Goldsmiths - University of London

Dr Luke D. Smillie BA PhD CPsychol

Individual differences, with a particular focus on a) biologically-informed perspectives on personality (especially Extraversion and Impulsivity-related traits), and b) individual differences in motivation, emotion and cognition, c) implications (e.g., human performance, psychopathology).

Research interests

1) Biologically informed perspectives on personality
My primary research attempts to explain the causes of personality variation.  Much of this has been directed towards the testing and refinement (e.g., Smillie et al., 2006, PSPR; Smillie et al., 2007, PSPB) of a family of theories which suggest that individual differences in extraversion, or perhaps impulsivity, are related to differential sensitivity to rewards (see Pickering & Smillie, 2008).  My most recent work has combined molecular genetics, Event Related Potentials, and category-learning paradigms in an attempt to provide genetic, neural and behavioural markers of reward-sensitivity, and evaluate their role in personality variation (British Academy funded project; see Smillie, 2008, EJP; Smillie et al., 2010, NL).

2) Motivation, emotion and cognition
Personality refers to coherent between-person variation in affective, behavioural/motivational and cognitive processes. My ongoing research is concerned with the explanation of these coherent individual differences at multiple levels of analysis and in various contexts.  Some current project include a) structure and component processes of goal orientations (e.g., Yeo et al., 2008, M&E); b) the role of personality and other individual differences in cognitive control (e.g., flexible adaptation to change; Smillie et al., 2009, BJP); c) personality moderators of affective processes (e.g., in mood induction; Cooper & Smillie, in progress).

3) Implications
In addition to the causes of personality and related individual differences I am interested in the consequences they have for typical and atypical real-world behaviour.  These include both cognitive and motivational influences on job and task performance (e.g., Smillie et al., 2006, JAP; Yeo et al., 2008, M&E), and the relevance of personality variables to clinical disorders (Smillie et al., 2009, CP).

Website: www.paidresearch.org

I am developing an online resource for Personality and Individual Differences Research (www.paidresearch.org).  At present the website provides a brief personality test and gives the user some feedback on their personality profile.  I will soon be developing this website into a dynamic resource which will provide education and news relating to personality, enable users to complete a range of tests or elect to participate in experiments, and allow researchers from around the world to download datasets containing a range of self-report, behavioural, and genetic variables.

Selected publications

Recent Representative Peer-Reviewed Publications:

Smillie, L. D., Cooper, A., Proitsi, P. Powell, J. & Pickering, A. D. (2010). Variation in DRD2 Dopamine Gene Predicts Extraverted Personality. Neuroscience Letters, 468, 234-237.

Smillie, L. D., Yeo, G. B. & Lang, K. L (2009). Impulsiveness and resource allocation: Testing Humphreys and Revelle’s (1984) explanation of impulsive personality. Journal of Research in Personality, 43, 1083-1086. 

Smillie, L. D., Cooper, A. J., Tharp, I. J. & Pelling, E. L. (2009). Individual Differences in Cognitive Control: The role of Psychoticism and Working Memory in Set-Shifting. British Journal of Psychology, 100, 629–643.

Smillie, L. D., Bhairo, Y., Gray, J., Gunasinghe, C., Elkin, A., Farmer, A., & McGuffin, P. (2009). Personality and the bipolar spectrum: Normative and classification data for the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 50, 48-53.

Smillie, L. D. (2008). What is reinforcement sensitivity? Neuroscience paradigms for approach-avoidance process theories of personality. European Journal of Personality, 22, 359-384. 

Smillie, L. D., Yeo, G. B., Furnham, A. F. & Jackson, C. J. (2006). Benefits of all work and no play: The relationship between neuroticism and performance as a function of resource allocation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 139-155.

Smillie, L. D., Pickering, A. D. & Jackson, C. J. (2006). The new Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory: implications for psychometric measurement. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 320-335.

Recent Representative Research Funding:

“Individual Differences as operating parameters for affect, behaviour and cognition” (2009), funded by The Royal Society (Chief Investigator, with William Revelle, £3.2k).

“Goal orientations, self-regulation and performance: Accelerating learning via goal-setting interventions” (2009-2011), funded by The Australian Research Council (Partner Investigator, with Gillian Yeo and Shayne Loft, A$139k /£65k).

“Evaluation of Paradigms for Assessing Individual Differences in, and Validating Trait Measures of, Reward-Reactivity” (2006-2009), funded by The British Academy (Chief Investigator, with Alan Pickering; £211k).