A CLINICAL-EMPIRICAL MODEL OF PERSONALITY - LIFE AFTER THE MISCHELIANICE-AGE AND THE NEO-LITHIC ERA

A theory of personality should lead to both accurate prediction and in terpretive understanding. Aside from its empirical uses, a personality theory should provide a grammar that allows personality psychologists to infer meaning from overt behavior with more sophistication than a layperson, and the best laboratory for testing the interpretive utilit y of a personality theory remains the clinic. With respect to the appr opriate data for constructing and evaluating theories of personality, an overreliance on questionnaire data is problematic for several reaso ns: It assumes that understanding people requires no training, it mist akes research on the conscious serf-concept for research on personalit y, it conflates implicit and explicit knowledge, it fails to address d efensive biases, and it lacks interrater reliability. Consideration of both empirical and clinical data points to three questions that defin e the elements of personality necessary for a comprehensive assessment of an individual: (a) What psychological resources-cognitive, affecti ve, and behavioral dispositions-does the individual have at his or her disposal? (b) What does the person wish for, fear, and value, and how do these motives combine and conflict? (c) How does the person experi ence the self and others, and to what extent can the individual enter into intimate relationships?