Personality (Dys)Function and General Instability

Humans adapt to a dynamic environment while maintaining psychological equilibrium. Systems theories of personality hold that generalized processes control stability by regulating how strongly a person reacts to various situations. Research shows there are higher order traits of general personality function (stability) and dysfunction (general personality pathology [GPP]), but whether they capture individual differences in reactivity is largely theoretical. We tested this hypothesis by examining how general personality functioning manifests in everyday life in two samples (Ns = 205 and 342 participants and 24,920 and 17,761 observations) that completed an ambulatory assessment protocol. Consistent with systems theories, we found that (a) there is a general factor reflecting reactivity across major domains of functioning and (b) reactivity is strongly associated with stability and GPP. Results provide insight into how people fundamentally adapt to their environments (or not) and lay the foundation for more practical, empirical models of human functioning.