According to dynamic systems theory, a key concept of personality and personality development is that of a "center of gravity, considered as an "attractor. It is a state or condition a human system gravitates toward, after natural fluctuations. Attractors correspond to temporarily stable personality traits.
The article shows in correspondence with the notion of increasing developmental integration over the human life span that attractors seem to become more cohesive, thereby stabilizing the individual and permitting supra-rational modes of cognition to emerge. The hypothesis that dialectical thinking is the peak of cognitive development and a point where people can reclaim aspects of a pre-linguistic sense of self is also presented, as are notions in psychiatry and practice that seem to reinforce that hypothesis."