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1 Department of Psychology, Fordham University, Bronx, New York.
2 VA Boston Healthcare System and Boston University School of Public Health, Massachusetts.
Abstract
Hooker and McAdams (2003) offer a six-foci model of personality organized around the concepts of structure and process. The structure and process distinction is essentially one of emphasizing within- or between-person variance, yet both types of variance are valuable, especially in personality development.
Cattell (1966)
understood the distinction and incorporated it into his concept of the data box. Hooker and McAdams's model shares aspects of Cattell's scheme but is more explicitly developmental. We argue that the concept of the developmental trajectory fits neatly into both the Cattell and Hooker–McAdams models and affords a data analytic framework for understanding both within- and between-person variance, allowing greater integration of process and structure approaches.
MANY behavioral scientists are interested primarily in what goes on inside a person, whereas others are mainly interested in how people differ from one another. Although some of us are interested in both, the majority lean one way or the other. This preference boils down to an emphasis on within- versus between-person variance. Process approaches to personality favor the former; structure approaches favor the latter. Hooker and McAdams (2003) combine the concepts of structure and process to create a six-foci model for understanding personality and its development. The words "structure" and "process" are replete with meaning, and each identifies whole scientific literatures and ways of thinking about personality. "Structure," on one hand, conjures up images of the Big Five, traits and abilities, factor analyses, and other conceptual icons of what used to be known as "differential psychology." On the other hand, "process" summons images of diary studies, coping styles, Mischellian behavioral profiles, and other concepts that denote dynamic action.
From a historical perspective, the structure approach has roots in the classic study of individual differences as conceived by Galton, Spearman, Thurstone, and others who focused primarily on between-person variation. The process approach traces its lineage to classic behaviorism, with its emphasis on understanding how behavior unfolds over short periods of time (e.g., studies of learning curves and reinforcement schedules), and often relying on single-subject, or single-rat, designs. In some ways, the structure and process approaches to personality reflect the distinction immortalized in Cronbach's (1957) "two disciplines of scientific psychology" article. Ultimately, the structure approach considers between-person variance as primary, whereas the process approach treats within-person variance as paramount. Many researchers understand the differences between structure and process, but few understand how they are linked. Hooker and McAdams do, and they offer an elegant organizational model that exploits some of these linkages. Raymond Cattell also understood the difference, and it is worth reconsidering some of his ideas as we near the centenary of his birth in 1905.
In Cattell's (1966) three-dimensional data box, persons make up one dimension, occasions (or situations) a second, and variables a third. Various pairs of dimensions can be combined to represent a distinct type of data and a unique way of conceptualizing personality. For example, the R technique focuses on variability across persons on a set of variables, holding occasion constant. R technique is the essence of the structure approach to personality. It concentrates on variability across persons, or between-person variance. We may instead choose to focus on within-person variability across occasions (or situations), on a single variable; Cattell called this the S technique. The S technique is the essence of the process approach to personality. It concentrates on variability within persons (Mroczek & Almeida, in press; Nesselroade, 1988).
Hooker and McAdams's three structural constructs (traits, characteristic adaptations, and life stories) fit along the "variable" dimension of Cattell's data box. Persons differ from each other on them—they are between-person constructs. Traits are the epitome of a between-person variable, in that they form continuous dimensions. However, characteristic adaptations and life stories are also between-person variables. Each person's life story contains ways that the person is different from other persons, and this represents between-person variation.
In contrast, Hooker and McAdams's three process constructs (states, self-regulation, and self-narration) fit along the "occasions" dimension of Cattell's data box. Process constructs capture how people vary over occasions (e.g., Fleeson, 2001). Within a person and over occasions or situations, states vary, upregulation and downregulation occurs, and adjustments and revisions to life narrative transpire. These phenomena are aspects of within-person change. Cattell understood that within-person variability is an important aspect of personality and its development, and it is different from the information yielded by between-person variability. Hence, he ensured that the data box made provision for both types of variability, as do Hooker and McAdams. Any model of personality that claims comprehensiveness must reserve places for both between and within variance, and Hooker and McAdams's framework, like Cattell's, does so.
However, Hooker and McAdams go a step further than Cattell; they address how within-person variability and between-person (or process and structure) variability relate to the development of personality. We believe that a developmental framework is the best way of integrating structure and process approaches to personality (see also Roberts & Pomerantz, 2003). Behavioral development is fundamentally about lawful stability and change, and one of the best ways to conceptualize such phenomena is by means of developmental functions (Wohlwill, 1973) or trajectories. Such trajectories permit the combination of within-person and between-person variance (Mroczek & Spiro, 2003; Mroczek, Spiro, & Almeida, in press). An individual has an intraindividual trajectory on some variable (within person), and a population shows variability across trajectories (between person). Process and structure both can be represented in the concept of the developmental trajectory. It is easy to imagine trajectories for variables of the three structure levels of personality, but it is less easy to apply the concept to the three process levels. This is because processes exist in time; they are not static but dynamic. So how do we conceptualize trajectories of constructs that, by definition, already occur in time?
Nesselroade and Boker (1994) proposed a solution. When "bursts of measurement" (e.g., diary studies) are included within longer term longitudinal studies, processes such as self-regulation can be tracked over periods of days, weeks, or months, whereas longer term changes in both process and structure can be tracked over periods of years. For example, a 10-year longitudinal study can assess life stories each year, but at regular intervals, month-long studies of self-narration processes are carried out. The shorter term "bursts" track the process of self-narration. However, self-narration itself can be modeled longitudinally, in order to lend insight into more macrochanges that occur at the structure level of life stories. One can imagine similar longitudinal studies for the levels of traits and characteristic adaptations. Such designs allow modeling of both structure and process within the same framework. The concept of the longitudinal trajectory, coupled with the Hooker–McAdams model, helps us to integrate structure and process approaches, and it also provides a new way of thinking about personality development.
Acknowledgments
Address correspondence to Daniel K. Mroczek, Department of Psychology, Fordham University, Bronx, New York 10458-5198. E-mail: mroczek{at}fordham.edu
Received for publication June 25, 2003. Accepted for publication July 17, 2003.
References
This article has been cited by other articles:
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  K. Hooker and D. P. McAdams Personality and Adult Development: Looking Beyond the OCEAN J. Gerontol. B. Psychol. Sci. Soc. Sci., November 1, 2003; 58(6): P311 - 312. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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