Contextualized Personality, beyond Traits

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