A different tack can be seen in Matthews and Zeidner’s (chap. 6) work on
personality functioning. Here, intellectual functioning is cast in a unified
framework of personal adaptation to the environment. What is unique about
this approach is that the authors go beyond the traditional trait or state ac-
counts of personality and unpackage personality to reveal the motivational,
emotional, and cognitive component processes, the trilogy of mind, that sup-
port specific behavioral tendencies. Moreover, such a process account of per-
sonality (instead of state-level or trait-level descriptions) opens new avenues
for understanding how complex personality processes either enhance or
weaken certain aspects of intellectual functioning depending on task de-
mands and preferred coping mechanisms (e.g., see Matthews & Zeidner,
chap. 6, on extroversion vs. introversion).
Summary
Although population-based thinking still underlies the integration efforts
from differential perspectives, we have witnessed a trend toward a more proc-
ess-based, rather than structural, explanation of individual differences in in-
tellectual functioning. Constructs such as typical intellectual engagement,
problem-based and emotion-based coping, and emotional and motivational
biases in cognitive processing start to help us understand personality-related
constraints on intellectual functioning. Putting intellectual functioning in the
context of personality functioning is a step further from putting cognition in
motivational and affective contexts discussed in the previous section. It sheds
light on some unique system-wide functional properties of the individual
mind that are typically not addressed by the research with an exclusive focus
on the interplay of motivation, emotion, and cognition itself.
In addition, we have also witnessed a trend toward a developmental ap-
proach within the differential tradition. This is probably due to a fundamen-
tal realization that intellectual competences are dynamic and changing,
rather than static and fixed (McCall, 1981), and that the development of in-
tellectual competences involves a prolonged period of cognitive investment,
and thus takes commitment, perseverance, and emotional coping (Acker-
man, 1999; Ackerman & Kanfer, chap. 5).
DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECTUAL COMPETENCES:
THE EMERGENT ROLE OF PERSONAL AGENCY
Differential perspectives are based on the assumption of characteristic ways
individuals function. In contrast, developmental perspectives on intellectual
functioning focus on the ontogeny or developmental course of motivational,
affective, and cognitive functions and their dynamic integration as adapta-
18 DAI AND STERNBERG