What Do we Know When We Know a Person

McAdams, D. P. (1995). What Do We Know When We Know a Person? Journal of Personality, 63(3), 365–396

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Abstract

Individual differences in personality may be described at three different levels. Level I consists of those broad, decontextualized, and rela- tively nonconditional 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 ofthe stranger." At Level II (called "personal concems"), per- sonality 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 contextual- ized 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 ex- presses unity and purpose, which are the hallmarks of identity. Identity in adulthood is an inner story of the self that integrates the reconstmcted 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.

Three Levels:

1. Dispositional Traits: Relatively nonconditional, decontextualized, generally linear and implicitly comparative

   1. Traits are more than mere linguistic convenience

   2. Many traits show remarkable longitudinal consistency

   3. Aggregation shows that traits often predict behavior fairly well

   4. Situational effects are often no stronger than trait effects

   5. Trait psychologist have rallied around the big Five

2. Personal concern: contextualization of the traits within time, place and role

3. Identity, in a form of story

   1. Story is a construct as welll as method, but the story elicited from the method might not be the same as the actual internal construct.

   2. Identity is a quality of the self, not the actual self.

   3. Identity must be understood in story terms

Note that the three levels have no hierarchy. So more like three groups