 3. Toward an Integrative Theory of Motivation, Personality, and Development 91
thoughts, feelings, and actions that people 
actually experience or exhibit as they pur -
sue their goals. Moreover, every time a goal 
is pursued, the resulting online acts and ex -
periences (“online acts” for short) can feed 
back and potentially change existing BEATs 
or create new ones.
These processes are depicted in Figure 
3.2a.  They are the processes that capture 
motivation and its output—  that drive and 
direct goal pursuit and result in online acts 
and experiences (see Dweck, 2017, for a 
more in-depth discussion of motivational 
processes). In the next section, I suggest how 
recurrent patterns of BEATs, goals, and on -
line acts can yield personality traits.
Some Theories Neglect Needs 
or Need‑Related  Goals
For decades after the behaviorist era, psy -
chology seemed to lose interest in motiva -
tion. During this time, some personality the -
ories lost contact with the idea that people 
are constantly pursuing need-  fulfilling goals 
and that their personalities have been shaped 
by the history of these goal pursuits (for ex -
ceptions, see, e.g., Deci & Ryan, 2000; Ep -
stein, 1990; Pervin, 1989). It is in this con -
text that I turn to two highly important and 
influential theories in modern personality 
psychology: the five-  factor theory (McCrae & Costa, 1999; McCrae & John, 1992), 
which is built around personality traits, and 
the cognitive–  affective processing systems 
(CAPS) theory (Mischel & Shoda, 1995, 
2008), which is built around “cognitive– 
affective processing units,” psychological 
processes and representations that shape be -
havior.
Both theories capture something essen -
tial. The five-  factor theory captures the 
intuitive idea that people differ in their 
characteristic traits, such as how conscien -
tious, extraverted, neurotic, agreeable, or 
open to experience they are. Indeed, these 
traits predict important outcomes (Roberts, 
Kuncel, Shiner, Caspi, & Goldberg, 2007), 
and show heritability (Krueger & Johnson, 
2008) and rank-order consistency over time 
(Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000). However, as 
Roberts (2009) observes, “A valid criticism 
of many modern personality trait theorists 
and researchers is that they have not pro -
vided a deeper analysis of the constituent 
elements that make up traits, nor the mecha -
nisms that elucidate how they cause things 
to occur” (p. 139).
This is precisely why Mischel and Shoda 
(1995, 2008) set out to capture the under -
lying dynamics of personality. They did so 
by proposing that people develop cognitive– 
affective “processing units” that are acti -
vated in relevant contexts to shape behav -
FIGURE 3.2.  Depiction of (a) motivational processes and their outcomes and (b) personality processes. 
For (b) it is important to distinguish the BEATs (the more latent part of personality) from the online 
acts and experiences that accompany goal pursuit (the more manifest part of personality). All processes 
take place in the context of the background needs, and in all cases concurrent internal and external 
stimuli feed into the interplay between BEATs and goal pursuit. Reprinted, with permission from the 
American Psychological Association, from Dweck (2017).(a)Motivation: Needs, goal-relevant representations (BEATs), goal pursuit, and resulting online 
acts and experiences
Needs → BEATs ↔Goal Pursuit →Online Acts and Experiences
Stored Beliefs, Emotions, 
Action  Tendencies
(b)Personality: Needs, accessible representations (BEATs), characteristic, recurrent goal 
pursuit and online acts and experiences
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Characteristic, Recurrent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Needs → BEATs ↔Goal Pursuit →Online Acts and Experiences
Stored Beliefs, Emotions, 
Action  Tendencies(“Traits”)