The dynamical perspective in personality and social psychology

Human experience reflects the interplay ofmultiple forces operating on various time scales to promote constantly evolving patterns of thought, emotion, and action. The complexity and dynamism ofpersonal and social phenomena have long been recog-nized, but capturing thesefeatures ofpsychologicalprocess represents a serious chal-lengefor traditional research methods. In this article, we introduce basic concepts and methodsfrom the study ofnonlinear dynamical systems, andwe outline the relevance of these ideas and approachesfor investigating phenomena at different levels ofpsycho-logical reality. We suggest that the dynamicalperspective is ideally suited to capture the emergence and maintenance ofglobalproperties in apsychological system, andfor in-vestigating the time-dependent relation between external influences and a system's in-ternally generatedforces. Althoughfairly new to personality and socialpsychology, the dynamicalperspective has been implemented with respect to a wide variety ofphenom-ena, utilizing both empirical methods and computer simulations. This diversity oftop-ics and methods is reflected in the articles comprising the special issue. The subject matter of personality and social psy