Dr. Kimberly McAdams received her Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 2010 and
became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Boise State University
later that year. Her dissertation title was "Understanding Religiosity: A
Preliminary Evaluation of a Process Model Linking Religiosity to Relationship
Outcomes". Dr. McAdams' main research interest is in how personality attributes
are associated with different relationship outcomes. She is also interested in positive
psychology, such as optimism and life satisfaction, how personality changes throughout
adolescence and adulthood, and how personality variables affect health and well-being.

Articles

Link

The Role of Domain Satisfaction in Explaining the Paradoxical Association Between Life Satisfaction and Age (with Richard E. Lucas and M. Brent Donnellan), Social Indicators Research (2012)

Although aging is associated with declines in many life circumstances, overall life satisfaction does not...

 

Personal Characteristics and Resilience to Economic Hardship and Its Consequences: Conceptual Issues and Empirical Illustrations (with M. Brent Donnellan, Katherine J. Conger, and Tricia K. Neppl), Journal of Personality (2009)

This article describes a theoretical model that links personal characteristics with resilience to economic hardship...

 

Presentations

Does the Optimistic Bird Think S/he Will Get the Worm or Does the Ideal Situation Encourage Worm-Hunting?: An Investigation of Dispositional and Situational Optimism on Job Seeking Strategies, The 14th Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (2013)

The interaction between trait and state-level optimism in the job market was investigated by randomly...

 

Two People, One Relationship: Understanding Personality, Interpersonal Processes, and Relationship Quality, Social Sciences & Humanities Seminar Series, School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University (2012)

Previous research has linked the personality traits of neuroticism and optimism with several life experiences,...

 

Experiences in Romantic Relationships Influence the Development of Negative Emotionality in Young Adulthood (with M. B. Donnellan and R. D. Conger), 11th Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (2010)
 

Optimism and Relationship Quality: Are the Effects Independent of Other Traits? (with M. B. Donnellan), Annual Meeting, Midwestern Psychological Association (2009)