On September 21st, 2023 the Pickering Centre for Research in Human Development will be hosting a public lecture with Dr. Louis Schmidt. Dr. Schmidt’s lecture is titled, ‘Personality development: Lessons learned’ and will begin at 2:30 PM. The lecture will be followed by a reception at 4 PM. If you plan to attend, please register by September 11th, 2023.

Personality development is shaped by many different influences. In theory and research, there has been a long-standing emphasis on the contributions of parenting, peer, and biological factors. In this talk, I use the phenomenon of shyness to illustrate the importance of considering relatively less studied influences on personality development: socio-cultural and socio-historical factors. I present findings from recent studies conducted in my lab on cross-cultural and generational differences in child and adult shyness. I then discuss the lessons learned from this work, and how this knowledge may inform the broader fields of developmental and personality science.