Can you tell us a bit about yourself and what got you interested in personality psychology? To be honest, my interest in personality psychology emerged only slowly and it had a long way to come. During my studies, I didn’t like personality psychology at all. I wasn’t understanding some of the important concepts such as transactions or fit and I didn’t really care whether there are five or six personality traits…
Some years later, I now am very excited to be a personality psychologist. I recently defended my dissertation at Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany and am now working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich at Wiebke Bleidorn’s lab of Individual Differences.
I don’t think there was a sudden shift in my attitudes towards personality psychology but rather several small steps that got me more and more into the topic. For example, as part of my job as research assistant at Maike Luhmann’s lab of Psychological Methods, I got to know that personality psychology is actually quite a diverse field with plenty of interesting research questions. In particular, research questions concerning changes in personality and well-being attracted my interest right away. Another event that I can remember that got me interested in personality psychology was a talk by my later office mate Sarah Kritzler. At a research colloquium, she was talking about her work on person-situation transactions and the question of whether person-situation fit matters for well-being. First, she introduced the concepts that she was interested in so clearly that I finally understood them, and second, I realized that due to technological advancements there is now the possibility to address some new interesting research questions. For instance, to zoom in on people’s experiences in daily life.What are you currently interested in/working on regarding personality psychology? Are there any specific findings in the field that you are excited about?
Broadly speaking I am interested in personality development and personality-environment transactions: How do personality traits change across the lifespan and why? Do major life events lead to changes in personality traits and subjective well-being?
During my PhD, I mostly did research on the perception of major life events: Do people differ in their perception of major life events? Does the perception of major life events change over time? Do individual differences in the perception of major life events predict why people react differently to these events? One finding in this area is really interesting from my perspective: Although we know for sure that people change differently after experiencing major life events, we are quite bad as explaining these individual differences. The perception of major life events explains only a very minor proportion of these individual differences in event-related changes, and so do other variables. Thus, I am very curious whether we will be able to close this knowledge gap in the next years.
Currently, I am also getting in touch with two new research topics: personality intervention and stress generation. Regarding the former, I think the idea that people might actively change their personality is fascinating. Who doesn’t want to be more relaxed or be better at getting along with other people? The latter topic attracted my attention while struggling with a lot of null findings when examining event-related personality trait changes. While major life events may only partly change personality traits, studies have consistently found selection effects. That is, people with certain characteristics are more likely to experience certain negative events (e.g., a job loss). And with the new technological possibilities such as experience sampling and mobile sensing we now have the possibility to zoom in on the behavioral causes of these effects.Are there any specific movements/shifts in the directions of the field you would like to see in the next 5 years? Where would you like to see yourself, as an early career researcher in the next 5 years?
I think, in the next 5 years, it is time to better understand time. For example, over which time scales do certain person-environment transactions unfold? When should we examine the constructs of interest? When is the optimal time point to intervene?
For me personally, I hope that I will still be able to investigate these interesting research questions. If things go very well, I might already be a “middle career researcher” then.Do you have any tips for peer early career researchers?
I think the best advice that I have heard so far is one offered by David Hughes on the EJP Blog: “My first piece of advice is to be wary of people’s advice! Good advice is personalised and context specific, rarely does general advice hold across diverse circumstance.”
While I couldn’t agree more with this statement, I nonetheless tried to think about a few tips that might be helpful on a more general level:
It is about people! For me, having people around me at work that are able to cheer me up when I am having a bad day was so important for my well-being. I think I would not have survived my PhD that easily without my amazing colleagues. In particular, being able to talk to people who also know how academia works and who understand the struggles one might be facing is a huge plus. Thus, if you have to choose between a more prestigious position or a better team, I would definitely go for the team.
It is about people – Part 2! The other thing that was really important for me so far were my supervisors. I was incredibly lucky with all my supervisors so far. They were trying to support my career (even when it was not in their interest), they took their time when I had questions, and they were responsive when I had problems. To make this a practical advice, I would definitely ask for experiences of how others got along with a certain supervisor before starting a new position.
Individual difference matter! Not all people are alike regarding their working behavior. Thus, it is important to find out what works for you and not get stressed by comparing yourself to how others work. For example, I am very bad at doing night shifts. To be honest, I am even bad at doing evening shifts. I am productive in the morning. Thus, I schedule important and complicated tasks in the morning and easier tasks in the afternoon, and if it’s a stressful time I would rather try to come early than to leave late (even if my colleagues are still working).
If you are an Early Career Researcher and would like to promote your work and help other Early Career Researchers, email mmcilvenna02@qub.ac.uk
Peter Martin Hähner