Integrative Summary: The Research Program of Personality Psychology

Abstract

The basic features of this framework have been provided in the previous chapters. While many of the issues addressed are those facing personality psychology, and examples are largely drawn from this substantive domain, aspects of the framework must be recognized as extending into general psychology. But one of the goals of this work is to redefine the limits of the discipline of personality in a formal rather than purely substantive way. In Chapter 1, a definition of personality psychology was offered which described the field as a person oriented general psychology. In this final chapter, the framework’s construal of the domain of personality will be articulated. The current interactionist perspective which emerged from the person- situation controversy will then be discussed, with emphasis placed upon the compatibility between modern interactionism and the perspective advanced in this framework. The last section of this chapter will provide a brief summary and evaluation of this framework, and will include comments upon future directions for empirical and conceptual development.