People attending conference.

Building Bridges between Economics and Personality Psychology

The Spencer Conference Series on Individual Differences and Economic Behavior

The goal of this conference was to foster communication between psychologists and economists. Speakers focused on integrating economic concepts of preferences, expectations, and constraints with psychological constructs to explore how each field can enrich the other.

The conference was informal and run as a series of roundtable discussions with some participants selected to feature their work in an effort to foster productive general discussion.

Program & Resources

May 8, 2009

Opening Remarks

Speakers
The Parallel Systems of Preferences (economics) and Personality (psychology)
James J. Heckman, Brent Roberts, and Angela Duckworth

Session 1: Relating Economic Preference Parameters to Personality and Measures of Cognition

Moderator
Colin Camerer
California Institute of Technology
Roundtable Initiators
Thomas Dohmen
Maastricht University

Armin Falk
University of Bonn
Speaker
Psychosocial Prosperity, Economics, and Policy
Ed Diener
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Session 2: Basic Units of Analysis in Personality Psychology

Moderator
Ed Diener University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Speakers
The High Potential Personality: Personality Differences within Exceptional Human Capital Portend Distinct Developmental Paths and Creativity
David Lubinski
Vanderbilt University

The Individual, Characterized: What Are the Basic Units of Personality?
Gerard Saucier
University of Oregon

Session 3: Stability of Preferences/Traits over the Lifecycle and Across Situations

Moderators
Daniel Benjamin
Cornell University

Richard Thaler
Chicago Booth School of Business
Roundtable Initiator
Brent Roberts
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Speaker
I Can Resist Everything Except Temptation: Evidence for Domain-Specific and Domain-General Aspects of Impulsive Behavior
Angela Duckworth
University of Pennsylvania

May 9, 2009

Session 4: Social Interactions

Moderators
Armin Falk
University of Bonn

Gary Becker
University of Chicago
Roundtable Initiator
Ernst Fehr
University of Zurich
Speaker
Loneliness and Social Interactions
John Cacioppo
University of Chicago

Session 5: Neurobiological/Genetic Basis of Personality and Intelligence

Moderator
Herbert GIntis
Santa Fe Institute and University of Massachusetts

Speakers
Childhood SES, Early Experience and Brain Development
Martha Farah
University of Pennsylvania

Strategic IQ: Evidence from fMRI, Eyetracking and Field Data
Colin Camerer
California Institute of Technology

Session 6: Evidence for the Predictive Validity and Causal Role of Preferences/Traits for Important Life Outcomes

Moderator
James J. Heckman
University of Chicago

Roundtable Initiator
Stefano Della Vigna
University of California, Berkeley
Speakers
Self-Control, Health, & Wealth
Avshalom Caspi
Duke University

Self-Regulation and School Achievement
Clancy Blair
New York University

Reading List

  • Borghans, Lex, Angela Lee Duckworth, James J. Heckman, and Bas ter Weel. (2008). "The Economics and Psychology of Personality Traits." Journal of Human Resources, 43(4):972-1059.
  • Diener, Ed, Daniel Kahneman, William Tov, and Raksha Arora. (2010). "Income’s Association with Judgments of Life Versus Feelings." In International Differences in Well-Being, edited by Ed Diener, Daniel Kahneman and John Helliwell. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
  • Diener, Ed, and Martin E.P. Seligman. (2004). "Beyond Money:Toward an Economy of Well-Being." Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5(1):1-31.
  • Farah, Martha J. (2010). "Mind, Brain, and Education in Socioeconomic Context." In The Developmental Relations among Mind, Brain and Education: Essays in Honor of Robbie Case, edited by Michel Ferrari and Ljiljana Vuletic, 243-256. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
  • Fehr, Ernst. (2009). "On the Economics and Biology of Trust." Journal of the European Economic Association, 7(2-3):235-266.
  • Fehr, Ernst, and Armin Falk. (2002). "Psychological foundations of incentives." European Economic Review, 46(4):687-724.
  • Fehr, Ernst, and Urs Fischbacher. (2002). "Why Social Preferences Matter – The Impact of Non-Selfish Motives on Competition, Cooperation and Incentives." The Economic Journal, 112(478):C1-C33.
  • Fraley, R. C., and B. W. Roberts. (2005). "Patterns of continuity: a dynamic model for conceptualizing the stability of individual differences in psychological constructs across the life course." Psychological Review, 112(1):60-74.
  • Hackman, Daniel A., and Martha J. Farah. (2009). "Socioeconomic status and the developing brain." Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(2):65-73.
  • Roberts, B. W., and W. F. DelVecchio. (2000). "The rank-order consistency of personality traits from childhood to old age: a quantitative review of longitudinal studies." Psychological Bulletin, 126(1):3-25.
  • Roberts, Brent W., Nathan R. Kuncel, Rebecca Shiner, Avshalom Caspi, and Lewis R. Goldberg. (2007). "The Power of Personality: The Comparative Validity of Personality Traits, Socioeconomic Status, and Cognitive Ability for Predicting Important Life Outcomes." Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(4):313-345.
  • Roberts, B. W., and E. M. Pomerantz. (2004). "On traits, situations, and their integration: a developmental perspective." Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8(4):402-16.
  • Tsukayama, Eli, Angela Lee Duckworth, and Betty Kim. (2012). "Resisting Everything except Temptation: Evidence and an Explanation for Domain–specific Impulsivity." European Journal of Personality, 26(3):318-334.