An Interview with 2014 Tanaka Award Winner John Rauthmann
by Nicolas Brown
How did you become interested in personality, and more specifically, situations?
I've always been interested in human communication, specifically non-verbal signals and what they tell us about others' personality. So I read my first psychology textbook back in school before university, and it was about personality! Actually, it was the personality psychology textbook from my future advisor, Jens Asendorpf, and at that time I already knew I wanted to study and teach personality and individual differences. I have always been interested in personality judgment because that topic merges my interests on communication processes and personality, though somewhat paradoxically I haven't done any interesting research in that field. That topic did, however, alert me to how important it is—when judging someone—to attend to their consistent behavioral patterns but also to more contextualized patterns, like cross-situational variation of behavior. So, a topic that is dear to me is consistency research and explaining why and how people are consistent. I can only imagine such research if you look at personality and situations jointly, so that's where my interest in situations kicked in. That situation interest has expanded in the last years, especially while working with David Funder and Ryne Sherman, but it is still driven by the core desire to understand personality processes and functioning better.
Are there any projects that you are currently working on that are a result of your dissertation research?
There are actually several lines I'm focusing on right now. First, I'm gathering and analyzing data for the replication or generalizability of the DIAMONDS situation characteristic dimensions from different data sources, item pools, and samples from different cultures. My preliminary analyses are promising that DIAMONDS dimensions do indeed show up across a variety of methods. Second, I focus on situation perception and specifically—kind of in the tradition of personality judgment—which cues situational raters use and how they may achieve agreement on their situational judgments. Third, and most importantly, I am looking into personality-situation transactions, such as how within-person variability in personality states can be predicted by personality-situation fit. My future research builds up on this because I want to understand personality-situation transaction processes in short-, middle-, and long-term time spans better.
What is one research "breakthrough" that you'd like to see personality psychology make in the next 5 to 10 years?
I'd like to see a breakthrough in the molecular genetics of personality differences, especially regarding epigenetics. There still, at least to my limited knowledge, does not seem to be direct evidence that personality differences could be reliably linked to transgenerational epigenetic processes. But I think the possibility that that what my grandparents or parents experienced or did in their lifetimes has epigenetic effects on my personality is intriguing. However, I don't think we're anywhere near demonstrating conclusive evidence for personality-relevant epigenetic mechanisms, so we might not see those breakthroughs in the next years. Another string of research that may come to fruition and provide us with breakthroughs in the next years is voluntary personality change. We might gather more knowledge on efficient and effective intervention forms to change non-pathological personality traits and live a good and healthy life.
If you had to pick one high point from your career, so far, what would that be?
It's difficult to pick, because obviously I have had two highpoints so far: The first one was receiving the acceptance email for my very first first-authored JPSP paper, and the second one the email notifying me that I have won the Tanaka Dissertation Award. I feel really honored, happy, and also lucky to have received this prize.
Besides situations, what do you think is an understudied topic in personality?
You're right, I would have said "situations"! But going into that same direction, I think there should be more studies on how people maintain, evoke, select, change, and create their daily situations and, by extension, also the habitual environments or so-called "socio-ecological niches" they live in. It would be interesting to see studies linking such personality-situation transactions processes to normative as well as voluntary personality development. I'd also think that in this context it would be interesting to focus more on the implicit side of personality, such as chronic modes of automatic and unconscious processing of situational stimuli and spontaneous reactions.
Do you have any advice for students that are new to personality psychology?
I think my advice wouldn't specifically just pertain to personality psychology, but in general be directed at someone who wants to pursue an academic career in psychological science. There are several things you need, but here are my personal "Big Eight":
- Passion: Love what you do
- Dedication: Be devoted to what you do, immerse yourself into it
- Persistence: Pursue your goals and be perseverant (even if there are obstacles)
- Frustration tolerance: There'll be a lot of frustration—you need to deal with and learn from it
- Hard work: Put in that extra effort, working ideally smart and hard
- Planning: Always have a strategy, but don't let plans constrain you and stay flexible
- Network: Surround yourself with people who bring out the best in you or who you admire
- Luck: Though you're unlikely to build a career off of luck alone, you gotta have it from time to time!