Current Research Studies
X-Factor
The X-Factor program is designed to help Northwestern student founders become the creators and leaders of tomorrow. Dr. Tackett has established a collaboration with The Garage (startup central at Northwestern). Student founders are selected for this opportunity, in which they will have the opportunity to get personalized feedback on their leadership strengths and weaknesses, and the intervention is designed to promote individualized leadership growth. The program focuses on assessing and enhancing students’ capacity for transformational leadership, the specific type of leadership associated with innovation and disruption. The X-Factor Program draws from a brief Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) based group program for adolescents developed by collaborators; it adapts this foundation to emphasize awareness of personal values most relevant to entrepreneurship. In this way, the powerful self-knowledge of personality science and the utility of skills adapted from ACT come together to promote entrepreneurial success in student founders. More information on the X-Factor project can be found at The Garage.
Game Changers
Traits and behaviors characteristic of good leaders are well understood in adults, but their development in adolescence is not. Which traits do successful adolescent leaders possess? How do other adolescents recognize who is a leader? How can we expand our definition of leadership to fit adolescents’ unique social and academic contexts? The Game Changers study is an ongoing project aimed at answering these questions about teen leadership in a sample of community adolescence. The study involved teens (ages 13-17) answering questionnaires, watching videos in an eye tracker, providing saliva samples, and more.
Past Research Studies
Childhood Personality and Behavioral Outcomes Study (CPBS)
The goal of the Childhood Personality and Behavioral Outcomes Study is to examine individual differences in personality traits and their associations with behavior in early adolescence. We collected online follow-up questionnaires from any of the 350 families who previously participated in the in-person study at the University of Houston. We collected information from children and their parents about things like personality, relationships, values, and behaviors.
Illinois Twin Project (ITP)
In collaboration with researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the PADlab is working to create a database of parents of twins (both identical and fraternal) in Illinois who might be willing to have their children participate in future research studies. Studying twins allows us to better learn about the causes of children’s life outcomes by figuring out how children might be affected by genetics and their environments. We have learned a lot from previous twin studies in the PADlab, such as our recent study on teenage risky decision-making (see above). We are excited about the opportunity to learn more from twins in Illinois!
Personality Development and Academic Outcomes Study (PDAO)
The Personality Development and Academic Outcomes Study investigated how different aspects of children’s lives were related to academic achievement. Parents and children were asked to complete surveys about the child’s personality, motivation, and other interests and behaviors. Combined with information about children’s educational achievement, the survey information will help further our understanding of personality characteristics that promote learning and school success. We are currently analyzing data from this project and hope to have it published soon. Funding for this project came from ACT.
Project FAD
Project Friends and Adolescent Decision Making (FAD) used a social networking study design to help us understand how peer groups work in teens. We collected surveys about adolescents’ personalities, relationships, and behaviors. The goal of this study was to explore how adolescents’ personality traits and peer groups relate to motivations for engaging in risky behaviors, and how peer groups might influence those behaviors. Funding from this project came from the National Center for Responsible Gambling.
Risky Business
A collaboration with Dr. Paige Harden and Dr. Elliot Tucker-Drob at the University of Texas at Austin, the Risky Business study is an ongoing study of high school twins in Texas. The PADlab was involved with data collection at the University of Houston. The purpose of the study is to further our understanding of how teenagers make decisions about doing things that might be risky, dangerous, or harmful, like trying alcohol or driving very fast. The goal of Risky Business is to determine how genes may influence decision-making, which is why the study focuses on twins. Data collection for this study is ongoing in Austin, Texas. Funding for this project comes from the National Institutes of Health.