This is the first post in a series introducing some of the members of the Signal Patterns Scientific Advisory Board. These leading psychologists and researchers work with Signal Patterns to bring their work to the public in the form of various online applications.
Sam Gosling, Ph.D. is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. Sam’s environmental research is based on the idea that the spaces in which we live and work are rich with information about what we are like. In turn, we gain valuable lessons for both our personal and professional lives. His work has been widely covered in the media, including The New York Times, Psychology Today, NPR, and “Good Morning America,” and his research is featured in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. Sam’s latest book, Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You was released in May 2008.
Sam, what’s your research focus?
I have three main areas of interest:
(1) How personality is manifested in everyday life (and how we perceive others on the basis of those manifestations). For example, how do people express their goals, attitudes, values, preferences, traits and identity in the places (e.g., bedrooms, offices, Facebook profiles) they craft around themselves? And how do people form impressions of others on the basis of such places?
(2) Personality in non-human animals. Do animals have personality? If so, what traits do they have, how do they develop and how can we measure them?
(3) Internet methods in the social sciences. What are the costs and benefits of using technologies associated with the Internet to examine basic and applied questions in the social sciences?
What are the applications for your work?
Environments
The first area has applications in understanding others, learning how others are perceiving us, marketing, and in the design of spaces at home and at work.
Animals
The second area has numerous applied and theoretical applications. In the applied domain, we can use personality assessments of animals to match shelter dogs to appropriate homes and to identify working dogs (e.g., in explosive detection, border patrol) best suited to their tasks. The work can also be useful in animal welfare (identifying animals suited to different housing conditions) and wildlife management (finding the combinations of animals best suited to re-introduction techniques). From a theoretical standpoint, we can use animal models to understand the genetic, biological and environmental bases of personality.
Internet
The third area is useful because it develops methods for studying questions that were hard to study using conventional methods (e.g., for questions that require very large samples) and for reaching populations that are hard to access with standard procedures (e.g., very rare conditions).
What are you reading now?
“Some Place Like Home: Using Design Psychology to Create Ideal Places” by Toby Israel
What are good books for the lay person to understand your area of study?
Environments
Um…my book: “Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You”
Toby Israel: Some Place Like Home
Dan P. MacAdams: The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self
Richard Florida: The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life
Animals
Hmm…there’s nothing that really gets at it directly but here are a few:
Frans de Waal: Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes
Robert Sapolksy: A Primate’s Memoir: A Neuroscientist’s Unconventional Life Among the Baboons
Stan Coren: Why We Love the Dogs We Do: How to Find the Dog That Matches Your Personality
Internet
Chris Fraley: How to Conduct Behavioral Research over the Internet: A Beginner’s Guide to HTML and CGI/Perl (Methodology In The Social Sciences)
How is the internet/online applications impacting your work?
It’s having a great impact because the Internet is now one of the primary environments in which people express themselves.
What do you always get asked? What do your students want to know?
- I have an “X” in my living room….what does that mean?
- Let me tell you about my dog/cat…
How would you like to bring your work to the public?
With my book.
What’s the biggest misperception of your field?
That there’s a simple one-to-one relationship between what a person owns and what that person is like.
What’s the ‘holy grail’ for your work?
Understanding how the deepest element of personality–our identity, plays out in everyday life.
What’s wrong with psychology?
A lack of creativity & imagination: Much of the field has become so obsessed with fine tuning methods and statistical techniques that it has taken its eye off the rich psychological behaviors that surround us all.
