Joshua Wilt -- Northwestern University

Joshua Wilt
Graduate Student in Personality/Clinical Psychology
Department of Psychology
Northwestern University
Evanston, Illinois, USA 60208

office: 109 Cresap Laboratory
telephone: 847-491-4515
email: joshuawilt2008@u.northwestern.edu

Education

B.A. in Psychology, Minor in Biochemistry, The Ohio State University, 2001-2005
M.A. in Psychology, Wake Forest University, 2005-2007
Ph.D. Student in Personality/Clinical Psychology Northwestern University, 2007-present

Research interests

I am broadly interested in the study of individual differences. My research investigates the structure of personality, how people make meaning of their lives through life-narratives, intra-indivudal variability in personality states, and the relations between normal and abnormal personality.

Structure of Personality

Biological and descriptive approaches to personality are concerned with identifying the fundamental dimensions along which people differ. My current research in collaboration with William Revelle examines the affective, behavioral, cognitive, and desire (the "ABCDs" of personality) components of basic individual differences. This research uses a web-based personality test that may be found at the Personality Project, a website devoted to current personality theory and research.

The Study of Life-Narratives

One way that people make sense of their lives is through the psychological construction of life narratives. My current research in collaboration with Dan McAdams examines the properties of individual scenes in people's life stories, the functions of life stories, and the intergenerational transmission of virtues through life stories.

Intra-individual Variability in Personality States

Personality states may be thought of as having the same characteristics of personality traits, except whereas traits are thought to be stable, states may change rapidly over short periods of time. My current research in collaboration with William Fleeson examines the relationships between personality states, affect, and subjective judgments of one's own authenticity.

Relations between Normal and Abnormal Personality

A substantial body of research has shown that personality disorders may be conceptualized as extreme variants of normal personality traits. My current research in collaboration with Emily Durbin examines how profiles of personality traits relate to personality pathology.

Selected publications

Wilt, J., Condon, D., and Revelle, W. (in press) Telemetrics: Collecting data at a distance. To appear in Todd D. Little and (Eds.) Handbook of Developmental Research Methods. Guiford.
Wilt, J., Funkhouser, K., & Revelle, W. (2011). The dynamic relationships of affective synchrony to perceptions of situations. Journal of Research in Personality, 45(3), 309-321.
Wilt, J., Oehlberg, K., & Revelle, W. (2011). Anxiety in personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(7) 987-993.
Wilt, J., Schalet, B., & Durbin, C. E. (2010). SNAP trait profiles as valid indicators of personality pathology in a non-clinical sample. Personality and Individual Differences, 48(6), 742-746.
Wilt, J., Cox, K. S., & McAdams, D. P. (2010). The Eriksonian life story: Developmental scripts and psychosocial adaptation. Journal of Adult Development, 17(3), 156-161.
Fleeson, W., & Wilt, J. (2010). The relevance of big-five trait content in behavior to subjective authenticity: Do high levels of within-person variability undermine or enable authenticity? Journal of Personality, 78(4), 1353-1382.
Wilt, J. and Revelle, W. (2009) Extraversion. In Mark Leary and Rick Hoyle (Editors), Handbook of Individual Differences in Social Behavior. Guilford. p 27-45.
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