Vortrag von Joanna Sosnowska: ‘The only constant in life is change’ – the dynamic systems approach in personality and social psychology

According to dynamic systems theory, looking at interactions and changes over time is crucial to examine and understand psychological experiences. This approach has been used as a general framework to study specific phenomena in many subfields of psychological science, such as personality, decision making, team dynamics, social relationships, learning, or mental disorders. In this talk, I will introduce the dynamic systems thinking and I will focus on how it can be used to further our knowledge in different areas of psychology. In particular, I will discuss how this approach has advanced the field of personality and individual differences, by going beyond the traditional focus on average trait levels and instead, capturing changes in personality on the within-person level. Finally, I will discuss the practical implications of the dynamic approach to individual differences, based on research in work and organizational psychology, where personality is often used by both scientists and practitioners to predict work-related attitudes and behaviours.