Colby Personality Lab

Welcome to the homepage of the Colby Personality Lab, directed by Chris Soto. The CPL conducts research examining three key issues. The first is personality structure: how people’s specific thoughts, feelings, and behaviors cohere into broader personality traits and social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) skills that persist over time and across relevant situations. I am especially interested in questions about whether, how, and why people’s personalities might be organized differently at different times of life, or in different social contexts. For example, are personality traits and skills organized in similar or different ways during childhood versus adulthood?

The second issue is lifespan personality development: when, how, and why people’s personalities change as they age. I am curious both about how people’s personality traits and SEB skills typically change across the life span (normative change) and about why different people’s traits and skills change in different ways (individual differences in change).

The third issue is personality and life outcomes: how someone’s personality traits and SEB skills help shape the course of their life. I am particularly interested in understanding how traits and skills influence (a) subjective well-being (i.e., how happy or unhappy someone is with their life), and (b) political attitudes.

Note: For information about using the Big Five Inventory-2 in scientific research, see the BFI-2 tab of this webpage. If you’d like to take an online version of the BFI-2, you can do so at my personality test website.

For information about the Behavioral, Emotional, and Social Skills Inventory (BESSI), visit the SEB Skills Lab website.