Abstract
With ideas and suggestions from Kurt Lewin's approach to psychology (1935), a new approach to personality psychology is proposed. It is argued that models of internal processes and their parameters should be central for our understanding of personality. Kurt Lewin's view of human behavior as a function of the person and situation is described and named here as process interactionism. Personality variables of our new paradigm are person and process variables. Person variables are indices of internal individual differences, and process variables are those measured to tap the processes within the person that reflect situational changes postulated in Lewin's interactionism. The variables then are analyzed to examine possible mediational and moderational models. Finally, self theories in the framework of 'social psychology of self process' (Nakamura, 1990) are reviewed, and their characteristics and limitations discussed. It is suggested that we need models of internal motivational and self-regulatory processes in order to understand the self in particular, and our personality in general.
