Research interests:

A significant feature of the human condition is that it is not at all clear how to live life, yet something must be tried. Some of the efforts add to successful, satisfying lives, while others lead to dead ends, frustrated hopes, and wasted resources. My fascination with this feature of the human condition has led me to the study of self-regulation: what people do, try to do, and are able to do to improve the quality of their lives.

What are people trying to do?

In this line of research, I typically ask subjects what goals they are pursuing and how they think about them, and then examine how these goals show up in their daily life and cause them to act or feel certain ways. Subjects carry Palm Pilots with them for two weeks and describe what is going on around them and in their own heads every few hours.

Fleeson, W., Malanos, A., & Achille, N. (2002). An intra-individual, process approach to the relationship between extraversion and positive affect: Is acting extraverted as "good" as being extraverted? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1409-1422.

What works to create high quality of life?

One important starting question is whether it is one’s circumstances or what one makes of them that is important for a high quality life. I try to determine the relative importance of objective circumstances (e.g., income, status, health) and of internal psychological factors (e.g., personality, subjective evaluation of objective circumstances) in predicting life quality.

Fleeson, W. (2004). The quality of American life at the turn of the century. In O.G. Brim, C.D. Ryff, & R.C. Kessler (Eds.), How healthy are we?: A national study of well-being at midlife (pp. 252-272). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press

How variable is personality?

The power of internal psychological factors in producing life quality suggests changing internal psychological factors may be the most productive way to improve life quality. However, because change can be seen as the opposite of stability, and stability can be seen as necessary for identity or even for the existence of personality, change and stability are in perpetual tension. As a result, I turned towards investigating the potential for, and the causes and the consequences of, personality change, both in the long-term and in the short-term. Thus, my work in this direction is relevant to basic questions of personality psychology: What is identity? Can personality change? Does personality exist?

Fleeson, W. (2001). Towards a structure- and process-integrated view of personality: Traits as density distributions of states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 1011-1027.

Fleeson, W. (2004). Moving personality beyond the person-situation debate: The challenge and the opportunity of within-person variability. Current Directions, 13, 83-87.

• Personality Research
• Research Methods I
• Research Methods II
• Seminar in Personality

 

William Fleeson Vita (PDF)

	Sherdell, L., Waugh, C. E., & Gotlib, I. H. (in prep). Anticipatory pleasure predicts motivation for reward in Major Depression.
	Waugh, C. E., Thompson, R., & Gotlib, I. H. (under review). Flexible affective and physiological responding in trait resilience. Under review.
	Waugh, C. E., Mutadie, L., Thompson, R., Joormann, J., & Gotlib, I.H. (under review). Affective and physiological responses to stress in girls at elevated risk for depression. Under review.
	Waugh, C. E., Panage, S., Mendes, W., & Gotlib, I. H. (2010). Cardiovascular and affective recovery from anticipatory threat. Biological Psychology, 84, 169-175.
	Waugh, C. E., Hamilton, J. P., & Gotlib, I. H. (2010). The neural temporal dynamics of the intensity of emotional experience. Neuroimage, 49, 1699-1707.
	Wager, T. D., Waugh, C.E., Lindquist, M., Fredrickson, B.L., Taylor, S. F., & Noll, D. C. (2009).Brain mediators of cardiovascular responses to social threat, Part I: Reciprocal dorsal and ventral sub-regions of the medial prefrontal cortex and heart-rate reactivity. Neuroimage, 47, 821-835.
	Waugh, C. E., Dearing, K. F., Joormann, J., & Gotlib, I. H. (2009). Association between the Catechol-o-methyltransferase val158met polymorphism and self-perceived social acceptance in adolescent girls. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, 19(4), 395-401.
	Waugh, C. E., Taylor, S. F., & Fredrickson, B. L., (2008). Adapting to life’s slings and arrows: Individual differences in resilience when recovering from an anticipated threat. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 1031-1046.
	Waugh, C. E., Tugade, M. M., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2008). Psychophysiology of stress and resilience. In: Lukey, B. & Tepe, V. (Eds.), Biobehavioral Resilience to Stress (pp. 117-138). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press
	Waugh, C. E., Wager, T. D., Fredrickson, B. L., Noll, D. N., & Taylor, S. F. (2008). The neural correlates of trait resilience when anticipating and recovering from threat.  Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 3, 322-332.
	Waugh, C.E. & Gotlib, I.H. (2008). Motivation for reward as a function of required effort: Dissociating the 'liking' from the 'wanting' system in humans. Motivation and Emotion, 32, 323-330.
	Lindquist, M. A., Waugh, C., & Wager, T. D. (2007). Modeling state-related fMRI activity using change-point theory. Neuroimage, 35, 1125-1141.
	Waugh, C. E., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2006). Nice to know you: Positive emotions, self-other overlap, and complex understanding in the formation of a new relationship. Journal of Positive Psychology, 1(2), 93-106.
	Fredrickson, B. L., Tugade, M. M, Waugh, C. E., & Larkin, G. (2003). What Good Are Positive Emotions in Crises? A Prospective Study of Resilience and Emotions following the Terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), 365-376.

Emotion