RESEARCH.

Overview

Our research focuses on identifying precursors of career success and well-being. We look at the impact of life experiences, personality, and social context across the lifespan. We also look at creativity, which is an increasingly essential contributor to career success, and, in the context of well-being, we investigate both psychological well-being and physical health. Our research is diverse, but the common thread is our interest in understanding how people navigate life experiences (including hardship, trauma, and diversity), how their personalities change as a result, and how this impacts their career success and well-being. Below are some examples of project topics we are currently working on.

Personality Development

We use diverse  longitudinal data sets from around the world to investigate how people's personalities change across time and following life experiences. Among these samples are a US representative sample (Project Talent), a representative sample from Luxembourg (MAGRIP), and a sample of US Mexican-origin youth (California Families Project).

Creativity and Career Success

We are currently working on several projects looking at correlates and precursors of creativity and career success. In this line of research we investigate both personality, social context, and life experience precursors of creativity and career success. We are also interested in lay theories of creativity and creative people, and in creative genius.

Diversifying Experiences

We are currently working on several studies investigating the role of diversifying experiences (i.e., positive and negative unusual and unexpected experiences that push people outside the realm of normality) on life success and creativity. We are also working on developing a new measurement scale for diversifying experiences.

Well-being and Achievement Following Adversity

Hurricane Harvey Aftermath

Using a large and diverse sample of college students who experienced Hurricane Harvey, we address two key questions:

• How does hurricane exposure impact students’ academic functioning, and mental and physical health across time?
• Which risk and protective factors differentiate college students showing a trajectory of recovery versus chronic dysfunction post-hurricane?

​We use a pre-/post- design where levels of functioning are compared before and after the hurricane, and a three-wave longitudinal design that tracks students’ functioning in the year following the hurricane. 
This research is funded by the Hurricane Resilience Research Institute (HuRRI)

South Korean Firefighter Study

In this 3-wave longitudinal study, we tracked a large sample of South Korean recruits across their firefighter academy training. Some key questions we seek to address are:

• How did the recruits' well-being and personality changed across the training?
• What are risk and protective factors for a healthy development across academy?
• How do psychological adjustment trajectories during academy help or hurt coping with occupational adversity later in their career?

We plan to follow-up this sample for more insight into their development and well-being.

COVID-19 Pandemic Study

In this 3-wave longitudinal study, we tracked a large sample of US adults across 1 year of the pandemic. Some key questions we seek to address are:

• How did people's personalities change across the pandemic?
• How did pandemic impact across life domains (work, health, family, and community) differentially impact changes across the pandemic?

This research is funded by the Rice University COVID-19 Research Fund.