Exploring personality and emotion through innovative psychology research

University Distinguished Professor of psychology, Michael D. Robinson, has always enjoyed asking the big questions and finding solutions in an organized, data-driven way. From early on, Robinson knew he wanted to pursue a career in academia.

“My father is a professor emeritus, and growing up around a professor and the college environment surely had some influence on what my career ended up being,” Robinson said.

Now having taught at NDSU for more than 20 years, Robinson has followed his passion for social psychology, studying the personality, emotion, social behavior and self-regulation of humans. He and his colleagues also examine ways in which people’s goals, strategies and interactions with the world give rise to variations in personality and emotion.

As the primary investigator and director of the Personality, Perception, and Affect Lab, Robinson and his research team are working on several projects related to social competence.

“One project asks people where, in their bodies, the self is,” he said. “People tend to perceive themselves to migrate between the head and heart regions of the body, and such migrations can be performed in a strategic way, such that one becomes more head-oriented for some activities and heart-oriented for others.”

Through these studies, Robinson has collected results that can benefit everyone, such as by helping people achieve success in their social and professional lives.

“It is my hope that our research allows us to better understand who we are as human beings. I am also pursuing the idea that living with the world in more flexible and open ways appears to be important to succeed in life,” he said. “We are making real progress on these topics, and we hope to be able to share more insights with people interested in human psychology.”

Throughout his years of conducting research, Robinson has learned many valuable lessons, including balancing skills such as patience and perseverance, as well as a detail-orientation with big-picture thinking. For Robinson, research is a means of generating new knowledge about human behavior and is vital to the university's teaching mission.

“Research forms the backbone of our education system. When new insights occur, they can be integrated with our classes and the research enterprise disciplines the mind,” he said. “Psychology research is important because we are human beings and psychology focuses on human beings.”

In his lab, Robinson works with several graduate students, who are vital collaborators for many different reasons. Additionally, undergraduate students are able to get involved in Robinson’s lab, where they can learn more about the research process and graduate studies in psychology. Undergraduate students have the opportunity to get involved in papers and present their findings at professional conferences.

With psychology being a broad discipline, Robinson said the NDSU psychology department prepares students to pursue their goals, whether that’s in visual and cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology or the many other areas that psychology touches on.

With a small faculty-to-student ratio, Robinson said there are valuable opportunities for students to get involved.

“NDSU is special for a lot of reasons. For example, it is big enough, but not too big. This means, among other things, that you get to know your colleagues and students fairly well, but there is always enough exposure to new ideas,” he said. “NDSU is also special because it has high aspirations, but such aspirations are grounded in regional modesty.”

Robinson has made his mark as a professor in the lab and a colleague outside of the classroom. This past fall, Robinson was one of six faculty members named University Distinguished Professor, the highest academic honor awarded at NDSU. The UDP title is meaningful to Robinson, who holds the honor in high regard.

“Being a University Distinguished Professor is quite meaningful, and I’m happy to be one of those in the cohort who are all doing great things throughout the university and in their professions.”

As he looks ahead, Robinson is eager to continue his research with the support of NDSU.

“I’m happy to echo the sentiment, shared by pretty much all students and employees, that NDSU is a good place to learn and work,” he said.