Degrees

Ph.D., Duke University (1987)
M.A., Duke University (1985)
B.A., Williams College (1979)
A.M. (honorary), Amherst College (2001)

Teaching Interests

I currently teach courses on Research Methods, Personality, Personality and Political Leadership, and Psychological Assessment; I have also taught courses on Emotion and Environmental Psychology.  I especially enjoy teaching courses that engage students in actively learning how to discover psychological patterns by working with original case material.  In my seminar on Personality and Political Leadership, for example, students conduct detailed case studies of leaders such as Mohandas Gandhi by applying psychological theories and methods to autobiographical writings, speeches, and other primary material.  In my seminar on Psychological Assessment, students learn how to identify significant personality patterns in the narratives resulting from interviews and other psychological assessment methods; we analyze interviews by professional psychologists with psychotherapy clients, interviews by radio talk show hosts, and interviews that the students conduct with each other.  In such courses, students learn ways of asking psychological questions as much as they learn the answers that psychologists have found to past questions.

Selected Publications

Demorest, A. (2020). Happiness, love, and compassion as antidotes for anxiety. The Journal of Positive Psychology. 15, 438-447.

Demorest, A. (2019). Anger, compassion, and happiness as antidotes for sadness. American Journal of Psychology, 132, 227-236.

Demorest, A. & Gleckel, J. (2014). Examining primacy as an identifier of salience. Journal of Personality, 82, 287-296.

Demorest, A. (2013).  The role of scripts in psychological maladjustment and psychotherapy. Journal of Personality. 81, 583-594.

Demorest, A., Popovska, A., & Dabova, M. (2012).  The role of scripts in personal consistency and individual differences.  Journal of Personality, 80, 187-218.

Demorest, A. (2005).  Psychology’s Grand Theorists: How Personal Experiences Shaped Professional  Ideas.  Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ.

Professional Activities

Invited Reviewer for American Psychologist, Journal of Personality, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Research in Personality, Personality and Individual Differences, Social Cognition, Developmental Psychology, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, Guilford Publications, Oxford University Press, and University of Chicago Press.