That means that I conduct scientific research on how individual people are all different from one another. In particular, I study how and why people's personalities and close relationships change across time. My primary focus is on individuals' desires and attempts to change themselves (i.e., volitional personality change).
I'm currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2016. Check out my CV to learn more.
Do you want to change something about your personality? You're certainly not alone. Research suggests that most people want to change aspects of themselves. Moreover, studies suggest that people may be able to actually make progress toward realizing those goals. Check out my TEDx talk for an overview.
In an online study of 6,800 adults, we found that most people—about 90%—want to increase in extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience. Almost everyone wants to change something about themselves.
Behavioral change may be an effective way to change personality traits. In one of our studies, we asked participants to change their behavior to align with desired traits. For example, if a participant wanted to be more extraverted, we gave them suggestions for how they might act more extravertedly. In this study, participants who changed their behavior experienced personality growth—whereas participants who did not change their behavior did not experience personality growth.
In one study, we found that changing personality traits in desired ways may have the potential to improve well-being. Specifically, we asked people how they wanted to change. We subsequently tracked participants' personalities across time. People who changed in ways that aligned with their desires tended to report increases in life satisfaction, as well. These findings suggest that personality change may be a viable way to improve people's lives.