Real-world intellectual problem-solving operates in concert with motiva-
tional and emotional processes, sometimes harmoniously and sometimes dis-
cordantly. Our aim in this chapter is to explore the nature of systematic indi-
vidual differences in the process of solving problems posed by adaptation to
life challenges. We focus on personality as a systematic influence on cogni-
tion, motivation and affect, in line with Kihlstrom and Cantor’s (2000) sug-
gestion that personality represents social intelligence. That is, personality re-
flects the cognitive structures that guide the individual’s interpersonal
behavior in solving the problems of everyday social life. As Kihlstrom and
Cantor (2000) stated, social behavior is intelligent: cognitive processes of per-
ception, memory, and reasoning support progress toward personal goals.
This chapter focuses on nomothetic constructs, by contrast with Kihl-
strom and Cantor’s (2000) ideographic perspective on personality. We link
stable personality traits to characteristic modes or styles of adaptive social
problem-solving, expressed in cognitive, emotional, and motivational proc-
esses. We also describe how more transient state factors relate to short-term
adaptive choices. Our thesis is that traits and states are supported by a pleth-
ora of separate self-regulative processes, which may be categorized via two
dimensions. These are: (a) their degree of abstraction from brain functioning
(low-level vs. high-level processes), and (b) the domain of psychological func-
tion to which they belong (cognition, motivation, or emotion). Traditionally,
intellectual functioning is seen as a set of high-level cognitive processes. Indi-
vidual differences in these processes are captured by conventional ability

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Traits, States, and the Trilogy of Mind:

An Adaptive Perspective

on Intellectual Functioning

Gerald Matthews
University of Cincinnati

Moshe Zeidner
University of Haifa

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