Abstract: My talk will begin with an important but potentially unpleasant comment on correlational research: That decades of work generalizing analyses to the experience or behavior of individuals may be fundamentally flawed. I will support this assertion with data taken from several studies from the U.S. and the Netherlands that demonstrate that the variance-covariance in individuals does not map onto to the corresponding variance-covariance of groups. Having established our motivation for pursuing idiographic research, I will present results from recent work in my lab on person-specific models for assessing psychopathology and designing personalized modular therapies for anxiety and depression. Finally, I will discuss new directions in our lab, focused on modeling the individual predictors of craving and consumption in cigarette smoking and alcohol use.
Reception: To follow the talk, in the Beach Room 3105 Tolman.