Dr. Weston is interested in the relationship between personality traits and health with the goal of understanding how personality can help medical professionals provide better care. Personality can be useful in designing targeted interventions and identifying at-risk patients. But before we can develop these tools, we need to understand the relationships between personality and health. What are the specific health behaviors and outcomes associated with personality? Under what conditions does personality predict health? How and why personality traits are related to health -- with an emphasis on behavioral mechanisms -- and contextualizing these relationships, such as by examining for whom personality traits are associated with health and when. Dr. Weston is also committed to transparency -- sharing analytic code and data when possible -- and actively advocates for more transparent use of pre-existing data. For more information, see her website.
Dr. Weston is not accepting new graduate students for Fall 2025.
Selected publications:
Weston, S.J., Graham, E.K., Turiano, N., Aschwanden, D., Booth, T., Harrison, F., ..., Mroczek, D.K. (2020). Is healthy neuroticism associated with chronic conditions?: A coordinated integrative data analysis. Collbra: Psychology (in press).
Weston, S.J., Ritchie, S.J., Rohrer, J.M., & Pryzybylski, A.K. (2019). Recommendations for increasing the transparency of analysis of pre-existing data sets. Advanced Methods and Practices in Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/2515245919848684
Weston, S.J., & Jackson, J.J. (2018). The role of vigilance in the relationship between neuroticism and health: A registered report. Journal of Research in Personality, 73, 27-34.
Weston, S.J., & Jackson, J.J. (2016). How do people respond to health news? The role of personality traits. Psychology & Health, 31(6), 637-654.
Weston, S.J., Hill, P.L., & Jackson, J.J. (2015). Personality traits predict the onset of disease. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 6(3), 309-317.
