Beyond traits in the study of personality coherence

People exhibit coherent patterns of experience and action that cannot be fu lly described or explained by personality trait models. Rather, personality coherence is sometimes expressed in dispositional tendencies that violate the structure of common trait categories. Across contexts, people display p redictable patterns of behavioral variation that cannot be captured by trai t constructs, which correspond to mean levels of response. In addition to t hese empirical findings, theoretical work in both psychology and philosophy challenges the conceptual strategies through which trait models explain pe rsonality coherence. These empirical and theoretical points can be addresse d by alternative theoretical models that specify how underlying psychologic al systems give rise to both common and idiosyncratic patterns of personali ty consistency and variability.