Whole Trait Theory

“The trait approach, as instantiated in the Big 5/HEXACO model (Ashton & Lee, 2009; Costa & McCrae, 2006; DeYoung, Weisberg, Quilty, & Peterson, 2013; Goldberg, 1992; Johnson, 1997, Perugini & Gallucci, 1997; see also Wright et al., 2013), has made remarkable progress in identifying the content of…”

“The social cognitive approach starts with the observation that trait manifestations appear to be inconsistent (Cervone, 2005; Hartshorne & May, 1928; Mischel, 1968).”

“A uthor M anuscript A uthor M anuscript A uthor M anuscript A uthor M anuscript competencies, self-regulatory plans, and goals (Allport, 1937; Mischel & Shoda, 1995; Mischel, 1973).”

“Although the trait approach would allow for some variability in behavior, it does not appear to allow the high degree of variable responding required in the social-cognitive approach (Allport, 1937; Fleeson & Noftle, 2009; Mischel, 1973).”

“Traits matter to important outcomes (Duckworth, Weir, Tsukayama, & Kwok, 2012; Ozer & Benet-Martínez, 2006; Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner, Caspi, & Goldberg, 2007; Turiano, Chapman, Gruenewald, & Mroczek, 2013), and observers agree about Big 5 levels of targets (Vazire, 2010).”

“Furthermore, although traits do a reasonable job of describing behavior and identity, even on that front they fall somewhat short (Kandler, Zimmerman, & McAdams, 2014; McAdams & Pals, 2006).”

“We base this interpretation on WTT, which assumes that traits can be understood as density distributions of states (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015; Jayawickreme et al., 2019), and trait scales, therefore, indicate the central tendency of intraindividual variation in experience and behavior.”

“Nonlinear interaction of person and situation and the whole trait theory In the descriptive part of the WTT, a trait is defined as a density distribution of states (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015).”

“Nevertheless, Mis chel’s critique and the Person-Situation Debate more broadly led personality researchers to seriously consider the question of how person and situational factors could be best integrated to provide a complete account of the person (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015).”

“Wright, Warren and Snow (forthcoming) base their understanding of virtue and how to measure it by appeal to whole trait theory in personality psychology (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015; Jayawickreme, Zachary & Fleeson, 2019).”

“For example, Fleeson’s Whole Trait Model (Fleeson and Jayawickreme 2015) combines the evidence for interindividual differences in average global traits with the evidence that people also vary substantially around these averages.”

“…argue that traits should be viewed as reflecting density distributions: the same individual behaves differently on different occasions, and it is through the distribution of these behaviors that we can understand the traits of the individual (e.g., Fleeson, 2001; Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015).”

“Further, following whole trait theory (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015), when studying traitlevel provides wisdom-related characteristics through the density distributions of states, it would also be informative to simultaneously assess social and cognitive processes that may afford long-term shifts…”

“Yet recently, several personality researchers argued that looking at these momentary expressions is essential to capture the processes that underlie trait-related behaviours (e.g. Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015).”

“Although most personality research has focused on the between-person trait structure, contemporary personality theories emphasize within-person processes that give rise to differences between people (e.g., DeYoung, 2015; Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015; Pincus & Ansell, 2013; Read et al., 2017).”

“Virtues and character strengths include cognition and beliefs, affect and emotions, and behaviors and practices (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015; King et al., in press; Lerner & Callina, 2014; McMinn, 2017; Sandage & Hill, 2001; Schnitker et al., 2019) that sustain a moral fit with one’s context…”

“…personality where motives, efficacies, and perceptions are argued to be antecedents of behavioral patterns, self-schemas, and social attitudes (e.g. Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015; Fleeson & Jolley, 2006; Harms, Wood, & Spain, 2016; Wood, Gardner, & Harms, 2015). difficulty of conducting assessments…”

“This view is reflective of the whole trait theory in personality (Fleeson, 2001; Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015).”

“A logical next step from Allport’s observations is that individuals may systematically differ in the degree to which they show consistency (Fiske & Rice, 1955; Fleeson, 2001; Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015).”

“Whilst there is now considerable evidence of short-term withinperson variability in personality states (e.g., Fleeson, 2001; Fleeson and Gallagher, 2009; Judge et al., 2014; Fleeson and Jayawickreme, 2015; Fleeson and Law, 2015), a growing literature provides evidence about long-term within-person change in personalit…”

“Related approaches Conceptual Models Fleeson & Jayawickreme (2015) have argued that social-cognitive perspectives (e.g., motives, strategies, and beliefs) and trait theory can be reframed as a single theory, “Whole Trait Theory”, which is a framework for explaining both individual differences and the diversity of beha…”

“These apparently conflicting views on personality—variability versus stability—were reconciled in the Whole Trait Theory [38].”

“…principles when studying personality and individual differences (e.g. Beckmann & Wood, 2017, 2020; Beckmann, Beckmann, Minbashian, & Birney, 2013; Wood et al., 2019; Debusscher, Hofmans, & De Fruyt, 2017; Fleeson, 2001; Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015; Fleeson & Leicht, 2006; Mischel & Shoda, 1998).”

“Applying it to the Whole Trait Theory by Fleeson and Jayawickreme (2015) habitual SOC strategies represent social-cognitive information-processing mechanisms that are related to the interpretation of a given situation and are associated with motivational and emotional consequences (e.g., SOC…”

“Social-cognitive mechanisms are more sensitive to situational effects because they encompass an individual’s encoding of the situation, competencies, motivations, goals, and self-regulation (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015).”

“The finding that traits predict states is in line with the predictions of the influential Whole Trait Theory (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015) or other empirical findings (e.g., Horstmann & Rauthmann, in preparation) where density distributions of states are related to traits.”

“As with most individual differences, multi-iteration assessment is necessary for a fuller understanding of underlying traits [68].”

“According to Whole Trait Theory (Fleeson, 2001; Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015), traits can be conceived of as an aggregate of multiple states over time or across situations, and because personality is more often described as a trait than a state, we took this approach.”

“Alternatively, it may be that this unevenness in undesirable adjectives mirrors real underlying social-cognitive dysfunction (e.g., Goldberg, 1990; Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015; Wakefield, 2006), which has a basis in the individual’s temperament or developmental history (e.g., Clark, 2005).”

“Descriptively, people’s ‘states’ on trait dimensions can be mapped as density distributions, which differ in their central tendencies, size, and shape across individuals (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015).”

“Second, smartphone data may be useful for developing, testing, and re fi ning theories that involve personality states, such as whole trait theory (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015).”

“The present study more accurately reflects current thinking in narcissism research, adopting a functionalist perspective of personality where disparate antecedents and psychological drivers combine to generate behavioural patterns (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015; Wood et al., 2018).”

“Traits can be loosely conceptualized as “dimensions of [… ] relatively stable psychological (affective, cognitive, motivational, and behavioral) differences among people” (Condon et al., 2020, p. 924, italicization added for clarification; Fleeson, 2001; Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015).”

“…on self-regulatory goal-directed conceptualizations of personality, broadly known as cybernetic theories (e.g., Allport, 1937; Carver, 1979; DeYoung, 2015; Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015; Fleeson & Wilt, 2010; O. P. John et al., 2010; McAdams & Pals, 2006; Revelle & Condon, 2015; Van Egeren, 2009).”

“The conceptualization of traits, states, and adaptations allows their integration in several theoretical approaches, such as the Whole Trait Theory (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015), the LSTT-R (Steyer et al., 2015), and theories on the differentiation between dispositional traits and characteristic adaptations (DeYoung,…”

“…models of personality, such as the cognitive affective personality system (CAPS; Mischel and Shoda, 1995, 1998) or whole trait theory (Fleeson and Jayawickreme, 2015) that build upon Lewin’s (1936) equation for predicting behavioral reactions [B = f (P × E)], we assume that stable…”

“And, although Fleeson and collaborators (cf. Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015; Fleeson & Gallagher, 2009) suggested that high density distributions of states over time and across situations inform about trait, I think that this conclusion may lead to different speculation.”

“Intensive longitudinal methods, which are particularly suited for exploring idiographic hypotheses, also help build a bridge between theories that emphasize personality dispositions and ones that focus on processing dynamics (e.g. Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015; Revelle & Condon, 2015; Wright, 2014).”

“…individual differences in variability in narrating different types of events might be important for understanding relations between narratives and well-being (Donahue et al., 1993; Dunlop et al., 2013a; Fivush et al., 2017; Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015; McAdams et al., 2006; McLean et al., 2017).”

“This would be different to personality states (e.g. Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015), for which it is assumed that they form a distribution around the trait level and thus vary both below and above the trait level.”

“In studying daily displays of character strengths in the context of school, we relied on the whole trait theory (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015), which conceptualizes personality traits as density distributions of personality states.”

“State fluctuation (as reflected in relative SD indices) may reflect an outcome of contingent responding (i.e. situation contingences, see Whole Trait Theory, Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015).”

“Whole Trait Theory (WTT, Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015, 2021) offers a conceptual understanding of traits predicated upon the idea that these two perspectives “not only can be brought together, but appear to be logically implicative of each other” (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015, p. 83).”

“However, it is becoming increasingly clear that individuals do not just differ from each other, but they also differ from themselves by varying over time and across situations (Fleeson, 2012; Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015).”

“That is, state conscientiousness serves as enactment of trait conscientiousness in individual situations (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015).”

“…in personality psychology is personality processes unfolding within-persons (e.g., Allport, 1937; Baumert et al., 2017; Costantini et al., 2021; Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015; Kuper et al., 2021; Mischel, 2004), and several authors have emphasized that conclusions about such processes cannot be…”

“…which correspond to behavioral patterns over time (i.e., traits), and, inversely, innate behavioral tendencies likely facilitate the pursuit of corresponding goals and values (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015; Krampen, 1988; Parks-Leduc et al., 2014; Roberts et al., 2004; Wrzus & Roberts, 2017).”