Peter J. Rentfrow

Last updated
Jason Rentfrow Jason Rentfrow.jpg
Jason Rentfrow

Peter Jason Rentfrow is professor of personality and individual differences in the Psychology Department at Cambridge University, where he directs the Social Dynamics Research Center. He is an elected Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Alan Turing Institute. [1]

Contents

Biography

Rentfrow was born in Louisiana and later moved to Texas, where he graduated from Kingwood High School. He studied psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned his BA in 1998 and PhD in 2004 under the supervision of Samuel D. Gosling, William B. Swann, and James W. Pennebaker. [2] Rentfrow joined the faculty of the Psychology Department at Cambridge University in 2005.

Research

Rentfrow's research interests include geographical psychology, music psychology, and psychological assessment. His research seeks to understand the ways in which personality traits interact with the environment and become expressed in everyday life.

Geographical psychology

Rentfrow's research in geographical psychology demonstrates that social influence, ecological influence, and selective migration are key mechanisms that contribute to the spatial clustering of psychological characteristics. [3]

Personal tastes and preferences

His work in this area seeks to understand the degree to which personal preferences reflect and effectively communicate information about people’s psychological characteristics. [4] [5] [6] [7]

Psychological and behavioral assessment

In collaboration with Samuel D. Gosling, he developed the Ten-Item Personality Inventory, [8] a brief measure of the Big Five personality traits. Also with Gosling, he developed the Short Test of Musical Preferences, [5] an individual difference measure designed to assess musical preferences. With Lewis R. Goldberg and Daniel J. Levitin, he developed an audio-based measure of musical preferences in which respondents report their effective reactions to excerpts of various pieces of music. [4] [9] In addition to traditional self-report measures, Rentfrow has collaborated with computer scientist Cecilia Mascolo to develop a mobile sensing platform for measuring behavior and psychological states unobtrusively. [10]

Honours

Rentfrow is an elected Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Alan Turing Institute. [1]

He edited Geographical Psychology, which reviews the state of the science on the ways in which psychological traits vary across geographic regions. With Daniel J. Levitin, he co-edited Foundations in Music Psychology, which reviews the state of the science on the neurological, cognitive, and social psychological bases of musical experiences. Rentfrow has served as a member of the senior editorial team for five psychology journals, including Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and Social Psychological and Personality Science. [1]

Publications

Books

Most-cited peer-reviewed papers

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Personality test</span> Method of assessing human personality constructs

A personality test is a method of assessing human personality constructs. Most personality assessment instruments are in fact introspective self-report questionnaire measures or reports from life records (L-data) such as rating scales. Attempts to construct actual performance tests of personality have been very limited even though Raymond Cattell with his colleague Frank Warburton compiled a list of over 2000 separate objective tests that could be used in constructing objective personality tests. One exception, however, was the Objective-Analytic Test Battery, a performance test designed to quantitatively measure 10 factor-analytically discerned personality trait dimensions. A major problem with both L-data and Q-data methods is that because of item transparency, rating scales, and self-report questionnaires are highly susceptible to motivational and response distortion ranging from lack of adequate self-insight to downright dissimulation depending on the reason/motivation for the assessment being undertaken.

Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being responsible, careful or diligent. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well, and to take obligations to others seriously. Conscientious people tend to be efficient and organized as opposed to easy-going and disorderly. They tend to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; they display planned rather than spontaneous behavior; and they are generally dependable. Conscientiousness manifests in characteristic behaviors such as being neat, systematic, careful, thorough, and deliberate.

Minnesota nice is a cultural stereotype applied to the behavior of people from Minnesota, implying residents are unusually courteous, reserved, and mild-mannered compared to people from other states and more akin to their Canadian neighbors in Northern Ontario. The phrase also implies polite friendliness, an aversion to open confrontation, a tendency toward understatement, a disinclination to make a direct fuss or stand out, apparent emotional restraint, and self-deprecation. It is sometimes associated with passive-aggression.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big Five personality traits</span> Personality model consisting of five broad dimensions

The Big Five personality traits, sometimes known as "the five-factor model of personality" or "OCEAN model", are a grouping of five unique characteristics used to study personality.

Lewis R. Goldberg is an American personality psychologist and a professor emeritus at the University of Oregon. He is closely associated with the lexical hypothesis that any culturally important personality characteristic will be represented in the language of that culture. This hypothesis led to a five factor structure of personality trait adjectives. When applied to personality items this structure is also known as the five-factor model (FFM) of personality. He is the creator of the International Personality Item Pool(IPIP), a website that provides public-domain personality measures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard E. Nisbett</span> American psychologist (born 1941)

Richard Eugene Nisbett is an American social psychologist and writer. He is the Theodore M. Newcomb Distinguished Professor of social psychology and co-director of the Culture and Cognition program at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Nisbett's research interests are in social cognition, culture, social class, and aging. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University, where his advisor was Stanley Schachter, whose other students at that time included Lee Ross and Judith Rodin.

Neuroticism is a personality trait associated with negative emotions. It is one of the Big Five traits. Individuals with high scores on neuroticism are more likely than average to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, pessimism, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness. Such people are thought to respond worse to stressors and are more likely to interpret ordinary situations, such as minor frustrations, as appearing hopelessly difficult. Their behavioral responses may include procrastination, substance use, and other maladaptive behaviors, which may aid in relieving negative emotions and generating positive ones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agreeableness</span> Personality trait

Agreeableness is a personality trait referring to individuals that are perceived as kind, sympathetic, cooperative, warm, honest, and considerate. In personality psychology, agreeableness is one of the five major dimensions of personality structure, reflecting individual differences in cooperation and social harmony.

Openness to experience is one of the domains which are used to describe human personality in the Five Factor Model. Openness involves six facets, or dimensions: active imagination (fantasy), aesthetic sensitivity, attentiveness to inner feelings, preference for variety (adventurousness), intellectual curiosity, and challenging authority. A great deal of psychometric research has demonstrated that these facets or qualities are significantly correlated. Thus, openness can be viewed as a global personality trait consisting of a set of specific traits, habits, and tendencies that cluster together.

William B. Swann is a professor of social and personality psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is primarily known for his work on identity, self and self-esteem, but has also done research on relationships, social cognition, group processes, accuracy in person perception and interpersonal expectancy effects. He received his Ph.D. in 1978 from the University of Minnesota and undergraduate degree from Gettysburg College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Extraversion and introversion</span> Personality trait

Extraversion and introversion are a central trait dimension in human personality theory. The terms were introduced into psychology by Carl Jung, though both the popular understanding and current psychological usage are not the same as Jung's original concept. Extraversion tends to be manifested in outgoing, talkative, energetic behavior, whereas introversion is manifested in more reflective and reserved behavior. Jung defined introversion as an "attitude-type characterised by orientation in life through subjective psychic contents", and extraversion as "an attitude-type characterised by concentration of interest on the external object".

The Hominoid Personality Questionnaire is a personality rating instrument used for non-human primates. It is an extended version of the Orangutan Personality Questionnaire, which was an extended version of King and Figueredo's Chimpanzee Personality Questionnaire. The HPQ has been used to assess personality in non-human primate species.

The psychology of music preference is the study of the psychological factors behind peoples' different music preferences. One study found that after researching through studies from the past 50 years, there are more than 500 functions for music. Music is heard by people daily in many parts of the world, and affects people in various ways from emotional regulation to cognitive development, along with providing a means for self-expression. Music training has been shown to help improve intellectual development and ability, though minimal connection has been found as to how it affects emotion regulation. Numerous studies have been conducted to show that individual personality can have an effect on music preference, though a recent meta-analysis has shown that personality in itself explains little variance in music preferences. These studies are not limited to American culture, as they have been conducted with significant results in countries all over the world, including Japan, Germany, Spain, and Brazil.

Identity fusion, a psychological construct rooted in social psychology and cognitive anthropology, is a form of alignment with groups in which members experience a visceral sense of oneness with the group. The construct relies on a distinction between the personal self and the social self. As the name suggests, identity fusion involves the union of the personal and social selves. When fusion occurs, both the personal and social selves remain salient and influential but the boundaries between them become highly permeable. In addition, the theory proposes that fused persons come to regard other group members as "family" and develop strong relational ties to them as well as ties to the collective. Therefore, fused persons are not just bound to the collective; they are tied to the individual members of the collective.

BBC Lab UK was a BBC website that allowed the public to take part in online experiments by completing tests and surveys. The website was active for four years until its data collection ceased in May 2013. Details of the experiments and projects have now been archived.

A zero-acquaintance situation requires a perceiver to make a judgment about a target with whom the perceiver has had no prior social interaction. These judgments can be made using a variety of cues, including brief interactions with the target, video recordings of the target, photographs of the target, and observations of the target's personal environments, among others. In zero-acquaintance studies, the target's actual personality is determined through the target's self-rating and/or ratings from close acquaintance(s) of that target. Consensus in ratings is determined by how consistently perceivers rate the target's personality when compared to other raters. Accuracy in ratings is determined by how well perceivers' ratings of a target compare to that target's self-ratings on the same scale, or to that target's close acquaintances' ratings of the target. Zero-acquaintance judgments are regularly made in day-to-day life. Given that these judgments tend to remain stable, even as the length of interaction increases, they can influence important interpersonal outcomes.

Simine Vazire is Professor of Psychology Ethics and Wellbeing at the University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. She was formerly Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis and at Washington University in St. Louis. She is a social and personality psychologist who studies how self-perception and self-knowledge influence one's personality and behavior. She obtained a PhD in the social and personality psychology program at the University of Texas at Austin.

Iowa nice is a cultural label used to describe the stereotypical attitudes and behaviors of residents within the U.S. state of Iowa, particularly in terms of the friendly agreeableness and emotional trust shown by individuals who are otherwise strangers. While the term's precise meaning is difficult to define, 'Iowa nice' as a concept has been touched upon by both national publications such as The Huffington Post and Iowan publications such as The Gazette and The Quad City Times. It can be analogized to the similar notions of Minnesota nice and Southern hospitality.

Social investment theory is a psychological theory that claims that changes in personality traits over time are driven by changes in persons' commitments to social roles and institutions. For instance, young adults may undertake efforts to be "more socially dominant, agreeable, conscientious, and less neurotic" in order to establish their careers or families; in so far as society rewards these efforts, the related personality traits are reinforced.

David Michael Greenberg is a psychologist, neuroscientist, and musician. He is best known for his contributions to personality psychology, social psychology, social neuroscience, music psychology, and autism.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Rentfrow, Dr Jason (April 5, 2012). "Dr Jason Rentfrow". www.psychol.cam.ac.uk.
  2. Peter Jason Rentfrow (2004). Message in a ballad : personality judgements [sic] based on music preferences (Thesis). William B Swann, Samuel D Gosling (Supervisors). University of Texas at Austin. OCLC   69019693.
  3. Rentfrow, Peter J.; Jokela, Markus (2016-12-01). "Geographical Psychology: The Spatial Organization of Psychological Phenomena". Current Directions in Psychological Science. 25 (6): 393–398. doi:10.1177/0963721416658446. ISSN   0963-7214. S2CID   151745822.
  4. 1 2 Rentfrow, P. J.; Goldberg, L. R.; Levitin, D. J. (2011). "APA PsycNet". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 100 (6): 1139–1157. doi:10.1037/a0022406. PMC   3138530 . PMID   21299309.
  5. 1 2 Rentfrow, P. J.; Gosling, S. D. (2003). "APA PsycNet". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 84 (6): 1236–1256. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.84.6.1236. PMID   12793587 . Retrieved 2021-08-13.
  6. Rentfrow, Peter J.; Gosling, Samuel D. (2006-03-01). "Message in a Ballad: The Role of Music Preferences in Interpersonal Perception". Psychological Science. 17 (3): 236–242. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01691.x. ISSN   0956-7976. PMID   16507064. S2CID   16271901.
  7. Rentfrow, Peter J. (2012). "The Role of Music in Everyday Life: Current Directions in the Social Psychology of Music". Social and Personality Psychology Compass. 6 (5): 402–416. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012.00434.x. ISSN   1751-9004.
  8. Gosling, Samuel D.; Rentfrow, Peter J.; Swann, William B. (2003-12-01). "A very brief measure of the Big-Five personality domains". Journal of Research in Personality. 37 (6): 504–528. doi:10.1016/S0092-6566(03)00046-1. ISSN   0092-6566. S2CID   7147133.
  9. Rentfrow, Peter J.; Goldberg, Lewis R.; Stillwell, David J.; Kosinski, Michal; Gosling, Samuel D.; Levitin, Daniel J. (2012-12-01). "The Song Remains the Same: A Replication and Extension of the MUSIC Model". Music Perception. 30 (2): 161–185. doi:10.1525/mp.2012.30.2.161. ISSN   0730-7829. PMC   4016970 . PMID   24825945.
  10. Lathia, Neal; Pejovic, Veljko; Rachuri, Kiran K.; Mascolo, Cecilia; Musolesi, Mirco; Rentfrow, Peter J. (July 2013). "Smartphones for Large-Scale Behavior Change Interventions". IEEE Pervasive Computing. 12 (3): 66–73. doi:10.1109/MPRV.2013.56. ISSN   1536-1268. S2CID   14134567.
  11. 1 2 Rentfrow, Peter J (September 27, 2014). Geographical psychology: exploring the interaction of environment and behavior. American Psychological Association. ISBN   9781433815393. OCLC   1137359444 via Open WorldCat.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 Peter J. Rentfrow publications indexed by Google Scholar, Accessed Sept 19. 2021