Commentary Personality Structure and Process, Variance Between and Within: Integration by Means of a Developmental Framework

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. M ANY behavioral scientists are interested primarily inwhat 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 concept