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 Welcome to the second issue of P. P2 has carried through some of the themes we established with P1, and has added some new themes. We have Julie Norem’s outgoing Presidential commentary, which contains some exciting news on new directions that ARP is taking, particularly with respect to our convention, as well as a call to the membership for commitment to our common goals as we grow as a society. P2 also contains an invited commentary by President Elect, Bill Revelle. We were interested in his personal stance as a researcher and also his view of where the field is going. He has provided an intriguing overview of a flourishing personality psychology as the home of generalists and links us, literally, to some of the other groups world wide who are pursuing similar ventures. One of the major goals of P is to provide a forum in which we can put the personal back into personality researchers—in short, to provide a medium through which we can discuss the individual challenges, frequent delights and occasional depressions of doing personality science. In P2 we initiate a column that meets this goal head on. Our flagship journal, the Journal of Research in Personality, announces the winner(s) of the most outstanding article for the year. We don’t want to give away the name(s) of this years’ recipient(s), but did think it would be intriguing to go back to the first winners and ask for a commentary on the award winning article. The model we are using is that of Citation Classic Commentary, where researchers have the chance to describe the personal context of their outstanding articles. The first winners, in 2003, were Greg Feist and Frank Barron for their article “Predicting creativity from early to late adulthood: Intellect, potential, and personality” and Greg has written an engaging and poignant account of how the article came about and reminding us that it was the late Frank Barron’s last published article. We welcome nominations of other outstanding articles, not restricted to JRP outstanding papers, that you would value hearing about. As mentioned in P1 many young researchers will be surprised and intrigued at the path than winds from inception of a research idea to publication and affirmation from the field. We congratulate Greg not only for the article but for his evocative commentary on it. That it also provided us with a glimpse of the inimitable Frank Barron, one of the most creative thinkers about creativity, is a bonus. As in P1 we have a section devoted to Graduate Students. The Graduate student presence has increased substantially in ARP in large part because of the listserv started by Jenn Lodi-Smith (now Dr. Lodi-Smith). Jenn provides, in the most concrete sense, a map of where ARP affiliated students can gather and be collegial in Albuquerque. And speaking of Albuquerque, we thought it would be helpful if members were given a preview of the upcoming conference. On behalf of the Convention Committee (Lynne Cooper, Will Fleesons, and Rebecca Shiner), Lynn has written what is essentially an Invitation to Albuquerque. The keynote on the night of February 6 is by Eric Turkheimer on “What Can We Hope to Learn from the Molecular Genetics of Personality?”. It is always intriguing to discover links between researchers in the burgeoning field of personality and Eric Turkheimer’s topic just happened, coincidentally, to be featured in the report from the Japanese Society of Personality Psychology, a productive group of scientists who are engaged in some outstanding research programs in our field. Their work on the molecular genetics of personality is receiving considerable attention among personality scientists (for example with the new breed of personality neuroscientists such as Colin DeYoung and Jeremy Gray in their chapter on Personality Neuroscience in the new Cambridge Handbook of Personality). We are excited that our colleagues in Japan will continue to keep us informed of their work and we encourage groups in other regions of the world to contribute to P and to let us know what they are doing. Among the quirkier new features of P2 is something we are calling the P Puzzler. We describe a theory of personality of substantial scope and substance, that has stimulated a considerable amount of research, including a Psychological Review paper, but which has not received much attention in introductory texts of personality. The curious can find out what theory X is by waiting for P3. As with P1, we include a section on Events and Accomplishments including some new books in the field and two outstanding job and postdoctoral opportunities. We are relying on the ARP membership to send information to us. As you will see, P has room to give ample space to such announcements, at no cost. Similarly, we have a few new books in the field, including a new text, that are featured in this section. Please send us information on any new books that you have produced or that you feel are worthy of attention in P and we would be happy to provide links to the publishers. We hope for two things: that you enjoy P as an informal way of keeping up with what is happening in the field of personality and that you will actively contribute articles, notices of meetings and of publications, commentaries and other material that will advance our common cause. In future issues of P we will have a section on The Personality Commons, which aims to give details on some of the shared resources that are available in our field. Two notable ones are the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) of Lew Goldberg and colleagues, and the Personality Project of Bill Revelle. We are hoping to encourage both the use of these rich resources and recruitment of scholars who will wish to keep the flame glowing for the next generation of personality scientists. Brian R. Little, Editor |
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