I’m about to head off to the Association for Research in Personality conference in Riverside, CA. The program is going to be great. (Yes, I’m a member of the program committee, but I can’t take responsibility for the very high quality of submissions we got.) Two of the terrific grad students from my lab, Kimberly Angelo and Allison Tackman, are giving talks. Kimberly is talking about her dissertation work on implicit theories of emotion; Allison is talking about the effects of expressive suppression on interpersonal perception. I will be co-chairing a data blitz – 14 mini-talks from up-and-coming researchers, with each speaker limited to 2 slides and 3 minutes of talking, plus 2 minutes for questions.

This is only the second ARP conference, and it’s still pretty small (though it’s growing fast). Once upon a time, social psychology and personality psychology were considered to be in opposition to each other – and there are some curmudgeons who still see things that way. So if you were taught in grad school that personality psychology is just a bunch of wrongheaded ideas about traits, I’ll forgive you for overlooking this conference. (*cough* outgroup homogeneity *cough*) But take a look at the program. Seriously. There are sessions and talks on emotions, psychopathology, implicit theories, neuroscience, morality, social status, interpersonal perception, child and adolescent development, inhibition and self-regulation, health psychology, and more. And yes, talks about the Big Five and traits too (which, if you were taught in one of the aforementioned types of graduate programs, are probably a lot more interesting than you were led to believe).

If, on the other hand, you were taught in one of the cool, hip, modern, awesome programs that integrates personality and social psychology (like I was), then you have no excuse for not going.

Either way, if I don’t see you in Riverside, maybe I’ll see you the next time…