Much of personality research attempts to identify causal links between personality traits and
various types of outcomes. I argue that causal interpretations require traits to be seen as …

We argue that it is useful to distinguish between three key goals of personality science—
description, prediction and explanation—and that attaining them often requires different …

Personality–outcome associations, typically represented using the Big Five personality
domains, are ubiquitous, but often weak and possibly driven by the constituents of these …

Personality researchers have posited multiple ways in which the relations between
personality traits and life outcomes may be moderated by other traits, but there are well …

The Big Five personality traits have been linked with a broad range of consequential life
outcomes. The present research systematically tested whether such trait–outcome …

I am filled with a great deal of gratitude to see the progress, diversity, and excitement of
research on within-person variability in personality. I argue for the value of studying states of …

Personality characteristics are more or less stable ways of feeling, thinking, and behaving.
One of the most persistent observations is that they come in patterns: some characteristic …

Five–Factor Theory provides a broad but largely blank template for causal personality
research. Within Five–Factor Theory, there are three major categories of questions:(1) how …

Personality can be described at different levels of abstraction. Whereas the Big Five
domains are the dominant level of analysis, several researchers have called for more fine …

It is time to better understand why personality traits predict consequential outcomes, which
calls for a closer look at personality processes. Personality processes are mechanisms that …