The First World Conference on Personality
Boele De Raad
Next month (March 19 to 23, 2013), the first World Conference on Personality (including intelligence and individual differences) will take place in Stellenbosch, South Africa. This event should include a diverse representation of researchers from the many regions of the world. Most of us are used to attending conferences organized by ARP, ISSID, or EAPP, with each organization having its own market of interest. These conferences tend to attract mainly people from Europe and the US, with relatively little or no attendance from South American, African, and Austro-Asian countries. Since this World Conference depends on sufficient interest from these countries, it can be called a success already. Having the conference take place at an attractive venue and at a location outside of Europe and the US has apparently drawn more interest from many countries. It is not a dramatic change in terms of numbers, but considering the fact that many of these countries are still economically developing, it is a dramatic change in orientation. The effects are interesting. Researchers from those different regions often are in research domains with which people from the Western countries have less familiarity. Meeting those people offers great opportunities to broaden views, to widen interests, and to expand and strengthen research cooperation across the world.
This conference is not a one-time event; the second World Conference on Personality is planned to take place in Brazil, probably in 2016. First details on this will be provided at the conference in Stellenbosch.
A Personality Psychology Foundation has been established to formally support the conference. Our plan is to soon establish an association that people can join as members. Attendants to the Stellenbosch conference have the chance to become founding members of this association, and can in that capacity influence future events, such as the next conference in Brazil, and possibly other kinds of meetings and other forms of communicating research findings: the organizing committee of the Stellenbosch conference is currently discussing the possibility of an (open-access) journal, and we plan to continue this conversation with members of the new association.
The venue for the upcoming conference is magnificent. The Spier conference center is also a vineyard, set among many other vineyards just outside the city of Stellenbosch. Cape Town can be reached in 30 to 40 minutes and is a must for anyone visiting South Africa. There are great opportunities to make exciting trips to the other end of South Africa (to Kruger Park, for example), and also to nearby attractions.
The conference website (www.perpsy.org) provides details about the conference, about Spier, and about Cape Town. Approximately coinciding with the publication of this newsletter, the full program of the conference is now available on the website.
Welcome to the first World Conference on Personality!