Motivation and Personality: Current Integrative Perspectives and the Way Ahead

Abstract

Research over recent decades has highlighted the importance of both personality and motivation in students’ academic success. Yet, integrations of motivation and personality have rarely been adopted in educational psychology. The present article, therefore, places the motivation–personality interplay at the center. To this end, we review theoretical perspectives that offer pathways toward integration, focusing on examples from (a) theories from personality psychology that include motivational elements, (b) motivational theories that (implicitly) incorporate personality, (c) theories from the cognitive domain that offer insights to enrich motivation–personality integrations, (d) construct-specific integrative theories that combine specific motivational and personality constructs, and (e) theoretical perspectives that focus on the learning process. We demonstrate that existing theories and their extensions provide numerous opportunities for motivation–personality integration at multiple levels, including dynamic state-level interplay and long-term trait development, compensatory mechanisms, and principles of sustainable and self-regulated learning. Additionally, we discuss shared research interests between educational and personality psychology, as well as research designs and modeling approaches, to inspire a collaborative research agenda.