My research examines how personality traits operate differently depending on where people live, and what that means for behavior and well-being.
Personality traits don't predict behavior the same way everywhere. My primary research program investigates how associations between personality and outcomes (pro-environmental behavior, political ideology, health behaviors) vary across geographic regions in the United States. I use multilevel models and large-scale datasets to identify which place-level factors, from urbanicity to political climate, account for this variation.
With collaborators at Northwestern and the University of Vienna, I'm examining how spatial cognitive abilities (sense of direction, mental rotation) relate to topographical and geographic accessibility indicators. This work bridges personality psychology with cognitive and environmental psychology, asking whether the physical landscape people navigate shapes and is shaped by their cognitive profiles.
I also work on measurement questions in personality psychology. My work with William Revelle addresses the trade-off between internal consistency and validity, argues for alternative metaphors for thinking about validity (spear fishing vs. fishing nets), and contributes to best practices in scale construction and R-based psychometric tools.
Research on personality structure, geographic variation in personality-behavior associations, psychometrics, and R-based tools for psychological research.
Research on personality and cognitive aging, loneliness, social isolation, and lifespan developmental trajectories.
Selected from 25+ conference presentations since 2018.