An Interview with 2010 J. S. Tanaka Personality Dissertation Award Winner Sarah De Pauw
by Kathrin Herzhoff
Why do you study personality?
I was raised as the fifth of six children in a newly composed family so from an early age I was confronted with a lot of individual differences among me and my siblings and natural experiments of genes and environments. So I was already at a very early age interested in these individual differences. I was in my teens when I read my first book on personality. It was on the temperament types of Hippocrates. I was so enthralled by it and that passion stayed. Then during my masters and then my PhD process I stayed with my passion to study the relationships between personality and temperament. I think now that I have two children, almost three, I am also really fascinated by their individual differences and just talking about these differences and trying to understand them and conceptualize them. I really like that and enjoy that.
What is your most exciting discovery?
I don't know if I can really speak on discoveries in my research because I see myself doing more integrative work and trying to do innovation through integration. But what really excites me in my work is that I found based on my empirical work on the different temperament and personality models, which is actually rather boring for some people, some keys that I can integrate fragmented trait frames, for instance, in pervasive developmental disorders like autism. I have some keys to integrate findings across multiple temperament and personality frameworks. I think that is rather neat and that is what I like to do and plan to do in the near future: to make some more integrations based on those keys. I just like to read and to study and then to see the big picture. That is a bit more how I like to do research.
If you had to pick a high point in your career so far, what would it be and why?
This is very straightforward—maybe too straightforward—but I was really happy to receive the Tanaka award because this was even more [prestigious] than when an article was accepted or a more local prize or something like an award [was bestowed]. It was something more like that the real experts liked my work and thought it was good even though I come from Europe. (laughs) Apparently, I am the first European researcher [to have received this award] and I was really excited to see the list of all the Tanaka award winners. That was really a high point.
What about a low point?
That high point is also related to my low point. That was the passing of my advisor, Ivan Mervielde. I know that he was really enthusiastic and really motivated me and encouraged me to apply for the Tanaka award. On the one hand, that is also a high point for his memory but losing him has been a very hard point in my career. That is life… (clears throat)
Any career advice for new researchers? I am also especially interested in any advice for female and/or non-American researchers.
In Belgium and the Netherlands it is quite different than in the United States. Just for comparison, in Belgium we have two potential universities where you can go to work if you want to stay in Belgium. In Germany, it is a bit better, but maybe there are ten there and ten is a bit limited. So it is very good if you choose for international mobility or for national mobility in the States. That is what I see with a lot of other colleagues in the States and friends in the States: they are all just moving around. That is something that I choose not to do and that might not be a good career advice. I chose to have children and I try to combine a research career with family life, which is a challenge. At this point, I have a rather flexible job so that’s great but I am not in a fixed career position, yet. I think what motivates me and what’s my ambition is to write articles that impact. That’s my advice: I want to write articles that have an impact, that are read, that are widely read, and that are a substantial contribution to the literature, more than just another paper to enhance my list. I think if that’s a career advice, it’s my choice to try to make that my homework. I will see in a few years if this is good career advice. The citation rates of the paper that is also very important. For instance, if you publish in a very highly cited journal but your paper doesn't get cited, that is not ideal.
What are important but understudied topics in personality?
Aha! I think that Personality and neurodevelopmental disorders are really understudied and so that is one of the reasons why I became interested in [them]. I am becoming increasingly interested in [them] because I see so many links between, for instance, the research between the five factor model and personality disorders in adults, and the schizoid and personality disorder stuff and there is a lot of literature that has a lot of similarities with, for instance, autism-spectrum disorders. However, there are a lot of personality researchers interested in personality disorders but not in neurodevelopmental disorders which are manifested much earlier in life but are also very interesting to look at from a personality perspective. That is also [true] for ADHD—that might be the domain that some of the personality researchers are most interested in from all the developmental disorders and also have published on—and autism but also other syndromes. I see that there is a lot of interest in specifying the behavioral phenotype associated with the disorders, for instance, with Down syndrome or also with cerebral palsy or all kinds of genetic syndromes. But personality researchers are a bit hesitant to be involved in that; however, that is a very nice challenge to also look at these disorders and try to describe the individual differences from a personality perspective.
What have been some of the challenges in studying this population in terms of the measures, for instance?
If you are really looking at the genetic syndromes, there is the intellectual disability component, which is very important to take into account and we should also discuss and learn on that topic and also look at alternative ways to measure it. One idea is that we also should do something with the free parental descriptions—how the HiPIC is constructed. I know of some researchers who are starting to do that and they also find that most descriptors can be classified by the Big Five or by the Little Five. There are many arguments to also see that, for instance, the Five Factor Model can be validly used in the research on pervasive developmental disorders. It is something that we should study and discuss more and think about more. I think that it is a very interesting population, but understudied.
What are the most exciting developments in personality right now?
That we are evolving towards more multidisciplinary approaches and to implement personality in many other domains of psychology, or psychiatry, or even developmental pediatrics so that we can have more discussion across multiple disciplines to see how the personality concept can enhance and cross-fertilize across domains. For instance, at ARP there were very nice talks about personality and health and how personality is linked to lipid levels and blood pressure and stuff like that and I thought that was really neat and interesting. On the other hand, you also see the evolution towards more clinical practice that we are thinking about how can we change personality traits to get more adaptive and more positive outcomes. So the multidisciplinary impact of personality towards other disciplines, I think that is really nice to see and something that really is exciting. Economics is also getting increasingly interested in looking at personality antecedents and consequences and processes, predicting, for instance, mortality or job success—that is already a bit older. I think the multidisciplinary impact towards multiple disciplines that’s really great.
Any closing words?
It was funny at ARP, when they saw me, they were all asking: “Is it your first baby?” and I said: “Oh no, it is my third.” But then there was a frequent question: “How old are you?” I think it’s a real challenge especially for a woman to be a researcher and a mother at this time before you have tenure or before you have a fixed position or a prospect. That’s challenging. I have had mass of luck to this point. That’s something that maybe we should talk more about: that it might be said that it’s not evident, neither for choosing children or just postponing having children or having family life. It’s good that there is attention for that stuff.