186 Self-Regulatory Perspectives on Personality
What processes account for the existence of feelings as
people make their way through the world?
As we have tried to address such questions, we have con-
sistently returned to the idea that people are self-regulatory
entities. That is, human behavior is an attempt to make some-
thing occur in action that is already held in mind. Similarly,
affects serve as self-regulatory controls on what actions take
place and with how much urgency.
The self-regulatory principles we emphasize in our writ-
ings were not conceived as being a model of personality.
However, the principles do turn out to provide an interest-
ingperspectiveon personality. They suggest some implica-
tions about how personality is organized and expressed in
people’s actions. These principles also point to some of the
issues that are involved in successfully negotiating the world.
The principles we emphasize deal most explicitly with
the “process” aspect of personality—the functions that make
everyone a little bit alike—but they can also be seen to have
implications for the individual differences that are part of
personality psychology.
This chapter is organized as a series of conceptual themes
that reflect this self-regulatory perspective on personality. We
start with basic ideas about the nature of behavior and some
of the processes by which we believe behavior is regulated.
We then turn to emotion—how we think it arises and a way in
which two classes of affects differ from each other. This leads
to a discussion of the fact that people sometimes are unable
to do what they set out to do and of what follows from that
problem. The next sections are more speculative and reflect
emerging themes in thinking about behavior. They deal with
dynamic systems, connectionism, and catastrophe theory as
models for behavior and how such models may influence
how people such as ourselves view self-regulation.
BEHAVIOR AS GOAL DIRECTED AND
FEEDBACK CONTROLLED
The view we take on behavior begins with the concept of goal
and the process of feedback control, ideas we see as inti-
mately linked. Our focus on goals is in line with a growing re-
emergence of goal constructs in personality psychology (e.g.,
Austin & Vancouver, 1996; Elliott & Dweck, 1988; Miller &
Read, 1987; Pervin, 1989), constructs known by a variety
of labels such ascurrent concern(Klinger, 1975, 1977),
personal strivings (Emmons, 1986),life task (Cantor &
Kihlstrom, 1987), andpersonal project(Little, 1983). The
goal construct is at its core very simple. Yet these theories all
emphasize that it has room for great diversity and individual-
ization. For example, any life task can be achieved in diverse
ways. People presumably choose paths for achieving a given
life task that are compatible with other aspects of their life sit-
uation (e.g., many concerns must usually be managed simul-
taneously) and with other aspects of their personality.
Two goal constructs that differ somewhat from those
named thus far are thepossible self(Markus & Nurius, 1986)
and theself-guide(Higgins, 1987, 1996). These constructs
were intended to bring a dynamic quality to conceptualization
of the self-concept. In contrast to traditional views, but
consistent with other goal frameworks, possible selves are
future oriented. They concern how people think of their as-
yet-unrealized potential, the kind of people they might be-
come. Self-guides similarly reflect dynamic aspects of the
self-concept.
Despite differences among these various constructs (see
Austin & Vancouver, 1996; Carver & Scheier, 1998), they are
the same in many ways. All include the idea that goals ener-
gize and direct activities; all implicitly convey the sense that
goals give meaning to people’s lives (cf. Baumeister, 1989).
Each theory emphasizes the idea that understanding the per-
son means in part understanding the person’s goals. Indeed,
the view represented by these theories often implies that the
self consists partly of the person’s goals and the organization
among them.Feedback ProcessesHow are goals used in behaving? We believe that goals serve
as reference values for feedback loops (Wiener, 1948). A
feedback loop, the unit of cybernetic control, is a system of
four elements in a particular organization (cf. MacKay, 1956;
Miller, Galanter, & Pribram, 1960). The elements are an
input function, a reference value, a comparator, and an output
function (see Figure 8.1).Figure 8.1 Schematic depiction of a feedback loop, the basic unit of
cybernetic control. In such a loop a sensed value is compared to a reference
value or standard, and adjustments are made in an output function (if neces-
sary) to shift the sensed value in the appropriate direction.