Welcome to the Personality Processes Lab.

We all vary in terms of the stable patterns of our affect, behavior and cognition – how we feel, what we do and what we think. Personality traits describe coherent patterns of variation in these processes. Personality theories are models for explaining why personality varies in the way that it does. These theories focus on various psychological processes (e.g., appetitive motivation, negative emotionality, cognitive control, social cognition) and are situated at various levels of analysis (e.g., biological, cognitive, social). Methods for testing personality theories span the gamut of behavioural science,  from molecular genetics to text messaging surveys (“telemetrics”). The depth and breadth of this field is why personality is often called the last refuge for the generalist in psychology.

Our lab has a particular focus on the explanation of basic personality variations in terms of broad motivation (e.g., approach of reward) and emotion (e.g., enjoyment of pleasure) processes, and the brain systems responsible for their regulation (e.g., mesolimbic dopamine system).

Dr Luke D. Smillie, Lab Director
The University of Melbourne