The Official Newsletter of the Society for Personality and OGUE Social Psychology DIAL Volume 24, No. 2 Fall, 2009 Fall, 2009 Co-Editors: Hart Blanton & Diane Quinn Inside the Current Looking Forward to Las Vegas Issue: The 2010 SPSP conference conferences will be held dur- allow everyone to view the Committee Re- will be held in Las Vegas, ing the day on Thursday, posters and have a casual ports: Nevada on January 28 – 30, January 28. The actual con- lunch with friends and col- 2010. We’ll be housed at the vention activities will begin leagues on the floor of the Convention 1, 4 famous Riviera hotel, located on Thursday with SPSP spacious exhibition halls. right on “The Strip,” with Award Presentations, a Presi- Publication 1, 31 easy access to all that Vegas dential symposium, and a Graduate Student 20, 21 has to offer. This is SPSP’s welcome reception. On Friday A Re-Cap on the Program Diversity & Climate 26 first convention center/casino and Saturday, the program Selection Process combination site, but we’re will continue with a host of Training 14 In addition to the two co- hoping for record turnout at excellent symposia, poster chairs, the Program Commit- Executive 16, 21 the sessions! Expect high sessions, invited addresses, tee consisted of nine mem- APA 30, 31 temperatures in the 55-65° F publisher exhibits, and special bers, representing a broad range, with evening lows just events. As in past years, the range of expertise in personal- 10,000 Hours 2 above freezing. cost of lunches is included in ity and social psychology: BlairJohnson Similar to previous years, the conference registration David Amodio, several excellent pre- fee. This distinctive feature of our meeting is intended to Continued on p. 4 Travel Section: 6-9 Brett Pelham Marc Kiviniemi SPSP Publication Committee– Leaf Van Boven Mid-Year Report, 2009 NSF News & 10, 11, Awards 13 by Randy Larsen our profession. [ Diane: I of June 30, 2009). The wrote this paragraph saying what impact factor of PSPB has SPSP’s publications continue a great job we’re doing with the stabilized at a high level Article Titles 12 to flourish. The first issue of newsletter – think Randy will (rising to 2.24, in 2008, Judith Hall Dialogue under the new edi- notice? -Hart] ranking PSPB #7 out of 47 torial team of Hart Blanton In terms of Personality journals in Social Psychol- SISP: Faculty & 18,19, and Diane Quinn came out on and Social Psychology Bul- ogy). PSPB is on very Student Views 23 time and was well-received letin Shinobu Kitayama has solid footing and in good by members earlier this year. now been editor for a full hands. The issue you are holding in year. Shinobu has two senior Comings & Goings 22-23 your hands right now marks At the SPSP mid-year associate editors, and nine executive committee meet- the completion of their first associate editors. There are year at the helm of our pro- ing, there was some discus- Society Awards 24-26 104 consulting editors on the sion of publishing more fessional newsletter, and they editorial board. PSPB set a continue in the tradition of papers that draw on broad- record in 2008 with 665 new ened participant popula- providing us with a FAN- submissions. That high sub- Announcements 27, 32 tions (i.e., studies done on TASTIC newsletter, filled mission rate continues, with with timely news and EX- participants other than col- 310 new submissions through lege students). The impe- Dear Me! 28-29 TREMELY INTERESTING the first half of 2009. Edito- tus for this discussion is the and INCREDIBLY ENTER- rial lag time continues to be TAINING ARTICLES about Abstract Fun 29 impressive (at 8.4 weeks as Continued on p. 31 2 GUE DIALO From Misery to Mastery in 10,000 Hours: “Calvin, Go Do Something You Hate…Being Miserable Builds Character!” Ericcson, Roring, & Nandagopal, 2007). everyone admired my writing through By Blair T. Johnson, Univer- Meta-experts’ studies of musical skill my undergraduate years, and I even pub- sity of Connecticut acquisition, for example, show that time lished a solo-authored paper before en- spent in deliberate practice is a far better tering graduate school (Johnson, 1983). predictor of musical skill than time spent In retrospect, as Kruger and Dunning’s In the first frame of one of my favor- playing for enjoyment. The same pattern (1999) work implies, praise about a di- ite instances of Bill Watterman’s comic appears in studies of chess playing. mension from those who lack expertise strip, Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin’s par- Sorry to say, but it implies that if we are on it would seem poor predictors of ac- ents are talking: Calvin’s dad has lost his merely enjoying the activity without tual expertise. glasses and he asks Calvin’s mother if engaging in DPs, we might be maintain- she has seen them. In the next frame, When Alice H. Eagly became my ing the skill, but we are not actually im- major professor reality abruptly Calvin appears, mocking his father, with proving it, any affect we experience ap- combed rather than mussed hair, wear- changed. We met to discuss the first pears to be unrelated to skill increases. draft of a manuscript I’d given her and I ing his dad’s glasses, he says, “Calvin, Apparently, the enjoyment comes from saw that the margins were filled chock- go do something you hate… being mis- making gains with our skills, not in gain- erable builds character!” In the last full with pencil, and (horrors!) most of ing the skills themselves. In short, one the remarks were related to grammar and frame, his mother laughs uncontrollably must challenge or be challenged for in a chair while his dad looks completely style! I was so shocked that for several quite a long time to develop pure exper- minutes I didn’t understand what she flummoxed. tise. Looks like we should all expect to was telling me. It dawned on me that my It’s the kind of encouragement we all endure quite a bit of misery if we truly writing needed work and what purpose need sometimes, suggesting that all the want mastery. Time to join a monastery, do mentors serve if not to mentor? And misery we’ve endured “doing something me thinks. (And by the way, if you are what role do mentees have but to con- we hate” actually pays off somehow, enjoying this piece, that’s a sure sign centrate on their DPs? Practice, practice, even if it is not in building character that you are learning nothing. Get back practice. Over a long enough time, you (maybe instead it builds characters?). to work!) really do develop expertise and then, in And maybe the current quest to gain I once attended a lecture by famed persistently plying your trade with expertise in some valued domain will author Kurt Vonnegut. Because his nov- greater fluency, accomplishments accu- pay off, if we just do enough work. els reveled in dark humor, I was sur- mulate. Anyone can become a good Popularized by such works as Outliers prised that the lecture was so inspira- writer or a good scientist with enough (Gladwell, 2008), there may just be tional. He encouraged young authors to practice and persistence. Draft, re-draft, some truth to it as well: A spate of recent write novels, even though he was pessi- repeat. (I’ve profited from it again and research suggests that if someone wants mistic about anyone’s chances to make a again, to the point where I am convinced to be an expert in a domain of any com- decent living at it. He said that unless that, with the possible exception of the plexity, then he or she had better spend they write novels literature would suffer, current essay, I am much smarter in print 10,000 hours practicing the domain. It is and who knows? One or two young au- than in person!) Johann Sebastian Bach not just working by rote, but deliberate thors might actually make it. To those is reputed to have once said, “I have practice (DP) improving rough spots, who were intimidated by his own done well. Anyone who works equally focusing on aspects that one hasn’t quite “lucky” success, he remarked that they as hard will do equally as well." Success yet grasped. Thus, practice doesn’t count were seeing the end product, not the = Bach = Beethoven = Brahms ≥ 10k unless it is focused on problem-solving, painful process of drafting and re- hours of DP (plus a lot of work). progressively better refinement, and drafting that he endured to produce his The peer-review process is an exten- ultimately enhancement of internal rep- books. It seems that dark humor had its sion of the writing process with its own resentations for planning, evaluating and roots at least in part in Vonnegut’s mis- miseries. It’s no wonder that the first monitoring how one mentally represents ery, but of course his readers loved the articles are the hardest to write but that the sequences (Chaffin, Imreh, & Craw- products and they miss him now that with practice they come easier, because ford, 2002). As my daughter’s violin Kurt himself is a wisp of undifferenti- reviewers use their considerable mastery teacher says, “You’re not practicing ated nothingness, to use one of his lines. (they’re experts, aren’t they?) to critique unless you’re practicing it right!” No All of us who have engaged the publi- the work and as the process repeats, one pain, no gain.