Gregory J. Feist

Last updated
Gregory John Feist
Born (1961-12-23) December 23, 1961 (age 61)
Lawrence, Kansas, U.S.
Education University of Massachusetts, Amherst (BA)
University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Scientific career
FieldsPsychology
Institutions College of William & Mary
San Jose State University
Thesis The psychology of science: Personality, cognitive, motivational and working styles of eminent and less eminent scientists (University of California, Berkeley) (1991)
Doctoral advisor Gerald Mendelsohn, Philip Tetlock

Gregory John Feist (born December 23, 1961) is an American psychologist and Professor of Psychology at San Jose State University. He has published in the psychology of creativity, personality, psychology of science, motivated reasoning, the psychology of science, and the development of scientific talent. [1] [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Gregory J. Feist was born in Lawrence, Kansas. His father was a professor of psychology and education at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, LA, where Feist grew up. [3]

Feist earned a degree in psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1985. [3] His senior honors thesis under Seymour Epstein, on the relationship between self- and other-perception in children, was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . [4]

Career

From 1991 to 1995 Feist was assistant professor at San Jose State University and from 1995 to 2002 assistant and associate professor of psychology at the College of William & Mary. He was on the faculty at the University of California, Davis from 2002 to 2006. Since 2006 Feist has been on the faculty at San Jose State University, where he is full professor of psychology. [1]

Research contributions

Psychology of creativity

Feist has extended the work conducted on the personality influences of creative achievement. He was the first to publish a quantitative meta-analysis of the literature on personality and creativity [5] in the arts and sciences. [6] With Frank Barron, Feist conducted a 44-year follow up of Berkeley graduate students, most of whom went on to have careers in the sciences. They found that personality predicted lifetime creative achievement over and above intellect and potential. [7] In 2019, Feist published a functional theory of creativity that argues that having personality traits of high in openness to experience, introversion, self-confidence functions to lower the threshold for creative thought and achievement. [8] He has applied evolutionary theory and sexual selection pressures to explain why people find artistic creativity a sexually attractive trait. [9] Along with Daniel Dostal and Victor Kwan, Feist conducted an extensive analysis of the lifetime incidence of nearly 20 different forms of mental illness in creative artists, writers, musicians, and scientists and found elevated rates of affective disorder and chemical dependency in artists compared to norms, athletes, and creative scientists. [10]

Psychology of science

Beginning with his dissertation in 1991, Feist has been a leading figure in the fledging field of the psychology of science. [11] [2] The first major paper from the dissertation research was published in 1993 and its main findings revealed that observer rated hostility, arrogant working style, and intrinsic motivation were the major influences on scientific productivity and eminence. [12] Collaborating with Michael Gorman, Feist published a systematic review of the scientific literature on the psychology of science. [13]

In 2006, Feist published the Psychology of Science and the Origins of the Scientific Mind. [14] He then helped found the International Society for the Psychology of Science & Technology as well as becoming founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Psychology of Science & Technology.

Feist has investigated the development of scientific talent in winners of the Science Talent Search [15] as well as members of the National Academy of Sciences. Feist found that lifetime scientific achievement was predicted by early expression of talent, early scientific productivity, gender, and immigrant status. [16]

Selected publications

Academic books

Textbooks

Selected awards

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. 1 2 "Feist, Gregory J | People | San Jose State University". www.sjsu.edu. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
  2. 1 2 Witchalls, Clint. "What makes scientists tick?". New Scientist. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
  3. 1 2 Sternberg, Robert J.; Kaufman, James C., eds. (2018). The Nature of Human Creativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108185936. ISBN   978-1-107-19981-1.
  4. ↑ "APA PsycNet". psycnet.apa.org. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
  5. ↑ Feist, Gregory J; Barron, Frank X (April 2003). "Predicting creativity from early to late adulthood: Intellect, potential, and personality". Journal of Research in Personality. 37 (2): 62–88. doi:10.1016/S0092-6566(02)00536-6.
  6. ↑ Feist, Gregory J. (1998). "A Meta-Analysis of Personality in Scientific and Artistic Creativity". Personality and Social Psychology Review. 2 (4): 290–309. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0204_5. ISSN   1088-8683. PMID   15647135. S2CID   24067985.
  7. ↑ Feist, Gregory J; Barron, Frank X (2003-04-01). "Predicting creativity from early to late adulthood: Intellect, potential, and personality". Journal of Research in Personality. 37 (2): 62–88. doi:10.1016/S0092-6566(02)00536-6. ISSN   0092-6566.
  8. ↑ Feist, Gregory J. (2019), Kaufman, James C.; Sternberg, Robert J. (eds.), "The Function of Personality in Creativity: Updates on the Creative Personality", The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity, Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology (2 ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 353–373, doi:10.1017/9781316979839.019, ISBN   978-1-316-63854-5, S2CID   151028590 , retrieved 2022-01-18
  9. ↑ Kaufman, Scott Barry; Kozbelt, Aaron; Silvia, Paul; Kaufman, James C.; Ramesh, Sheela; Feist, Gregory J. (2016). "Who Finds Bill Gates Sexy? Creative Mate Preferences as a Function of Cognitive Ability, Personality, and Creative Achievement". The Journal of Creative Behavior. 50 (4): 294–307. doi:10.1002/jocb.78. ISSN   2162-6057.
  10. ↑ Feist, Gregory J.; Dostal, Daniel; Kwan, Victor (2021-10-21). "Psychopathology in world-class artistic and scientific creativity". Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. doi:10.1037/aca0000440. ISSN   1931-390X. S2CID   239523279.
  11. ↑ "A new discipline emerges: The psychology of science". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
  12. ↑ Feist, Gregory J. (1993). "A Structural Model of Scientific Eminence". Psychological Science. 4 (6): 366–371. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1993.tb00583.x. ISSN   0956-7976. S2CID   144085829.
  13. ↑ Feist, Gregory J.; Gorman, Michael E. (1998). "The Psychology of Science: Review and Integration of a Nascent Discipline". Review of General Psychology. 2 (1): 3–47. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.2.1.3. ISSN   1089-2680. S2CID   18281119.
  14. 1 2 "Psychology of Science and the Origins of the Scientific Mind | Yale University Press". yalebooks.yale.edu. Retrieved 2022-01-18.
  15. ↑ "Regeneron Science Talent Search | Society for Science". Society for Science | Inform. Educate. Inspire. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
  16. ↑ Feist, Gregory J. (2006-03-01). "The Development of Scientific Talent in Westinghouse Finalists and Members of the National Academy of Sciences". Journal of Adult Development. 13 (1): 23–35. doi:10.1007/s10804-006-9002-3. ISSN   1573-3440. S2CID   145538368.
  17. ↑ "Handbook of the Psychology of Science". www.springerpub.com. Retrieved 2022-01-18.
  18. ↑ Feist, Gregory J.; Reiter-Palmon, Roni; Kaufman, James C., eds. (2017). The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity and Personality Research. Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316228036. ISBN   978-1-107-10759-5.
  19. ↑ "William James Book Award" . Retrieved 2022-01-18.
  20. ↑ "Berlyne Award: This award recognizes outstanding research by a junior scholar". American Psychological Association. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
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