ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the reader to the richness and variety of personality psychology by viewing personality as a social construction. The constructivist approach is a metatheory of personality. It discusses the process of personality construction and examines the structure and dynamics of personality from a constructivist perspective. The construction of personality, as a metatheory for personality psychology, draws on the dramaturgical approach and the social constructionist theory of social reality. Observers’ choices of personality traits are influenced by characteristics of the observer and characteristics of the situation. Personality-descriptive language provides the medium of personality construction both for informal theorizing about personality in everyday person talk, and for more formal theories. Personality ratings provide highly ambiguous data, and are a good illustration of the constructed nature of personality. Impression-management theorists have overestimated the extent to which personality is open to negotiation.
