Methodological developments in personality research: An introduction

This article first provides a brief overview of some of the empirical and conceptual work in personality following Mischel's (1968) critique Strengths and weaknesses of traditional personality research designs including laboratory experiments, experimental personality designs, and preexperimental correlational studies are presented Some more recent approaches to designing laboratory research that attempt to address issues of external validity and approaches to designing field Investigations that attempt to address issues of internal validity are discussed Issues associated with the measurement of constructs, the broadening of measurement methods, and newer data analytic techniques are noted Finally, a brief orientation to the other papers in the special issue is presented     

Gender and psychopathy: an overview of important issues and introduction to the special issue

One of the most important concepts to ever emerge in forensic psychology and law is psychopathy. It would be difficult to exaggerate the profound effect the construct has had on research and practice in correctional psychology, psychiatry, and criminology. Much less pronounced has been an interest in understanding the potential relevance and practical implications that this personality disorder might have for providing insights into antisocial behaviors and crimes committed by girls and women. In this paper we provide an overview of some of the pressing issues confronting clinicians and researchers and provide an introduction to this special issue dedicated to gender and psychopathy.     

Personality and politics: introduction to the special issue

This special issue of Journal of Personality brings together 10 original articles addressing the intersection of personality and politics. Articles build on classic traditions in political psychology by presenting both idiographic and nomothetic work on the motivational, cognitive, ideological, attitudinal, and identity correlates of many different aspects of political behavior. This work is used to understand political activism and leadership as well as everyday political behavior. We hope this collection of articles will inspire our readers to explore new investigations in personality and political psychology.     

Guest editors' introduction to the special issue

The background and focus of this special issue are described in this Introduction.     

The study of behavioral ethics within organizations: A special issue introduction

Ethics has emerged as one of the most critical issues facing organizations. Given its importance, an extensive literature has evolved to understand the causes and consequences of (un)ethical decision making and behaviors in organizations. To date, much of this research has relied on research methods (e.g., experiments) that emphasize internal validity and control over external validity and generalizability. Although very informative, such studies frequently utilize samples that are not representative of working adults and their designs often fail to capture the contextual complexity that defines the day-to-day realities of organizational life. In this light, this special issue of Personnel Psychology encouraged scholars to investigate ethics within organizations and to offer rich theoretical explanations for why ethical failures and successes occur. The articles in this special issue address this important research agenda and make significant contributions to our understanding of ethics in organizations. Our introduction synthesizes these works, provides an overview of issues facing the broader behavioral ethics literature, and discusses areas for future research.     

Health care research that delivers: introduction to the special issue on cognitive factors in health care

Research that addresses human factors issues in health care has made good progress since the landmark 1999 Institute of Medicine report on medical error (Kohn, Corrigan, & Donaldson, 1999), yet patient safety remains a persistent challenge for the health care system. While this challenge reflects many factors, we focus on the need for research that is sufficiently comprehensive to identify threats to patient safety, yet specific enough to explain how provider and patient factors interact with task and health context to engender these threats. Such research should be theory-based, yet also problem-driven; exert experimental control over theoretically relevant variables, yet also involve participants, tasks, and contexts that represent the problems of interest. A tension exists between theory-based, experimentally controlled research on the one hand, and problem-driven research with representative situations on the other. The studies in this special issue are both informed by theory and guided by application, reflecting what Stokes (1997) referred to as "use-inspired basic research." Collectively, these studies represent progress toward improving patient safety and the quality of health care. However, important work remains to be done to significantly improve health care by more comprehensively managing tensions between theory and application and different research methodologies. We discuss barriers to accomplishing such research in general (the challenge of testing theory in situ in rich environments), and specifically in the health care domain. Significant progress will require research programs that thoughtfully manage mixed methods across a series of converging studies.