101 Idiographic personality networks 5 and the Knowledge and Appraisal Personality Architecture (KAPA; Cervone, 2005) provided the theoretical incentive for considering idiographic personality network to be informative, while the method also has clear parallels later dynamic systems accounts of personality (Danvers et al., 2020; DeYoung, 2015; Fajkowska, 2015; Nowak et al., 2005; Read et al., 2017; Sosnowska et al., 2019). Their core theoretical claim is that personality is best perceived as a complex system of interacting cognitions and emotions, which is continuously influenced by situational features in ways unique to individuals. The priority of dynamic systems theories is to understand both stability and variability, making them fundamentally different from ‘traditional’ research in personality that emphasizes trait-based stability and treat any within-person variability as error or situation-induced noise (cf. Mischel & Shoda, 1995; Sosnowska et al., 2019). According to the CAPS and KAPA, the internal personality system always interacts with specific situational features, producing behavioral patterns which are variable across different situations but stable within (similar) situations. Personality stability across situations can best be perceived through if-then contingencies (Mischel & Shoda, 1995). For example, if John is at a party with friends, then he tends to blurt things out, but if he is at work then he is restrained. The system of internal processes producing such behavioral patterns can vary between people, even when the observed patterns are identical. For one person, lack of self-esteem may cause an if-then pattern like John’s, whilst for another the cause may be a strong professional self-schema (Cervone, 2005). Due to the stability of such personality-relevant internal processes (e.g., self-schema‘s do not change quickly) we perceive stable personality traits. Hence, dynamic systems theories do not posit that the trait impulsivity ‘begets’ acting without thought (as may appear from latent variable models, e.g., Whiteside & Lynam, 2001), but that acting without thought emerges from a complex interplay between situational features and a relatively stable system of internally interacting personality components. Notably, the stability of traits here comes from self-reinforcement; a synchronized stability of the personality system resulting from the person’s tendency to maintain a state of homeostasis relative to the environment (Mischel & Shoda, 1995; Fajkowska, 2015). More simply put, internal personality processes like selfschema’s (Cervone, 2005) are not stable of themselves, but cause people to actively seek out situations that strengthen self-schema’s. For example, excitement at parties leads John to blurt things out, leading to laughter with friends that reinforces this tendency due to positive feedback and a resultant lack of a (social) need to question this behavior. This feedback loop in turn
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