Executive Officer's Report 2016
Rebecca Shiner
Colgate University
It is an exciting time to be a personality psychologist. Our field is flourishing in many different ways. I was reminded of personality's broad impact last week when I sent out a request to the ARP listserv for recent instances in which ARP members were featured in the popular press in 2016. I expected to receive a few responses, maybe 10 or so at the most. Instead I heard immediately from almost 40 people, and most people sent me multiple articles that they had written or that cited their work or perspectives. I received too many responses to include all of the links here, but I will find another way to distribute them to our members.
Inspired by all of this evidence of ARP members' engagement with the media, the ARP Board has decided to begin sharing instances in which our members are in the news. Whenever your research is featured in a popular press article or you come across an interesting article featuring anther ARP member, you can e-mail personalitymetablog@gmail.com to have the article added to ARP's meta-blog. Our meta-blog already aggregates blogs about personality psychology, but now we will feature popular press articles about our personality research as well. You can sign up on the meta-blog page to receive updates when new blogs or articles are posted.
Before discussing the role of ARP members in the public sphere, I want to share what ARP has been working on over the last year.
- We will have two new Board members joining us in 2017: Jennifer Lodi-Smith and Aidan Wright. I want to offer thanks to the two outgoing Board members, Erik Noftle and Kate McLean; Erik and Kate have both brought important perspectives to the Board's work, and we are grateful for the time that they have devoted to ARP.
- The ARP Board is creating an ARP Early Career Award. We decided that there was a need for such an award for personality psychology to encourage and highlight people making important contributions to our field early in their careers. We are currently working out the details of the award.
- ARP has continued to offer our perspectives on important issues in our field. We submitted a statement to the incoming director of NIMH about the ways that personality research informs the study of psychopathology. Our Training Committee also prepared a statement in response to a request from APA about how personality psychology should be addressed in Introduction to Psychology textbooks.
- The Training Committee compiled a list of organizations outside academia that employ ARP members. We will be sharing this list with ARP members soon. This list complements our website's list of graduate programs offering training in personality psychology.
- The Board discussed some initiatives that we decided not to pursue at this time. We decided not to create the option of joint membership with the European Association of Personality Psychology because of financial constraints on ARP. We are continuing to pursue a closer relationship with EAPP through other means, however. We also decided not to create an ARP Research Committee because we had trouble defining a clear purpose for such a committee. We are still open to hearing suggestions from ARP members for what goals an ARP research committee could effectively pursue.
- We have continued planning for ARP's 2017 meeting in Sacramento from June 8 through June 10. We also chose Grand Rapids, MI, as the site for our 2019 meeting.
I want to return now to the ways that personality psychology is informing public discussions of important issues. The articles I received from ARP members addressed a broad range of topics including shyness, health, gender, relationships, well being, transgender youth, grit, resilience, narcissism, and life stories, among other topics. There is tremendous public interest in personality research because of its implications for daily life and its potential for answering broad societal questions.
Personality research has been in the news lately because of the 2016 American Presidential election. Pundits, politicians, and regular citizens have raised questions about the suitability of the personalities of both Presidential candidates. Trump himself offered this analysis of his own and Clinton's personalities: "She's a very dishonest person. I have one of the great temperaments," Trump said. "I have a winning temperament. She has a bad temperament. She's weak. I have a temperament where I know how to win. She doesn't know how to win."
Trump's personality in particular has received outsize media attention (much like everything else about his campaign). People clearly have cared about the personalities of the candidates, perhaps even more so than in a more typical election year, because of concerns about whether Trump's personality disqualifies him from serving as President. Trump's personality is extreme in so many respects that it has begged for thoughtful analysis and commentary. The public conversations about personality have gone beyond assessments of the two candidates to include analyses of the personalities of Trump's and Clinton's supporters.
As a personality psychologist, it has been fascinating to watch the public discourse the past year. The election has provided remarkable opportunities for us, as personality psychologists, to explain how we conceptualize personality: What is temperament versus personality? What are the Big Five Traits? How are life stories relevant to personality functioning? Why are we drawn to some personalities and not others? We have had opportunities to show that surprising voter preferences make more sense when we consider people's motivations. We have analyzed the candidates from a variety of perspectives and shown how multiple levels of analysis are needed to fully understand the candidates in full. Apparently, we have even advised Clinton in her debate preparation (quite successfully, I might add). Although public presentations of psychology do not always serve the public or the field well, for example, when preliminary results are presented as definitive, on balance I am convinced that our work has played an important part in helping voters think through complex issues in this election and has offered nuanced views of the needs, motivations, and thinking of voters as well.
Following is a sampler of ARP members' articles and comments in the popular press on election 2016:
The Personality of Donald Trump
The Personality of Hilary Clinton
What is 'Presidential Temperament,' Anyway?
Voters Turn To Trusted Authorities After Terrorist Attacks
Why Has Donald Trump Lost So Much Conservative Support?
Outrageousness is Trump's Trump Card
Understanding Latinos For Trump
Science Says Donald Trump Is a Slytherin, and That's Why People Love Him
Hey, Hillary Clinton: Here's How to Debate a Narcissist
A Health Psychologist Analyzes Trump's and Clinton's Body Image Discourse