A pair of Knox College psychology professors are exploring how a personality is formed and are looking to local families for a hand.
Andrew Hertel and Sara O’Brien, both Knox assistant professors of psychology hope to enroll 250 pairs.
They’re looking to conduct interviews with mothers over the age of 18 and children ages 11-14.
Hertzel says they are “looking at similarities between parents, specifically mothers and their adolescent children in personality characteristics and health-related behaviors.”
The team explains that we often think of personality as a fixed trait that is inherited and stays stable over a lifetime but that’s not necessarily the case.
O’Brien says that other research has studied adaptive traits but they’re just starting to measure “maladaptive traits.”
This is a longitudinal study meaning the researchers will follow up with subjects and perform the same study again, to seewhat changes and what stays the same.
The study is funded by a $400,000 grant from Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
