Areas of Study: Social Psychology/Personality
The Social/Personality psychology program provides opportunities for graduate students to do research on many topics. Some graduate students work on research problems that are closely related to ongoing faculty research programs, while others develop their own research interests. Students draw on the expertise of the faculty in Developmental, Cognitive, and other areas of psychology within the department, and with faculty in other departments such as Sociology, in addition to the faculty whose primary identification is with Social/Personality Psychology.
R e s e a r c h P r o j e c t s
Victoria Banyard / Victor Benassi / Ellen Cohn / Peter Fernald / Edward Lemay / John Mayer / Rebecca Warner
Victoria Banyard
The Long-Term Consequences Of Trauma Across The Lifespan
My research lies within community psychology but builds bridges to and draws from theories in both developmental psychology (including ecological models of human development) and social psychology (including theories of stress, coping, and promoting helping behavior). In particular, I have conducted a number of studies examining the impact of childhood trauma on the mental health of older adolescents and adults. I have also examined ways in which childhood trauma may be linked to further trauma exposure across the lifespan and at issues such as the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment. I have been particularly interested in examining risk and protective factors that may mediate the relationship between childhood trauma and development including family relationships, coping and meaning making strategies. Most recently my program of research has focused on examining the effectiveness of relationship violence prevention programs that are grounded in social psychological work on bystander intervention. My research includes qualitative and quantitative methods and is perhaps best described as applied social/community psychology.
Consequences of Interpersonal Violence
Banyard, V. L. & Cross, C. (in press). Consequences of teen dating violence: Understanding intervening variables in ecological context. Violence Against Women.
Cantor, E. N. & Banyard, V. L. (in press). Social support: A mediator between child maltreatment and developmental outcomes. Journal of Youth and Adolescence.
Banyard, V. L., Plante, E. G., Cohn, E. S., Moorhead, C. , Ward, S., & Walsh, W. (2005). Revisiting unwanted sexual experiences on campus: A twelve-year follow-up. Violence Against Women: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal, 11, 426-446.
Banyard, V. L., Williams, L. M., & Siegel, J. A. (2004). Childhood sexual abuse: A gender perspective on context and consequences. Child Maltreatment, 9, 223-238.
Trauma And Resilience
Banyard, V. L. & Williams, L. M. (in press). Adolescents and sexual violence: Risk and protective factors. The Prevention Researcher.
Banyard, V. L. & Williams, L. M. (in press). Women’s voices on recovery: A multi-method study of the complexity of recovery from child sexual abuse. Child Abuse and Neglect.
Banyard, V. L. & Cantor, E. N. (2004). Adjustment to college among trauma survivors: An exploratory study of resilience. Journal of College Student Development, 45, 207-221.
Prevention
Banyard, V. L., Moynihan, M. M., & Plante, E. G. (in press). Sexual violence prevention through bystander education: An experimental evaluation. Journal of Community Psychology.
Borges, A., Banyard, V. L., & Moynihan, M. M. (in press). Clarifying consent: Primary prevention of sexual assault on a college campus. Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community.
Graham-Bermann, S. A., Lynch, S., Banyard, V. L., DeVoe, E., & Halabu, H. (in press). Community-based intervention for children exposed to intimate partner violence. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.
Moynihan, M. M. & Banyard, V. L. (in press). Community responsibility for preventing sexual violence: A pilot with campus Greeks and intercollegiate athletes. Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community.
Banyard, V. L., Plante, E. G., & Moynihan, M. M. (2003) Bystander education: Bringing a broader community perspective to sexual violence prevention. Journal of Community Psychology, 32, 61-79.
Research on Teaching
Banyard, V. L., & Fernald, P. S. (2002). Simulated family therapy: A classroom demonstration. Teaching of Psychology, 29 223-226.
Banyard, V. L. (2000). Using first person accounts to teach students about psychological disorders. Teaching of Psychology, 27, 40-43.
Victor Benassi
(*not currently accepting new students)
Judgment of Control
People continually are confronted with situations in which they make judgments about the relation between events-the correlation between values of two variables (e.g., amount of environmental conditions and school performance), the contingency between actions and outcomes (e.g., if I study a lot, I earn good grades; if I don't, I earn poor grades); the association between characteristics (e.g., does variation in bumps on one's head relate to one's personality?), and so on. Some of my work in this area has examined the overall accuracy of judgments of control in situations in which actual control may be quantified. For example, McGarva and Benassi (1997) showed that people were relatively successful in scaling both social and non-social contingencies. In other research-including integrative literature reviews using meta-analytic statistical techniques-we have established the relation between individual differences and control beliefs (e.g., Presson & Benassi, 1996; Presson, Clark, & Benassi, 1997). Current work in my lab focuses on the role of feedback in improving the accuracy of judgments of co-variation.
Presson, P. K., & Benassi, V. A. (2003). Are depressive symptoms positively or negatively associated with the illusion of control? Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 31, 483-0485.
McGarva, A., & Benassi, V. A. (1997). Judgment of social and nonsocial contingencies. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 12, 433-451.
Presson, P., & Benassi, V. A. (1996). Locus of control orientation and depressive symptomatology: A meta-analysis. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 11, 201-212.
Newman, S.E., & Benassi, V.A. (1989). Putting judgments of control into context: Contrast effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 876-889. (Newman and Benassi).
Benassi, V.A., Sweeney, P.D., & Dufour, C. (1988). Is there a relationship between locus of control orientation and depression? Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 97, 357-367.
Benassi, V.A., & Mahler, H.I. (1985). Contingency judgments by depressed college students: Sadder but not always wiser. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 1323-1329.
Judgmental Biases and Heuristics
As many studies have demonstrated over the last 40 plus years, human judgment may be influenced under a wide variety of circumstances by systematic biases and heuristics. Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman's work in this area is perhaps best known. Much of my work in the area of judgment of control is situated in this literature. For example, we have explored the effects of context on judgments of control over environmental events. Clark and Benassi (1997) demonstrated so-called contrast effects. In addition, I have had an interest in the research methods that are used in certain studies of judgmental bias and error-work on the so-called conjunction bias. People, under a range of experimental conditions, will judge the statistical likelihood that A and B are true to be greater than the likelihood that either A or B are true. A former graduate student (Russell Knoth) and I have been interested in the dependent measures that have been primarily used in studies to document the conjunction bias in conjunction studies.
Knoth, R., Benassi, V.A., & Geher, G. (in press). Measurement of the conjunction error: Answer choice versus answer justification. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal.
Presson, R., Clark, S., & Benassi, V. A. (1997). The Levenson locus of control scales: Confirmatory factor analyses and evaluation. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 25, 93-104.
Clark, S., & Benassi, V. A. (1997). Judgment of contingency: Contrast and assimilation, displacement of judgments, and self-efficacy. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 25, 183-200.
Knoth, R., & Benassi, V.A. (1993). The intractable conjunction fallacy: Statistical sophistication, instructional set, and training. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 8, 83-96.
Social Psychology and Teaching
Professor Gary Goldstein (a faculty member in psychology at the Manchester campus of UNH) and I have been collaborating since the early 1990s on studies that deal with social psychological factors involved in the teaching/learning process. One line of work focused on the relation college teachers' self-disclosure and their students' classroom participation (Goldstein & Benassi, 1994). We found a positive statistical association. In other work, we have examined college students' and faculty members' beliefs about the qualities of excellent lecturers and discussion leaders (Goldstein & Benassi, 1996) Our most recent work has established that discrepancies between students' and teachers' beliefs about the qualities of an idealized lecturer predict those students' ratings of their own teacher's performance (Goldstein & Benassi, 2006).
Goldstein, G. S. & Benassi, V.A. (2006). Students’ and instructors’ beliefs about excellent lecturers and discussion leaders. Research in Higher Education, 47, 685-707.
Benassi, V. A., & Goldstein, G. S. (2006). Students' Beliefs about Paranormal Claims: Implications for Teaching Introductory Psychology. In D. S. Dunn and S. L. Chew (Eds.), Best practices for teaching introductory psychology, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Goldstein, G., & Benassi, V. A. (1997). Teacher self-disclosure and student classroom participation: Reply to Wambach and Brothen. Teaching of Psychology, 24, 263-265.
Goldstein, G., & Benassi, V.A. (1996). Students’ perceptions of excellent lecturers and discussion leaders. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 7, 81-97.
Goldstein, G., & Benassi, V. A. (1994). The relation between teacher self-disclosure and student classroom participation. Teaching of Psychology, 212-217.
College Teaching and Preparing Future Faculty
I have written a number of pieces related to college teaching and preparing future faculty. The pieces cited below cover a range of topics, including the UNH Department of Psychology's preparing future faculty program, teaching introductory psychology, uses of student evaluations of teaching, and faculty development and productivity.
Seidel, L.F., Benassi, V.A., Lewis, J. (2008). Teaching to Enhance Learning in Health Administration Education. Journal of Health Administration Education, 63-72.
Seidel, L.F., Benassi, V.A., Richards, H., Lee, M.J. (2006). College Teaching as a Professional Field of Study. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 17, 225-239.
Benassi, V.A., & Seidel, L.F. (2006) Using student evaluations to improve teaching. In W. Buskist and S. Davis (Eds.). The handbook of the teaching of psychology. Blackwell Publishing.
Seidel, L.F., & Benassi, V.A. (2005). Faculty productivity as an agenda for faculty development. In J.E. Groccia and J.E. Miller (Eds). On becoming a productive university: Strategies for reducing costs and increasing quality in higher education. Bolton, MA: Anker Publications.
Benassi, V. A., & Fuld, K. (2004). University of New Hampshire’s preparing future psychology faculty program. In W. Buskist and B. Beins (Eds.), Preparing the new psychology professoriate: helping graduate students become competent teachers. Society for the Teaching of Psychology.
Benassi, V. A., Jordan, E. A., & Harrison, L. (1994). Using teaching modules to train and supervise graduate TAs. In K. G. Lewis (Ed.), The TA experience: Preparing for multiple roles. 183-188. Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press.
Benassi, V. A., & Fernald, P. S. (1993). Preparing tomorrow's psychologists for careers. Teaching of Psychology. 20, 149-155.
Ellen Cohn
Legal Socialization
Recently the media have brought our attention to serious juvenile crimes. For example, a Massachusetts high school freshman murdered a fellow student with a knife in the bathroom. The public is outraged by the behavior and is looking for a cause for this behavior. At the same time researchers have been investigating the predictors of rule-violating behavior. The focus of my work has been studying the role of legal attitudes, personality measures, and peers in explaining the relation between legal and moral reasoning and rule-violating behavior. The data have come from American middle school, high school, and college students, and adults from Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Spain, and the United States. Much of this work has been sponsored by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Law and Social Sciences Program. In my most recent NSF grant, I am collaborating with Cesar Rebellon (Department of Sociology) and Karen Van Gundy (Department of Sociology) on a longitudinal legal socialization study with middle school and high school students.
Cohn, E.S., Bucolo, D., Rebellon, C.J., & Van Gundy, K. (in press). An integrated model of legal and moral reasoning and rule-violating behavior: The role of legal attitudes. Law and Human Behavior.
Cohn, E. S., & Modecki, K.L. (in press). Legal socialization. In: B.L. Cutler (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Law and Psychology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Cohn, E. S., & Modecki, K. L. (2007). Gender differences in predicting delinquent behavior: Do individual differences matter? 35(6), Social Behavior and Personality, 35, 359-374.
Martin, T. A., & Cohn, E. S. (2004). Attitudes toward the criminal legal system: Scale development and predictors. Psychology, Crime and Law, 10(4), 367-391.
Martin, T. A., & Cohn, E. S. (2004). The attitudes toward the criminal justice system scale. In: Wrightsman, L. S., Batson, A. L., & Edkins, V. A. (Eds.) , Measures of Legal Attitudes (pp. 13-18). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Cohn, E. S., White, S. O., & Sanders, J. (2000). Distributive and procedural justice in seven nations. Law and Human Behavior, 24, 553-580. Reprinted in T.R. Tyler (Ed.) (2005). International Library of Essays in Law and Society: Procedural Justice Volume II (pg. 437-463). Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company.
Cohn, E. S., & White, S. O. (1997). Legal socialization effects on democratization. International Social Science Journal: Special Issue on Democratization, 152, 151-171.
Cohn, E. S., & White, S. O. (1992). Taking reasoning seriously. In J. McCord (Ed.). Facts, Frameworks, and Forecasts: Advances in Criminology (Vol. 3, pp. 95-114). New York: Aldine.
Cohn, E. S., & White, S. O. (1990). Legal Socialization: A Study of Norms and Rules. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Rape and Dating Violence
Rape and dating violence are often not reported by victims, because they feel that they will be derogated. Psychologists have been interested in understanding the antecedents and consequences of both date rape and dating violence. I have been conducting a collaborative panel study of the incidence and prevalence of unwanted sexual experiences including date rape, with data collected in 1988, 2000, and 2006. I have also conducted a meta-analysis of the predictors of dating violence perpetration and victimization.
People often derogate victims of date rape, holding them responsible for their victimization. Psychologists have been interested in studying the factors that affect these negative attitudes toward victims. I have been investigating the effect of the victims' and perpetrators' reactions and reputation on attributions of responsibility for date rape with both implicit and explicit measures. In the most recent studies, we have been measuring the physical distance between the chairs of the participant and his/her partner.
Spinney, C. A., Goforth, E. C., & Cohn, E. S. (in press). Factors influencing the reporting of dating violence prevalence. In K. Kendall-Tackett and S. M. Giacomoni (Eds.) Intimate Partner Violence. Kingston, NJ: Civic Research Institute.
Banyard, V. L., Ward, S., Cohn, E.S., Plante, E. G., Moorhead, C., & Walsh, W. (in press). Unwanted sexual experiences on campus: A comparison of women's and men's experiences. Psychology of Women Quarterly.
Banyard, V. L., Plante, E. G., Cohn, E. S., Ward, S., Moorhead, C., & Walsh, W. (2005). Revisiting unwanted sexual experiences on campus: A twelve-year follow-up. Violence against Women, 11, 426-446.
Other Research
Lyon, K.D., Tickle-Degnen, L., Henry, A., & Cohn, E. S. (2004). Behavioral cues of personality in Parkinson's Disease. Disability and Rehabilitation, 26, 463-470
Peter Fernald
Teaching/learning processes and personality
My primary academic focus is the development of effective methods for teaching and learning the discipline of psychology. For 15 years, with my brother Dodge, I co-authored five editions of an introductory textbook. For the last 30 years, I have taught the Department's graduate seminar, Practicum and Seminar in the Teaching Of Psychology. I have published articles pertaining to various modes of instruction based on humanistic, cognitive, and behavioristic principles.
My training in graduate school was in experimental and clinical psychology. My primary area of interest and study is counseling, particularly mind-body approaches. Counseling and the teaching/learning process, I believe, have much in common. Concepts and principles relevant to teaching and learning are relevant to counseling, and vice-versa.
Fernald, P.S. and Goldstein, G.S. (2009). Humanistic education in a capstone course. College Teaching, 57(1), 27-35.
Fernald, P.S. (2008). Bioenergetics in the college classroom. USA Body Psychotherapy Journal, 7, 93-106.
Fernald, P.S. and Fernald, L.D. (2008). The sentence completion test. In L.T. Benjamin (Ed.) Favorite activities handbook for the teaching of psychology (pp. 196-198). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Fernald, P. S. (2004). The Monte Carlo quiz: Encouraging punctual completion and deep processing of assigned readings. College Teaching, 52, 95-99.
Banyard, V. L., & Fernald, P. S. (2002). Simulated family therapy: A classroom demonstration. Teaching of Psychology.
Fernald, P. S. (2000). Carl Rogers: Body-centered counselor. Journal of Counseling and Development, 78, 172-179.
Fernald, P. S., & Fernald, L. D. (1999). Empathy: The cornerstone of counseling. In L. T. Benjamin, Jr., et al. (Eds.), Activities Handbook for the Teaching of Psychology (Vol. 4). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Fernald, P. S. (1995). Preparing psychology graduate students for the professoriate. American Psychologist, 50, 421-427.
Benassi, V., & Fernald, P. S. (1993). Preparing tomorrow’s psychologists for careers in academe. Teaching of Psychology, 20, 149-155.
Fernald, P. S., & Jordan, E. A. (1991). Programmed instruction versus standard text in introductory psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 18, 205-211.
Fernald, P. S., & Webster, S. (1991). The merits of the take-home, closed-book exam. Journal of Humanistic Education and Development, 20, 130-142.
Edward Lemay
Research in the Interpersonal Processes lab focuses on cognitive, motivational, behavioral, and emotional phenomena in the context of interpersonal relationships, especially close relationships such as romantic relationships, friendships, and family relationships. Overarching goals of our research include 1) to understand how people come to feel secure, valued, and loved within their close relationships and, conversely, why some people have difficulties achieving these feelings; 2) to understand the relative contribution of subjective construction (i.e., cognitive processes) and interpersonal transactions (i.e., "reality") to such feelings; 3) to understand the etiology and consequences of compassionate, communal concerns and defensive, selfish concerns in close relationships; 4) to understand the stability of relationship phenomena over time; and 5) to investigate the many ways in which basic social psychological phenomena have relational functions or are determined by relational concerns. Research often utilizes a combination of experimental, survey, longitudinal, and daily-diary methodologies and often utilizes sophisticated statistical analyses such as multilevel modeling and structural equation modeling. Three lines of research are described below.
The Projection of Communal Responsiveness
How do people know that a close partner cares for them? Conversely, why do some people doubt a partner's care? Although the obvious answer is that people gauge care on the basis of a partner's actual care (as expressed during social interaction), our research suggests that egocentric perception has a strong influence. That is, people often "project" their own feelings of care and concern onto their specific relationship partners, seeing partners they care for as being caring in return and seeing partners they do not care for as being similarly apathetic in return. Moreover, our research suggests that these subjective constructions of a partner's care substantially influence feelings of satisfaction within close relationships as well as willingness to invest in close relationships and depend on partners. This research puts a new spin on pop psychology and folk wisdom that promises positive outcomes for kind behavior. Many of those positive outcomes may be in our minds, due to strong tendencies to assume reciprocity of our kindness.
Lemay, E.P., Jr., & Clark, M.S. (2008). How the head liberates the heart: Projection of communal responsiveness guides relationship promotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 647-671.
Lemay, E.P., Jr., Clark, M.S., & Feeney, B.C. (2007). Projection of responsiveness to needs and the construction of satisfying communal relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 834-853.
Lemay, E.P., Jr., Clark, M.S., & Greenberg, A. (2008). What is beautiful is good because what is beautiful is cared for: Physical attractiveness stereotyping as projection of responsiveness. Manuscript submitted for publication. (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology).
Lemay, E.Pl, Jr., & Clark, M.S. (2008). Self-Esteem and communal responsiveness toward a flawed partner: The fair-weather care of low self-esteem individuals. Invited resubmission under review (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.)
The Perpetuation of Relational Insecurity
People who feel insecure about others' regard and affections often behave in ways that express their insecurities to others; they make "mountains out of molehills" by seeing events more negatively than warranted, frequently seek reassurance regarding their personal merits and others' affections, and are generally emotionally volatile in the presence of others. Our research suggests that these reactions are not merely consequences of insecurity. Rather, they also serve to maintain that insecurity over time. In particular, once people know that they have expressed their insecurities to their partners, they may become suspicious that their partners are being "fake." After all, it seems to be common knowledge that fragile, insecure people are treated with "kid gloves" -- served exaggerated positive feedback and protected from more honest but negative feedback. Once these insecure individuals believe that others are "walking on eggshells" in this manner, they may have a reason to question the validity of others' positive acts and to imagine the presence of hidden thoughts and feelings that are more negative. Hence, people who incessantly express insecurities undermine their own interpersonal well-being by giving themselves a reason to presume negative regard and rejection, despite the often contradictory behavioral evidence. Recent research suggests that partners may respond to emotionally volatile individuals by actually "walking on eggshells" around them.
Lemay, E.P., Jr., & Clark, M.S. (2008) "You're just saying that": Contingencies of self-worth, suspicion, and authenticity in the partner affirmation process. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 1376-1382.
Lemay, E.P., Jr., & Clark, M.S. (2008). "Walking on eggshells": How expressing relationship insecurities perpetuates them. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 420-441.
Interpersonal Relationships and Psychological and Physical Functioning
I am interested in how the quality and quantity of social bonds affects our psychological adjustment and our physical health. Along with several studies by others, my research suggests that trait self-esteem is strongly linked to perceived social acceptance. Moreover, I have found that social acceptance predicts temporal change in self-esteem even for people who deny that their self-esteem is affected by social acceptance. In addition, I have conducted research on the effects of social networks on daily affect and health-related behaviors as well as effects of egocentric interpersonal perception on health-related decision-making.
Cohen, S., & Lemay, E. (2007). Why would social networks be linked to affect and health practices? Health Psychology, 26, 410-417.
Lemay, E.P., Jr. & Ashmore, R.D. (2006). The relation of social approval contingency to trait self-esteem: Cause, consequence, or moderator? Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 121-139.
Lemay, E.P., Jr., Pruchno, R.A., & Feild, L. (2006). Accuracy and bias in perception of spouses' life-sustaining medical treatment preferences. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 36, 2337-2361.
John Mayer
For an up-to-date description of laboratory activities, please visit the Personality Laboratory Website and click on the "Activities" link.
Emotional Intelligence
With my colleagues, Drs. Peter Salovey, David Caruso, and others, I have been investigating the theory and measurement of emotional intelligence. This work appears in a number of recent and in-press articles and book chapters, some of which can be found below.
Brackett, M., & Mayer, J. D. (in press). The Life Space: A framework and method to describe the individual’s external “traits”. Imagination, Cognition, & Personality.
Ivcevic, Z. & Mayer, J. D. (in press). Emotional intelligence and emotional creativity. Journal of Personality.
Ciarrochi, J. & Mayer, J. D. (Eds.). (2007). Applying emotional intelligence: A practitioner’s guide. New York: Psychology Press.
Mayer, J. D. (2007). Personality: A systems approach (1st ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Mayer, J. D. (2007). Readings in Personality Psychology (1st ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Mayer, J. D. (2006). A classification of DSM-IV-TR mental disorders according to their relation to the personality system. In J. C. Thomas & D. L. Segal (Eds.). Comprehensive Handbook of Personality and Psychopathology (CHOPP) Vol 1: Personality and Everyday Functioning (pp. 443-453). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Mayer, J. D. (2005). A tale of two visions: Can a new view of personality help integrate psychology? American Psychologist, 60, 294-307.
Mayer, J. D. (2004). How does psychotherapy influence personality? A theoretical integration. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 60, 1291-1315.
Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. R. (2004). Emotional intelligence: Theory, findings, and implications. Psychological Inquiry, 60, 197-215.
The Systems Framework
I employ a detailed framework for organizing the discipline of personality psychology, that I refer to as the systems framework, to guide my research at present (e.g., Mayer, 1998). Personality Psychology as a discipline is typically organized for teaching and research as a list of theorists or theoretical positions (e.g. Freud, Jung, Maslow, etc.) or a list of more-or-less unintegrated research areas (e.g., unconscious, person perception, aggression). The systems framework creates an integrated model of personality based on a discussion of four topics: (1) identifying the personality system, (2) discussing its parts, (3) its organization, and (4) its development.
Mayer, J. D. (2005). A tale of two visions: Can a new view of personality help integrate psychology? American Psychologist, 60, 294-307.
Mayer, J. D. (2004). Classifying change techniques according to the areas of personality they influence: A systems framework integration. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 60, 1291-1315.
Mayer, J. D. (2003). Structural divisions of personality and the classification of traits. Review of General Psychology, 7, 381-401.
Mayer, J. D. (1998). A systems framework for the field of personality psychology. Psychological Inquiry, 9, 118-144.
The Life Space
One research area that is focal to the systems framework is relating the internal personality to the external life space surrounding it. From a measurement perspective, self reports of internal personality involve motives, feelings, and thoughts (e.g., "How happy are you?" and "Are you competitive?"). Self reports of the life space, by contrast, involve questions about the environments surrounding personality. Sample life space questions are "How tall are you?", "When did you last go out with friends to a bar?", and "Are you a member of the Republican Party?"
Mayer, J. D., Carlsmith, K. M., & Chabot, H. F. (1998). Describing the person’s external environment: Conceptualizing and measuring the life span. Journal of Research in Personality, 32, 253-296.
Rebecca Warner
Statistics and Microanalysis of Social Interaction Data
Past studies used time series and spectral analysis to evaluate rhythm and coordination of vocal activity, heart rate, and blood pressure during conversations; the 1998 spectral analysis book provides an accessible introduction to these analytic methods. Dr. Warner has just completed an applied statistics textbook for Sage; it reviews basic concepts and provides coverage of advanced topics such as multiple regression, MANOVA, repeated measures, and binary logistic regression.
Warner, R. M. (2007). Applied statistics: From bivariate through multivariate techniques. Sage Publications, Inc.
Warner, R. M. (1998). Spectral analysis of time-series data. New York: Guilford.
McGarva, A. and Warner, R. M. (2003). Attraction and social coordination: Mutual entrainment of vocal activity rhythms. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 32, 335-354.
Warner, R. M. (2002). What microanalysis of behavior in social situations can tell us about relationships over the life span. In: A. L. Vangelisti, H. T. Reis, and M. A. Fitzpatrick (Eds.), Stability and change in relationships. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 207-227.
Warner, R. M. (1996). Coordinated cycles in behavior and physiology during face-to-face social interaction. In J. Watt and A. Van Lear (Eds.), Cycles and dynamic patterns in communication processes. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Communication in Close Relationships
Current research focuses primarily on the prediction of social behavior, relationship satisfaction, social support, and other communication behaviors in close relationships from Emotional Intelligence.
Brackett, M. A., Bosco, J. and Warner, R. M (2005). Emotional intelligence and relationship quality among couples. Personal Relationships, 12, 197-212.
Brackett, M. A., Mayer, J. D., & Warner, R. M. (2004). Emotional intelligence and its relation to everyday behavior. Personality and Individual Differences, 36, 1387-1402.
Michaud, S. & Warner, R. (1997). Gender differences in self-reported response to troubles talk. Sex Roles, 37, 527-540.