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Psychological Organizations and Graduate Programs
National and international societies the sponsor conferences and publish journals relevant to personality include:
- Specialized Societies
- European Association of Personality Psychology (EAPP). The biennial meeting of the European Conference on Personality was held in July, 2004 in Groningen, Netherlands. The 2002 meeting (no longer available) was held in Jena, Germany July 21-25th. The 2000 meeting was held Cracow, Poland. The EAPP produces one of the top international conferences in personality.
- International Society for the Study of Individual Differences (ISSID) will hold its next conference in Adelaide, Australia, July 18th-22nd, 2005. For registration information visit the local arrangements web page. The program of the 2003 meeting in Graz, Austria is available on line. The July, 2001 meeting was held in Edinburgh, Scotland. The 1999 meeting was held in July, 1999 in Vancouver, B.C. The program and abstracts are available.
- Society of Personality and Social Psychology and the Association of Research in Personality held their 2004 annual meeting in Austin, Texas on January 28th, 2004. The 2003 meeting (no longer available) was in Los Angeles February 6-8, 2003 and the January 30- Feb 2, 2002 in Savannah.
- The Association for Research in Personality meets as part of preconference before the SPSP meetings. The program from the 2004 meeting is available.
- Social and Personality Section of the Canadian Psychological Association.
- Spanish Society for the Research of Individual Differences
- General Societies
- Related Societies
- AERA Special Interest Groups include ones devoted to Structural Equation Modeling and Statistics.
- Behavior Genetics Association
- Classification Society
- Human Behavior and Evolution Society
- TIP--The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist newsletter of The Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
- Midwestern Psychological Association
- Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology
- Conferences relevant to personality research include:
- European Association of Personality Psychology (EAPP). Meets every other (even) year.
- International Society for the Study of Individual Differences (ISSID) Meets every other (odd) year.
- The Association for Research in Personality meets just before the SPSP annual meeting.
- The Society of Personality and Social Psychology holds its annual meeting in late January or early February.
- The American Psychological Association Annual Convention meets in August.
- The American Psychological Society meets every May.
- The annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association is held every May in Chicago, Illinois. (Program)
- Much more complete lists of upcoming conferences relevant to personality research are maintained by the University of Bonn
- For a much more extensive list of academic departments of psychology, see the World wide list of Psychological Sciences at Stanford University.
Graduate Departments of Psychology with Personality Programs
By no means a complete list, the following universities have graduate training programs in personality research or individual differences. Two comments: some departments offer training in "psychopathology" that is almost identical to those programs that offer training in "personality".Also note that some departments do not have web pages, although the university does. (Also note that this part of the page is sadly out of date.)
- University of British Columbia
- University of Buffalo, Social Psychology has faculty interested in personality
- University of California, Berkeley
- University of California, Los Angeles- psychometrics
- University of California, Davis.
- University of California,Riverside
- Center for Evolutionary Psychology at UCSB lists a variety of Evolutionary Psychology programs around the country.These overlap to some degree with personality programs.
- University of Colorado, Boulder, Institute of Behavioral Genetics
- Harvard University (psychopathology)
- University of Illinois Department of Psychology
- University of Iowa, Personality and Social Psychology and http://www.psychology.uiowa.edu/training3.html
- University of Michigan
- University of Minnesota
- University of Missouri, Personality and Social
- Northwestern University personality
- University of Oregon
- University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychology (psychopathology)
- Stanford University personality
- University of Texas (Individual Differences and Evolutionary Psychology) (see also the social/personality program)
- York University, Toronto, Canada Personality and Social Psychology
- University of Wisconsin (Personality/Social)
European universities that have active research programs in individual differences include:
- Department of Personality, University of Barcelona
- University of Bonn
- University of London
- Oxford University
- University of Warsaw
Graduate Programs in related fields
- Cognitive Psychology (list maintained by Stanford University
- Clinical Psychology
- Evolutionary Psychology(Human Behavior and Evolution Society)
- Industrial-Organizational Psychology
- Social Psychology (list maintained by Wesleyan University)
A much more complete list of graduate departments is available from the American Psychological Society server at Hanover College.
The US National Research Council rankings of graduate deparments of psychology are provided by Wesleyan University which also maintains a list of Social Psychology in Action.
How to apply to graduate schools
Very good advice for undergraduates interested in graduate schools is available from PSYCH WEB, a project of Russ Dewey at Georgia Southern University. Marshall Dermer offers frank advice (missing) to graduate students and their advisors. He also has offered An insider's guide to choosing a graduate advisor. Advice geared to applicants to clinical psychology graduate programs is also useful.
Most graduate schools in the United States require taking the Graduate Record Examination. Information about the Advanced GRE in Psychology is available from Kaplan, one of the groups that provide coaching on the GREs.
Being a scientist
The National Academy of Sciences offers advice on Being a Scientist:Responsible Conduct in Research.This includes discussions and examples of such problems of whom should get publication credit, the difficult relation of graduate advisors and students, and general issues in research ethics. The NAS also offers a publication and online information about careers in science.
See also the The Next Wave the online publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) devoted to the next generation of scientists. The pages include discussion forums on problems faced by graduate students and post doctoral fellows, as well as information on job availabilities and salaries in multiple disciplines.
The Ethical Principlesof the American Psychological Association should be consulted to understand how psychologists deal with human subjects, publication credit, other work related aspects of academic and professional psychology. The code "applies only to psychologists' work-related activities, that is, activities that are part of the psychologists' scientific and professional functions or that are psychological in nature. It includes the clinical or counseling practice of psychology, research, teaching, supervision of trainees, devel- opment of assessment instruments, conducting assessments, educational counseling, organizational consulting, social intervention, administration, and other activities as well. These work-related activities can be distinguished from the purely private conduct of a psychologist, which ordinarily is not within the purview of the Ethics Code."
Graduate students may consult the Graduate School Survival Guide and advice on How to Survive in Graduate School (missing). Also see the compilation of Graduate Student Resources on the Web.
Then, once you are almost finished with graduate school, you might want to think about how to get an academic job. Guidelines for the job interview (missing) are very useful.
Why people want to teach and study at research universities was discussed in a commencent speech, "In praise of the research university" by Harry Mairson at Brandeis.
Faculty at most of the schools listed above may be contacted by searching either the departmental or the university directories. It is possible to search for some faculty by using The Community of Sciences Databases
For a more complete listing of psychology departments around the world,consult the lists at