Dynamics of personality: The Zurich model of motivation revived, extended, and applied to personality

Personality researchers are increasingly interested in the dynamics of personality, that is, the proximal causal mechanisms underlying personality and behavior. Here, we review the Zurich Model of Social Motivation concerning its potential to explain central aspects of personality. It is a cybernetic model that provides a nomothetic structure of the causal relationships among needs for security, arousal, and power, and uses them to explain an individual's approach-avoidance or “proximity-distance” behavior. We review core features of the model and extend them by adding features based on recent behavioral and neuroscientific evidence. We close by discussing the model considering contemporary issues in personality science such as the dynamics of personality, five-factor personality traits and states, and personality growth.