Aidan G.C. Wright, Ph.D.

  • Adjunct Professor, Psychology

Lab

Personality Processes and Outcomes Laboratory

Graduate Student Advisees:

  • Betsy Edershile
  • Sienna Nielsen
  • Whitney Ringwald
  • Will Woods

 

Education & Training

  • Ph.D., Penn State University

Research Interest Summary

Personality Disorders; Psychopathology; Ambulatory Assessment; Methodology

Research Interests

In my research I examine the processes and outcomes of personality in order to clarify what distinguishes adaptive and maladaptive personality functioning (i.e., personality disorders).  In other words, what aspects of thinking, feeling, and behaving allow some to effectively manage and have rewarding relationships and achieve their life goals, whereas others struggle so much with these basic human tasks.  My research is grounded in basic personality science, which serves as integrative framework for the study of personality, its pathology, and other forms of psychopathology.  More specific interests of mine include pathological narcissism and borderline personality pathology which each have considerable personal and social costs.  Methodologically I am increasingly focusing on capturing the important adaptive and maladaptive features of individuals' personalities as they are expressed in life as it is lived (i.e., ambulatory assessment) using traditional survey and passive sensing data capture.  By using intensive longitudinal designs, we can better capture and statistically model the dynamic processes of personality and psychopathology as they play out in vivo or in real time.  This work seeks to (a) improve our basic understanding of the phenomena that make up personality disorders, and (b) identify clinically actionable targets for intervention.

Representative Publications

Wright, A.G.C., Stepp, S.D., Scott, L.N., Hallquist, M.N., Beeney, J.E., Lazarus, S., & Pilkonis, P.A. (2017). The effect of pathological narcissism on interpersonal and affective processes in social interactions. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 126(7), 898-910. 

Scott, L.N., Wright, A.G.C., Beeney, J.E., Lazarus, S.A., Pilkonis, P.A., & Stepp, S.D., (2017). Borderline personality disorder symptoms and aggression: A within-person process model. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 126(4), 429-440.  

Wright, A.G.C., Hopwood, C.J., Skodol, A.E., & Morey, L.C. (2016). Longitudinal validation of general and specific structural features of personality pathology. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 125(8), 1120-1134.

Wright, A.G.C., & Simms, L.J. (2016). Stability and fluctuation of personality disorder features in daily life. Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 125(5), 641-656.

Wright, A.G.C. & Simms, L.J. (2015). A metastructural model of mental disorders and pathological personality traits. Psychological Medicine, 45(11), 2309-2319.

Wright, A.G.C., Calabrese, W.R., Rudick, M.M., Yam, W.H., Zelazny, K., Rotterman, J., & Simms, L.J. (2015). Stability of the DSM-5 Section III pathological personality traits and their longitudinal associations with functioning in personality disordered individuals. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 124(1), 199-207.

Wright, A.G.C., Hallquist, M.N., Beeney, J.E., & Pilkonis, P.A. (2013). Borderline personality pathology and the stability of interpersonal problems. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 122(4), 1094-1100.

Wright, A.G.C., Krueger, R.F., Hobbs, M.J., Markon, K.E., Eaton, N.R., & Slade, T. (2013). The structure of psychopathology: Toward an expanded quantitative empirical model. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 122(1), 281-294.

Accepting Graduate Students

No

Program(s)

CV