676 vI. SELF‑ AND S OCIAL P ROCESSES
Again, these contemporary attempts to 
identify and understand groupings of if–
then patterns resonate with earlier theoriz -
ing in the field. Gordon Allport followed 
his discussion of the way in which every 
person’s pattern of behavior is unique with 
an admission that for psychological analysis, 
some kind of simplification was necessary, 
and that was all right because “some basic 
modes of adjustment . . . from individual 
to individual are approximately  the same” 
(Allport, 1937, p. 298, emphasis in original). 
He said, in effect, that maybe one person’s 
extraversion is different from another’s in 
minor respects, but they are still similar 
enough that it is useful and maybe even nec -
essary to treat them as if they were the same. 
Even though Allport is remembered by 
some as a proponent of idiographic assess -
ment, the bottom line for him was that some 
patterns of behavior are common enough  
across individuals that they are worth think -
ing about and assessing, then aggregating to 
produce measures of dispositions.
Integrating Traits 
with Social‑Cognitive  Variables
A third and related way of embracing person–
situation interaction is the theoretical integra -
tion of traditional personality trait concepts 
(i.e., stable, cross-  situationally broad disposi -
tions) with more highly contextualized psy -
chological constructs. Personality psycholo -
gists are increasingly developing theories that 
merge these two sets of concepts.
For example, recent theoretical work ar -
gues that traits in general, and the Big Five in 
particular, are fundamentally motivational 
in nature. Read et al. (2010, p. 64) presented 
a motivation-  based definition of traits, sug -
gesting, for example, that “the trait help -
ful can be represented in terms of a goal 
of helping others, plans for achieving that 
goal, resources needed to achieve the goal, 
and beliefs related to the goal (e.g., whether 
one’s actions would actually assist the other 
and whether the other desired assistance).” 
Such goals, beliefs, and so on are theorized 
as being activated in response to particular 
types of situational stimuli, underscoring the 
contextual nature of those constructs. Simi -
larly, Denissen and Penke (2008, p. 1286) 
articulate each of the Big Five traits in terms of “stable individual differences in people’s 
reactions to circumscribed situational cues,” 
with each trait reflecting sensitivity to a cer -
tain class of situational stimuli. For example, 
they view extraversion in terms of the incen -
tive value of social interactions: Extraverted 
people are those who see social interaction 
as highly rewarding. Thus, people’s behavior 
is outgoing and bold in certain types of situ -
ations (i.e., those in which social interaction 
is possible) they see as potentially reward -
ing. Some people see those same types of 
situations as less rewarding. This difference, 
according to Denissen and Penke, is at the 
heart of extraversion.
Some recent theoretical work is even 
broader in scope, integrating traits with a 
wide variety of contextualized constructs 
(e.g., De  Young & Weisberg, 2019; Fleeson 
& Jayawickreme, 2015; Heller, Perunovic, 
& Reichman, 2009; Wood, Gardner, & 
Harms, 2015). Fleeson and Jayawickreme’s 
(2015) whole trait theory views traits as hav -
ing two parts—the underlying causal pro -
cesses and the manifestations of those pro -
cesses. They argue that the causal processes 
underlying traits are, in fact, contextualized 
processes such as cognition/interpretation 
(e.g., of situational stimuli) and goal activa -
tion/pursuit (again in response to situational 
stimuli). Furthermore, they argue that these 
causal processes produce patterns of behav -
ior that constitute the Big Five traits; that is, 
the causal processes become overlapping in 
ways (e.g., by becoming responsive to simi -
lar sets of situational stimuli) that lead to 
behavioral patterns structured in ways that 
can be described in terms of the Big Five.
This type of theoretical work not only 
holds promise for developing our under -
standing of core concepts in the field (i.e., 
traits), but it also has the potential to inte -
grate concepts that evolved from different 
traditions—  broad, trait concepts reflecting a 
strong “person effect” perspective, and nar -
row, highly contextualized concepts emerg -
ing from a more “situationist” perspective. 
In this way, it may lead to and crystalize new 
advances in psychological theory.
Person Effects on  Situations
A fourth way in which researchers and theo -
rists have explored person–  situation inter -