Applying Meta-theory to Achieve Generalisability and Precision in Personality Science

In contrast to traditional theories of personality, the CAPS perspective is a meta-theory that is deliberately “content-free”. The generalisability of the theory depends on how widely its basic, common principles and methods can be applied to identify the constructs (e.g. situation-specific encodings, beliefs, values, etc.) relevant to a given domain of behavior and situations. In this commentary we will discuss how the target article illustrates the use of the CAPS meta-theory for developing domain-specific content-full models for smoking cessation, psychopathology, and organisational behavior.