Personality Judgment Expert to Deliver Basowitz Lecture at UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – A University of California at Riverside psychology researcher will detail the evolution of personality judgment and how to do it correctly at the annual Harold Basowitz Memorial Lecture at The University of Alabama.

Dr. David C. Funder, distinguished professor of psychology at UC-Riverside, will deliver “Accuracy in Personality Judgment: A (very) Long View,” at 6 p.m. Friday, March 3, in 118 Bibb Graves Hall on the UA campus. The lecture is open and free to the public.

Funder has researched personality judgment for more than 30 years. He said his research began with four questions: Are judgments of personality always or mostly wrong? When are they most likely to be right? How is accurate personality judgment possible? And how can personality judgments become more accurate?

“I believe a few decades of research have shown that the answers are (1) no; (2) when the judge, target, trait and information are ‘good,’” Funder said. “(3) Accurate judgment is possible when relevant information is available to the judge, who detects it and utilizes is correctly; (4) Expand opportunities for relevant information to be emitted, available, detected and correctly interpreted.”

The Harold Basowitz Memorial Lecture is sponsored by UA’s department of psychology in memory of Basowitz, who came to UA in 1940 and remained until called into military service. Basowitz returned to Tuscaloosa in 1946 and received his undergraduate degree from UA in 1947. He then went on to complete his doctoral degree in clinical psychology at Princeton in 1951.

Basowitz’s distinguished career included administrative roles at the National Institute of Mental Health and professor of psychology for many years at New York University. Basowitz’s lifelong friend, Professor Irving Alexander, is the donor of the Basowitz endowment.