Integrating the context-appropriate balanced attention model and reinforcement sensitivity theory: towards a domain-general personality process model

Over the last 40 years or more the personality literature has been dominated by trait models based on the Big Five (B5). Trait-based models describe personality at the between-person level but cannot explain the within-person mental mechanisms responsible for personality. Nor can they adequately account for variations in emotion and behavior experienced by individuals across different situations and over time. An alternative, yet understated, approach to personality architecture can be found in neurobiological theories of personality, most notably reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST). In contrast to static trait-based personality models like the B5, RST provides a more plausible basis for a personality process model, namely, one that explains how emotions and behavior arise from the dynamic interaction between contextual factors and within-person mental mechanisms. In this article, the authors review the evolution of a neurobiologically based personality process model based on RST, the response modulation model and the context-appropriate balanced attention model. They argue that by integrating this complex literature, and by incorporating evidence from personality neuroscience, one can meaningfully explain personality at both the within- and between-person levels. This approach achieves a domain-general architecture based on RST and self-regulation that can be used to align within-person mental mechanisms, neurobiological systems and between-person measurement models.