Reconsidering Normative Interpretations in Personality Research

A vast body of knowledge on development and correlates of personality dimensions has led torecommendations on policy implications and interventions. However, we argue that there has notbeen enough attention to the socio-cultural contexts of personality development, resulting inincomplete and potentially harmful interpretations of the data. Although personality theoristshave addressed the role of socio-cultural context by pointing to person-environment interactionsand transactions, we argue that the implementation of contextualism is largely missing at a morefundamental level: In the operationalization of constructs and interpretations of individuals’standings on those constructs. The focus of this article is on the maturity principle of personalitydevelopment. We discuss problems that may arise when relying on constructs developed in aspecific group (i.e., primarily upper-middle class individuals in the United States), and thenusing value-laden labels such as “mature” and “healthy” to suggest that one personality profile isbetter than another. We aim to motivate researchers to not only reflect on using labels suggestingthat certain profiles or changes in personality are universally desirable or undesirable, especiallywithout attention to diversity in methods and samples, but also to understand how our valuesinform how we conduct and communicate our science.