President's Column
Rich Lucas
Michigan State University
As President of the Association for Research in Personality, I would first like to express my appreciation and gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to make ARP what it is today. I wanted to thank past-president Brent Roberts and outgoing past-president Dan McAdams, along with outgoing board members Katie Corker and Aidan Wright for their service to the organization. I would also like to welcome Joanne Chung and Rodica Damian, who join Rick Robins, Wiebke Bleidorn, Sara Weston, and Erika Carlson, as members at large. I also thank Erica Baranski (the post doctoral representative to the board), Ted Schwaba and Suri Serrano (student representatives to the board), Kai Horstmann (outgoing student representative), Jaap Denissen (EAPP representative), Conference Program Committee members Doug Samuel, Chris Soto, and Susan South, Kathryn Bollich-Ziegler and John Rauthmann (editors of the P newsletter), along with Eranda Jayawickreme, Gina Sutin, Jon Adler, Erik Noftle, Dan Mroczek, Ryne Sherman, Nicole DesJardins, Joanna Lamkin, Robert Latzman, Marius Leckelt, Chris Martin, Erik Noftle, Tara Letzring, David Condon, Sara Masland, David Watson, and Dan Ozer who all contributed their time to various ARP committees (and many of the people listed above contributed in more than one way). Finally, I would like to give special thanks to our Secretary/Treasurer Jenn Lodi-Smith and our Executive Officer Brent Donnellan. Much of the work in keeping ARP running is done by these two, and after just a few months on the job as President, I am already amazed at how efficient and effective they are at accomplishing these tasks.
Running a professional society, even a relatively small one like ARP, takes considerable time and effort. Planning conferences, raising funds for awards and travel grants, and making decisions about how to further the goals of the organization—while also making sure that these decisions align with our values—can be challenging, time consuming, and sometimes even frustrating. The behind-the-scenes work that all of the people mentioned here do is sometimes hidden from the members, so I hope that you will remember their contributions and give them your thanks the next time you see them. After my first board meeting a few months ago in New Orleans, I was very happy to see the progress that these leaders and volunteers have made on issues that face the organization, and I’m excited about ARP’s future.
Appreciating the Strengths of ARP
I have now served in leadership positions for three different professional societies, societies that vary in size, goals, and priorities. These experiences have opened my eyes to the differences that exist in how societies function. This has led both to new ideas about how ARP can move forward with its goals, along with an even greater appreciation for the unique strengths that ARP already has. For instance, I’ve been especially proud of how ARP and its members have responded to concerns about replicability and problematic research practices in our field. ARP members have been leaders in efforts to improve these practices. Through hackathons, special conference symposia, special journal issues, and many other efforts, many members have been at the forefront of innovative efforts to improve the quality of the research that our field and other fields conduct. Moreover, my sense is that ARP members have, in general, reacted in a productive and non-defensive way to the sometimes critical perspective that the replicability crisis has provoked. To be sure, criticism hurts, and we can probably all be a bit more willing to have others poke and prod our pet theories and methods to see where flaws exist. But criticism is an essential component of the scientific process, and I think personality psychologists have done a pretty good job both in our support for those who do that work and in our response when others criticize us.
We should also keep in mind that certain features of our organization make it a bit easier than it might otherwise be to keep a clear focus on our values and priorities. For instance, late last year, controversy erupted about scientific societies putting pressure on the Trump Administration not to implement a rumored executive order that would mandate immediate open access to publications that resulted from federally funded research. It is easy to see how the potential financial implications of such a policy (i.e., the loss of journal revenue for society-owned journals) might impact support for it, but I think it is useful to see how professional societies perceive such policies when they are free from these financial implications. I was proud to see ARP join with other publishers and societies to support increased access to research funded by the United States Federal Government. ARP is a small but nimble society that can take risks to promote and adopt policies that align with our priorities and values. In addition to these public stances, our conference organizers have begun to incorporate hackathons and other activities to promote action on these activities; but we are always open to doing more. We should take advantage of these characteristics of our society to think about how ARP can take innovative steps to improve personality psychology and science as a whole. If you have ideas, please let me know!
I have also been encouraged by ARP’s efforts to address issues of diversity, though there is still much more to do. Before I began my term, the board voted to add a diversity officer whose job it is to help remind all ARP decision makers to incorporate diversity considerations into any plans and policies they implement, and the board also shifted our diversity committee from an ad hoc committee to a standing committee. As detailed in the statement on racial injustice in this issue, the board has recently taken additional steps to improve and expand these efforts. If you have suggestions about additional opportunities for ARP to improve, please do not hesitate to contact me or our diversity officer, Erika Carlson.
ARP Journals
At our board meeting in New Orleans, we confirmed our commitment to partner with the Personality section of Collabra: Psychology as the official journal outlet for ARP. As Brent Roberts noted in his presidential column in last year’s issue of P, this decision was a carefully considered response to the ending of our years-long (but financially undesirable) relationship with the Journal of Research in Personality. Like many of you, I believe that having an official journal serves many important goals of the society. For one thing, as recent debates have made clear, researchers from different disciplines have different ideas about research norms and practices. Having an official journal allows ARP to create a publication outlet that has policies that best reflect the values that we prioritize. An official journal also helps ARP promote the research that best exemplifies the work our members do. Our members conduct careful research on important topics, and having an official outlet allows us to showcase that work for a broader audience. Finally, I believe that an official journal helps promote a sense of community and identity for our members. Although times have changed from when all of our colleagues simultaneously received hard copies of society journals in our office mailbox that we could immediately read and discuss, there is still a sense of pride and community that comes from publishing in society journals. As we move forward with our partnership with Collabra: Psychology we will keep these benefits in mind and try to identify ways to promote them. In addition, we acknowledge that this partnership may not be the only way to accomplish these goals, and we will keep looking for additional innovative ways to do so.
I also wanted to acknowledge that ARP does have a small ownership stake in Social Psychological and Personality Science, a journal that is run by a consortium of societies including the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, and the European Association for Social Psychology. Until recently, this journal was edited by ARP member Simine Vazire, who did an excellent job in this role. Journal metrics were up during her tenure, and Simine worked hard to increase the transparency and fairness of the editorial process, while also pushing to improve research practices. Please thank Simine for her work at SPPS over the past few years.
Although there is much to be proud of in regard to our affiliation with SPPS, I also wanted to note one disappointing piece of news. Despite ARP’s proactive approach to adopting new research and editorial practices, some of our partner societies have been a bit slower to act. Last year, in my role as member at large for SPSP, I proposed that all SPSP journals, including SPPS, adopt a set of new policies, including adopting Level II of the TOP Guidelines. This proposal, which would expand transparent research practices such as mandated data and materials sharing and would encourage replications, went to the consortium that oversees SPPS. The ARP board discussed and voted to support the proposal, and we asked our representative to the consortium to indicate that approval. Unfortunately, despite ARP’s support, this proposal was not adopted by the consortium. Thus, at this time, SPPS—a journal that we co-sponsor—does not accurately reflect the values and priorities of our society. This is disappointing, and I hope that this changes in the future. For those of you who are members of our partner organizations, I encourage you to reach out to your representatives from those organizations to let them know whether you would support such policies in the future.
Coping with Coronavirus and COVID-19
Finally, I thought it would be appropriate to comment on a issues about COVID-19 that are most relevant to ARP. As you all know by now, concerns about the spread of the virus forced the cancellation of the European Conference on Personality in Madrid, which was originally scheduled for July of this year. This was, of course, disappointing news, as ECP not only showcases the best personality research from around the world, but the events are reliably fun occasions that support and help grow our community. I let the leadership of EAPP know that ARP is available to help in whatever way we can, and we plan to seek even greater collaboration as we move forward with future ARP and ECP conferences. Given the uncertainty about how long travel (and budget) restrictions will remain in place, the ARP executive board and conference committees are already planning for the possibility that our 2021 meeting will also be affected. We will keep members updated with any new information about the meeting as we get it.
I hope you all stay safe and healthy during this challenging time.