (in press). Toward a new generation of personality theories: Theoretical contexts for the five-factor model. In J. S, Wiggins, (Ed.), The five-factor model of personality. New York : Guilford.
- Mischel, W. (1968). Personality and assessment. New York : Wiley.
- Mischel, W. (1973). Toward a cognitive social-learning reconceptualization of personality. Psychological Review, 80, 252–283.
- Moos, R. H. (1973). Conceptualization of human environments. American Psychologist, 28, 652–665.
- Moskowitz, D. S. (1990). Convergence of self-reports and independent observers: Dominance and friendliness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 1096–1106.
- Murray, H. A. (1938). Explorations in personality. New York : Oxford University Press.
- Nisbett, R. E., & Ross, L. D. (1980). Human inference: Strategies and shortcomings of social judgments. Englewood Cliffs , NJ : Prentice-Hall.
- Ogilvie, D. M., & Ashmore, R. D. (1991). Self-with-other representation as units of analysis in self-concept research. In R. A. Curtis, (Ed.), The relational self: Theoretical convergences in psychoanalysis and social psychology (pp. 282–314). New York : Guilford.
- Ozer, D. J., & Reise, S. P. (1994). Personality assessment. In L. W. Porter & M. R. Rosenzweig, (Eds.), Annual review of psychology (Vol. 45, pp. 357–388). Palo Alto , CA : Annual Reviews.
- Pervin, L. (1994). A critical analysis of current trait theory. Psychological Inquiry, 5, 103–113.
10.1207/s15327965pli0502_1 Google Scholar
- Polkinghorne, D. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences. Albany , NY : SUNY Press.
- Revelle, W. (1995). Personality processes. In L. W. Porter & M. R. Rosenzweig, (Eds.), Annual review of psychology (Vol. 46, pp. 295–328). Palo Alto , CA : Annual Reviews.
- Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. New York : Free Press.
- Rosenwald, G. C. & Ochberg, R. L. (Eds.). (1992). Storied lives. New Haven : Yale University Press.
- Rosznafszky, J. (1981). The relationship of level of ego development to Q-sort personality ratings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 99–120.
- Shweder, R. A. (1975). How relevant is an individual difference theory of personality Journal of Personality, 43, 455–484.
- Tellegen, A. (1982). Brief manual for the Differential Personality Questionnaire. Unpublished manuscript. University of Minnesota.
- Thorne, A. (1989). Conditional patterns, transference, and the coherence of personality across time. In D. M. Buss & N. Cantor, (Eds.), Personality psychology: Recent trends and emerging directions (pp. 149–159). New York : Springer.
10.1007/978-1-4684-0634-4_11 Google Scholar
- Wiersma, J. (1988). The press release: Symbolic communication in life history interviewing. Journal of Personality, 56, 205–238.
- Wiggins, J. S. (Ed.). (in press). The five-factor model of personality. New York : Guilford.
- Winter, D. G. (1973). The power motive. New York : Free Press.
- Wright, J. C., & Mischel, W. (1987). A conditional approach to dispositional constructs: The local predictability of social behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 1159–1177.
