Personal Chair: Elizabeth Austin

Elizabeth Jane Austin has been made a Personal Chair of Individual Differences & Psychometrics in the College of Humanities & Social Science.

She graduated with a BA (1970) and DPhil (1976) from the University of Oxford.

Prior to her appointment at Edinburgh (1998) she held research fellowships at Oxford (Somerville College and St Hilda’s College) and at Newcastle University.

Dr Austin also worked at Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland, based at King’s Buildings.

Her research interests focus on individual differences in personality, intelligence and emotional intelligence, using a combination of experimental and questionnaire methods to examine both fundamental measurement issues and the ways in which these cognitive and dispositional differences relate to key aspects of behaviour and life experiences.

Current projects include developing and validating new tests of emotional intelligence (EI), with an emphasis on establishing which (if any) of its facets meet the criteria for inclusion within the intelligence domain, and the examination of the currently under-researched “darker” aspects of EI, such as the self-serving use of emotional capabilities to manipulate the behaviour of others.

She is member of the board of directors of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences and an associate editor of Personality and Individual Differences and British Journal of Psychology.