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Lievens (2017) makes a case for SJTs in personnel selection, a recommendation with which we agree. In particular, we like the emphasis on branching out from current methodologies and using new techniques such as SJTs not only in I/O or personnel selection research but also in basic personality research. Despite our enthusiasm, we point out some flaws, most notably lack a time dimension to SJTs.

Rauthmann, Sherman and Funder have made a landmark contribution to situation research in the target article of this issue. However, we propose that their work overlooks the need to incorporate a developmental perspective. This includes the separate but related issues of time and change. Situations often unfold over long periods of time, can bleed together, and are not time-delimited in the way traditional laboratory experiments define them. Moreover, individuals systematically change over time (lifespan development) and their reactions to situations, as well as their personality-situation transactions, develop in tandem.

The network perspective represents a novel contribution to personality theory by conceptualising personality traits as emerging from the mutual dependencies between fundamental and causal affective, behavioural, and cognitive components. We argue that incorporating a more nuanced biological and developmental perspective to causality and a more precise approach to affective, behavioural, cognitive and motivational components may serve to enrich the network perspective. Although the graphical approach to modelling personality is aesthetically pleasing, analytic techniques are not yet available to put network models to the (quantitative) test. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.