Hi! I’m Jennifer Lodi-Smith, the graduate student editor of P. I’m a fourth year graduate student in the SPO division at UIUC. I work with Brent Roberts on the mechanisms underlying personality development in adulthood.
I came to personality psychology in a very haphazard way. I grew up in central Virginia and was a philosophy major at the College of William and Mary. I was studying philosophy of religion and started taking some psychology courses on the side simply because that was what my best friend was studying. In combination with reading Paul Tillich and taking a course in psychology of religion my Junior year, I became interested in how faith develops over the life span. In the fall of my senior year, I took a class on personality psychology with Jennifer Pals. I was hooked. I did a project on how religiosity related to the experience of flow and Jen suggested I apply for the Masters program in psychology at William and Mary. The deadline was in three days. I threw my application together and was accepted (a good story on how not to apply to graduate school). Working with Jen Pals, I developed an interest in narrative approaches to personality and expanded my research interests beyond how faith develops to how identity as a whole develops over the life span.
 The Masters program at William and Mary was wonderful. I learned a lot about each of the major areas of psychology and began to research how narrative identity relates to personality traits and well-being. From William and Mary, I went to UIUC to pursue my PhD in personality psychology. At UIUC, I’ve continued my interest in the mechanisms underlying identity development. Specifically, I look at how identity certainty changes in adulthood, how commitment to adult social roles (including religion) helps shape personality, and how narratives combine with other domains of personality to inform our understanding of an individual. I am currently working on my dissertation examining how social role investment relates to personality trait change longitudinally in two large samples of adults age 18 to 94.
In the past two years, I have become increasingly interested in the patterns of personality change in older adulthood and the processes underlying these changes. My research suggests that identity changes after age 60, with self-concept clarity decreasing in older adults. My future program of research is three fold – to understand patterns of personality change in older adulthood, to determine how changes in social roles and declines in cognitive functioning impact personality change in older adults, and to understand how the narratives of older adults provide insight into their changing selves. To further this research, I will spend the next year working with Denise Park's Productive Aging Lab to help initiate a large, long-term longitudinal study examining the relations among personality traits, health, well-being, cognitive functioning, neuroimaging, and genes across adulthood.
 However, as I tell all my students, I am more than just my academic interests and it is very important to me to maintain a life outside of my career. I am very close to my family; I have a wonderful relationship, two cats, a dog, and a chinchilla. I try and run everyday and am an avid horseback rider, ultimate Frisbee player, gardner, biker, hiker, and traveler. I enjoy reading everything from The Handbook of Personality Development to Harry Potter. I think the best way for me to be a good researcher is to set a regular schedule for myself in which I work hard to get all my work done and then make sure to allow time for my friends, family, and activities as well so that I can come back to work everyday refreshed and ready to do some more research. |
