An Interview with 2019 Early Career Award Winner, Aidan Wright
1. What are you working on right now? What do you want to work on in the next years?
The majority of my lab's work is focused on studying personality and psychopathology as contextualized dynamic processes. Broadly, we have been collecting large samples of ambulatory assessment data capturing things like daily stress, interpersonal behavior, and affect in life as it is lived. More specifically, we've been looking at measuring grandiose and vulnerable narcissistic states, how variable they are within and between persons, and what other contextual features predict shifts in these states. Much of this work has been spearheaded by Betsy Edershile, a graduate student in my lab. Moving forward, I anticipate continuing to study individual differences in these dynamic processes, but I anticipate that they will become increasingly intensively sampled (e.g., via passive sensing) and more personalized (i.e., via idiographic modeling). My lab has also been working on methods and applications of statistics that can bridge the traditional idiographic and nomothetic divide.
2. Which topics do you think will be "hot" in the coming years?
The topic that everyone seems to be focused on, but nobody really knows how to grapple with, is how to conceptualize and study the generating processes of personality traits. Or, stated otherwise, how do we move from a descriptive to an explanatory framework of personality? Related to this, I think that Colin DeYoung's Cybernetic Big 5 theory of personality is among the most forward thinking, comprehensive, and tractable, and I would imagine this will generate a number of impactful research projects in the near future, or at least I hope it will. More prosaically, I imagine that passive sensing and mobile technology will continue to be an exciting avenue of future research and development, but it needs to move beyond the "proof of concept" and concerningly small sample phase.
3. Where do you get your inspiration or research ideas from?
Much of my work involves taking a basic personality approach towards understanding psychopathology or maladaptive functioning. In many respects, the challenges that have faced and continue to face psychopathology have been the same as those that basic personality has and continues to deal with, but psychopathology has been trailing behind basic personality science, at least in some respects. So, I often identify a challenging or vexing issue in the clinical domain and then turn to how basic personality science has dealt with similar issues and borrow liberally from those approaches. The opposite is true too, and clinical science has much to offer basic personality science. Sometimes what seems to be the most necessary work is illustrating when disparate literatures are describing the same fundamental construct.
4. How do you maintain work-life balance?
The balance has shifted in recent years, from being heavily tilted towards work towards being more heavily tilted towards life. Some of the motivating factors have been quite large, including having my daughter (my first child) and getting a health scare. Perhaps because of this, it's been relatively easy for me to set up some pretty strict guidelines for myself so that the balance is manageable. For instance, I won't schedule meetings after 430pm because I have to do daycare pick up or get home to make dinner, and I won't schedule meetings before 10am, so that I can go to the gym. I make very few exceptions to these. I find drawing the bright line forces me to figure something else out to make it work, because if I allowed myself more flexibility, I would break the rules all the time. Imposing these boundaries comes at a cost, mostly in productivity, but those are worth it to me. And, it's not like I don't struggle to find balance still; lately I've realized I spend too much time doing reviews and need to start saying no more often, but it's a work in progress and generally I'm achieving the balance I want. I still end up apologizing a lot for not being able to do something I should be doing, but those apologies are directed to colleagues and not family, and that turns out to be a good trade to make. I should emphasize, my position as a professor in a secure position allows me to draw these bright lines and stick to them.
5. Do you have any advice for early career researchers?
I do, and it relates to work-life balance. For those who are interested in an academic track at a research university, I would recommend thinking about investment in work developmentally. Much of graduate school and the lead up to tenure is very similar to starting a small business, with you as the CEO. Many of the demands are similar. There are big risks, it requires lots of investment of time and energy, and you often need to be proficient in every aspect of the business despite not having expertise (or formal training) in all of it. You need to get the operation off the ground and build a "brand" (i.e., your program of research that is unique and provides a valuable product to the community). The rewards are similar too, it's intellectually stimulating and exciting. During those early years, it is likely to seem precarious and it might seem a bit like sprinting a marathon. But this phase doesn't last forever, and at some point, you probably want to get the business to the point where it is sustainable and runs along without too much effort on your part. I mention this because I've heard relatively little discussion about the fact that work-life balance isn't constant throughout your career (and yes, of course there are individual differences). In the early years, it seems only natural that it would take considerable investment of time and effort in career to get things going. This is likely to feel more acceptable if one thinks about it being time-limited, and that it is something that can ease up once the business (i.e., lab) is self-sustaining. So, I would encourage early career researchers to approach the work-life balance issue developmentally, and expect to have a heavy push early as they are trying to get off the runway, but less effort should be expected once you hit cruising altitude. And again, there are individual differences in what this trajectory looks like, and how high or low on work-time investment you want to go. But I think the normative trend can and frequently does follow this non-linear trajectory. Just nobody mention the committee work that comes after tenure...