A Report on the 19th Annual Meeting of the Japan Society of Personality Psychology (JSPP), the 20th Joint Annual Meeting of JSPP, and the 19th Japan Society for Research on Emotions
Kuniko Takagi
At its 19th and 20th annual meetings, the Japan Society of Personality Psychology (JSPP) had the honor of hosting two American researchers, Dr. Brent W. Roberts (2010) and Dr. David C. Funder (2011). Both are highly respected academics and leading members of the Association for Research in Personality (ARP).
The 19th annual meeting of JSPP was held October 10–11, 2010 at Keio University, with support from the university’s Center for Advanced Research on Logic and Sensibility (http://www.carls.keio.ac.jp/english/). A total of 236 participants attended three invited lectures, five symposia, and 113 poster presentations. In addition, workshops, seminars, and round-table discussions were held.
Dr. Brent W. Roberts, Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is an experienced editor of leading journals such as Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP), Personality and Social Psychology Review (PSPR), and Perspectives on Psychological Science (PPS). In a lecture titled “Construction and Reconstruction: The Reciprocal Relation between Conscientiousness and Work, Marriage, and Health across the Life Course,” Dr. Roberts discussed the role of conscientiousness in constructing life outcomes and the role of life experiences in reconstructing conscientiousness.
Dr. Roberts also participated in a seminar titled “From Genetics to Environment: A Broad Consideration of Personality and Adaptation.” In the seminar, four researchers presented a report on their study of personality and adaptation in fields such as culture, evolution, and genetics. Each aspect of the report received thought-provoking comments from Dr. Roberts. In addition, Dr. Roberts and his former post-doctoral associate, Yusuke Takahashi, contributed an article on personality development in adulthood to JSPP’s Japanese Journal of Personality. The paper was published in July 2011, and will be available shortly at http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/personality/_vols.
The 20th annual meeting of JSPP was held jointly by JSPP and the Japan Society for Research Emotions (JSRE). It took place September 2–4, 2011 at the Kyoto Koka Women’s University (http://www.koka.ac.jp/english/), and was chaired by Professor Shunya Sogon. Seven symposia, 26 oral presentations, and 129 poster presentations were scheduled, but due to the typhoon warning for the Kyoto area, all sessions planned for the second day were canceled. Despite the bad weather, however, 293 participants attended the remaining two days of the meeting.
The first day of the meeting featured a symposium with Dr. David C. Funder, Professor at the University of California at Riverside and the President of ARP, titled “How to Figure Out Personality: Beyond the Person–Situation Debate”. During this well-attended symposium, Dr. Funder suggested taking a fresh look at the person–situation debate. The next speaker, Dr. Kazuya Horike from Toyo University, identified some problems regarding the study of situations. Subsequently, Dr. Funder’s collaborator, Dr. Tatsuya Sato of Ritsumeikan University, introduced the Riverside Situational Q-Sort (RSQ), which was devised to assess situations in their study. Finally, Dr. Yoshiyuki Watanabe of the Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine rounded up the discussion with an assessment of the present research on assessing personality in different situations.
We are honored to have been able to host psychologists of Dr. Roberts’ and Dr. Funder’s stature at the annual meeting of JSPP for a second consecutive year. We would like to forge closer ties with ARP and JSPP in the days ahead, and increase the exchanges between Japanese and overseas researchers.
The next annual meeting of JSPP will be held October 6–7, 2012, at the Shimane Prefectural Assembly Hall. It will be hosted by the Japanese Union of Young Personality Psychologists, a voluntary group of Japanese psychologists formed with the aim of organizing the 21st annual meeting of JSPP. The Chair of the organizing committee is Dr. Akihiko Ieshima, an associate professor at Shimane University. Dr. Hubert J. M. Hermans, Professor Emeritus of the Radboud University of Nijmegen, Netherlands, has kindly accepted our invitation to the meeting.