Dimensional Structure of Personality and Beyond TWO BROAD DOMAINS OF PERSONALITY Cognitive Abilities and Noncognitive Traits

TWO BROAD DOMAINS OF PERSONALITY Cognitive Abilities and Noncognitive Traits The entire human personality can be roughly divided into two domains, the noncognitive (or conative) and the cognitive. The first domain includes the personality traits (personality in the narrower sense of meaning), self-concept, self-esteem, well-being, emotionality or affect, motivation, and coping; the second domain includes intelligence and other cognitive abilities. Empirical psychological research has a long tradition in both domains resulting in a variety of different theories, models, and conceptions. From the beginning, the problems concerned with the structure of both domains and their subdomains have been a focus of psychological research. The crucial aim of this structural research was the identification of the most general basic dimensions underlying the variables included in different research models. Consequently, in both cognitive and noncognitive domains, a number of hierarchical structural models were developed with the basic dimensions at the apex and the more specific subdimensions at the lower levels of generality.