Personality/Abnormal Psychology

This area covers a broad range of topics, many of them crossing the border between basic and applied research. The area may be divided into four subareas:  

Eating and eating disorders

Peter Herman and Janet Polivy work mainly on determinants of eating, with an emphasis on the interaction of physiological, cognitive and environmental factors, and with special attention to the aberrations displayed by dieters. With Patricia Pliner, they share an interest in physique, its relation to eating behaviour, and its impact on personality, health, and social behaviour. Pliner also studies food selection processes, including the acquisition and maintenance of food preferences and aversions, neophobia, and the cultural transmission of food knowledge and attitudes. Polivy is also interested in the treatment of eating disorders. (A number of researchers in the Brain and Behaviour graduate program in Psychology also work on problems related to feeding; collaboration between human and animal researchers is encouraged.)

 The Department offers a special program in Research on Eating and its Disorders, drawing students from the Personality/Abnormal Psychology and Brain and Behaviour areas. This program offers a clinical extension for selected participants. For more information, contact Dr. Jonathan L. Freedman, Director of Graduate Studies.

Addictive behaviours

Jordan Peterson is interested in motivation for drug and alcohol abuse.  The other faculty in the addictions sub-area are based at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health with cross-appointments to Psychology. Constantine Poulos is interested in learning mechanisms in drug use, including the dynamics of reinforcement, addiction, and tolerance; he conducts human and animal research.  John Cunningham is interested in why and how people change addictive behaviours, and on ways that treatment delivery systems could be structured in order to optimize these efforts.

Affect and affective disorders

Janet Polivy is interested in the experimental analysis of normal emotional processes, including the interpersonal function of emotion. Kirk Blankstein's research focuses on text anxiety. Lester Krames works experimentally and therapeutically on pain. Keith Oatley is developing cognitive theories of emotions, and investigating the effects of emotions on informal reasoning, on inference during reading, and on interpersonal interaction. He is also studying the effects of severe life events and difficulties on depression. Jean Saint-Cyr (at Toronto Western Hospital) works with patients with movement and cognitive disorders arising from basal ganglia disease (e.g., Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease).

Individual differences

Some of our newer researchers are doing research on the self.  Much of Romin Tafarodi's research involves relating a two-dimensional conceptualization of global self-esteem to aspects of motivation and cognition. He is also examining the role of choice in the development of self-competence.  Jordan Peterson is interested in personality and cognitive correlates of academic/industrial performance.  He is also interested in structure of narrative, and motivation for social conflict.   Konstantine Zakzanis is interested in the preclinical and clinical differentiation of dementia and neuropsychiatric syndromes using neuropsychological and structural and functional neuroimaging measures.  Other interests include the application of virtual reality computer technology to understand the neuropsychological basis of visual memory and executive function.
 

Faculty:

Kirk R. Blankstein (Waterloo) ERIN - psychophysiology

Peter Herman (Columbia) ST.G. - personality, motivation, eating disorders

Lester Krames (Temple) ERIN - emotion, motivation

Jordan Peterson (McGill) ST.G. - personality, motivation, narrative

Patricia Pliner (Pennsylvania) ERIN - social psychology, eating

Janet Polivy (Northwestern) ERIN - personality, eating disorders

Romin W. Tafarodi (UTexas - Austin) ST.G. - self-esteem, choice, culture

Konstantine. K. Zakzanis (York) SCAR - clinical neuropsychology

 

Cross-appointed faculty members:

John A. Cunningham (University of Toronto) ARF - addictive behaviour

Keith Oatley (London) OISE - emotions, affective disorders

Constantine X. Poulos (Iowa) ARF - animal and human studies of drug addiction

Jean A. Saint-Cyr (Rochester) TWH - neuropsychology, neuroanatomy