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Personality psychology as the integrative study of traits and worldviews

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Author

  • Artur Nilsson

Summary, in English

Personality psychology inevitably studies human beings not just as mechanical systems, but also as rational agents, whose experiences and actions are imbued with meaning. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the implications of taking this core element of personality psychology seriously, and to thereby contribute to the development of an integrative and normative framework for the field. I argue that personality can be studied both through trait constructs, referring to objective behavioral regularities, and through worldview constructs, referring to subjective sources of meaning, and try to show that worldviews are, contrary to popular belief, not inherently less universal, or in other ways less basic, than traits. I conclude by emphasizing the importance of more systematic study of worldviews, integration across the trait-worldview divide, and complementation of the individual differences approach with personalistic methods, for the development of richer and more unified portraits of personalities.

Publishing year

2014

Language

English

Pages

18-32

Publication/Series

New Ideas in Psychology

Volume

32

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Psychology

Keywords

  • personality
  • trait
  • worldview
  • integration
  • framework
  • philosophy

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0732-118X