About

A quick introduction...

My name seems to be plastered everywhere on this website, but in case it's helpful to see again, I'm Amanda (or a bit more commonly known as Aj) :-)

In August 2026, I joined the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Texas A&M University as an Assistant Professor (Gig 'em!).

Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zürich working in the Individual Differences & Assessment Lab led by Prof. Dr. Wiebke Bleidorn.

I received my Ph.D. in Psychological & Brain Sciences from Washington University in St. Louis in 2023. During graduate school, I worked with Joshua Jackson (10/10 recommend, and I'm not just saying that because he got me a PhD sword [see 2nd pic], but it was a perk).

Also during graduate school, I learned energy drinks are the best thing for my research (see 3rd pic, they also gave me a bit of life).

My main research interests are personality change, prediction, and development across the lifespan; individual differences in these topics; and how to best model data to answer these questions.

You can find an outline of my education, publications, presentations, and teaching experience below.

For those who are feeling particularly adventurous, more details can be found in my CV.

Academic Positions

Texas A&M University (USA), August 2026

Assistant Professor

Lifespan Development / Social & Personality Psychology
Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences

University of Zürich (Switzerland), August 2023 – present

Postdoctoral Researcher

Individual Differences and Assessment Lab, Department of Psychology
Supervisor : Prof. Dr. Wiebke Bleidorn

Education

Washington University in St. Louis, 2019-2023

Ph.D. in Psychological & Brain Sciences (Social & Personality Area)
Graduate Certificate in Quantitative Data Analysis
Advisor : Joshua Jackson, Ph.D.
Dissertation title: “Modeling variability in personality development: Quantifying, explaining, and examining the predictive utility of person-specific variance around personality trajectories”

Washington University in St. Louis, 2019-2021

M.A. in Psychological & Brain Sciences (Social & Personality Area)
Advisor : Joshua Jackson, Ph.D.
Thesis title: “Person-centered profile consistency: A test of longitudinal personality consistency”

Baylor University, 2015-2019

B.S. in Psychology

Publications

Wright, A. J., Haehner, P., Andrae, R., Lubczyk, T., Hopwood, C. J., & Bleidorn, W. (in press). Effects of a theory-based smartphone intervention to decrease neuroticism in the general public. Psychological Science.

Peer-reviewed publication

Wright, A. J.^, Haehner, P.^, Hopwood, C. J., & Bleidorn, W. (in press). Intervention-Induced Neuroticism Change Across Multiple Timescales. American Psychologist.

Peer-reviewed publication

Haehner, P., Schellenberg, L., Krämer, M. D., Wright, A. J., Bleidorn, W., & Hopwood, C. J. (2026). Stress Generation Across Hours, Days, and 1 Month. Clinical Psychological Science.

Peer-reviewed publication

Wright, A. J., Krämer, M. D., Haehner, P., Hopwood, C. J., & Bleidorn, W. (2026). Personality traits are less stable than people think. Communications Psychology.

Peer-reviewed publication

Krämer, M. D., Wright, A. J., Haehner, P., Zimmerman, J., Flückiger, C., Hopwood, C. J., Bleidorn, W. (2026). Self-Efficacy Predicts Differential Neuroticism Change in a Smartphone-Based Intervention. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Peer-reviewed publication

Haehner, P., Wright, A. J., Lubczyk, T., Andrae, R., Asselmann, E., Buecker, S., Hopwood, C. J., & Bleidorn, W. (2026). Tailoring Personality Interventions: How Timing, Context, and Strategies Influence Proximal Intervention Outcomes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Peer-reviewed publication

Wright, A. J., Haehner, P., Hopwood, C. J., & Bleidorn, W. (2026). A Systematic Review and Taxonomy of Neuroticism Interventions for the General Public. Personality Science, 7 , 1–32.

Peer-reviewed publication

Wright, A. J., Luhmann, M., Salzburg, S., Koss, M., & Haehner, P. (2026). A multimetric examination of self-reported personality functioning and personality trait development. Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science, 135(1), 47–63.

Peer-reviewed publication

Luking, K., Hennefield, L., Ortin-Peralta, A., Wright, A. J., & Whalen, D. (2025). Early Pubertal Timing, Suicidality, and Self-Injurious Behaviors in Preadolescents: Evidence for Concurrent and Emergent Risk Prediction. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 64(9), 1047–1055.

Peer-reviewed publication

Huntington, C., Puricelli, A.*, Wright, A. J., Gilbert, K., Vogel, A. C., Barch, D., Luby, J., & Whalen, D. J. (2025). Preschool Big Five personality traits and childhood peer relationships predict BPD but not MDD in late adolescence. Personality and Mental Health, 19(3), e70027.

Peer-reviewed publication

Haehner, P., Krämer, M. D., Wright, A. J., & Bleidorn, W. (2026). Life Events and Personality Trait Change: A Coordinated Data Analysis. European Journal of Personality, 40(2), 391–412.

Peer-reviewed publication

Haehner, P., Wright, A. J., Andrae, R., Lubczyk, T., Betancourt, L. R., Hopwood, C. J., & Bleidorn, W. (2025). A Smartphone-Based Intervention to Decrease Neuroticism: Protocol of the CHILL Study. Personality Science.

Peer-reviewed publication

Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (2025). Longitudinal within-person variability around personality trajectories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 128(1), 211-242.

Peer-reviewed publication

Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (2024). Individual differences in the forms of personality trait trajectories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 127(5), 1062-1088.

Peer-reviewed publication

Haehner, P., Wright, A. J., & Bleidorn, W. (2024). A systematic review of volitional personality change research. Communications Psychology, 2(115).

Peer-reviewed publication

Jackson, J. J., & Wright, A. J. (2024). The process and mechanisms of personality change. Nature Reviews Psychology, 3, 305-318.

Peer-reviewed publication

Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (2024). Is parent personality associated with child outcomes? A response surface analysis approach, 33(2), e2395. Infant and Child Development.

Peer-reviewed publication

Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (2024). The associations between life events and person-centered personality consistency. Journal of Personality, 92, 162-179.

Peer-reviewed publication

Jackson, J. J., & Wright, A. J. (2024). Life events don’t change personality (that way) [Invited Commentary and Author Response Regarding ‘Life Events and Personality Change: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis’. (2024)]. European Journal of Personality.

Peer-reviewed publication

Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (2023). Do changes in personality predict life outcomes? 125(6), 1495-1518. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Peer-reviewed publication

Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (2023). Initiation of drug and alcohol use and personality development during adolescence. European Journal of Personality, 37(4), 375-401.

Peer-reviewed publication

Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (2023). Are some people more consistent? Examining the stability and underlying processes of personality profile consistency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 124(6), 1314–1337.

Peer-reviewed publication

Wright, A. J., Litwin, A. W.*, & Jackson, J. J. (2023). Compensatory couple effects: How a spouse’s life goals impact one’s own career and health outcomes. Journal of Research in Personality, 103.

Peer-reviewed publication

Bancilhon, M., Wright, A. J., Ha, S., Crouser, R. J., & Ottley, A. (2023). Why Combining Text and Visualization Could Improve Bayesian Reasoning: A Cognitive Load Perspective. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 467, 1-15.

Peer-reviewed publication

Boone, K.*, Vogel, A., Tillman, R., Wright, A. J., Barch, D. M., Luby, J. L., & Whalen, D. J. (2022). Identifying moderating factors during the preschool period in the development of borderline personality disorder: A prospective longitudinal analysis. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation.

Peer-reviewed publication

Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (2022). Childhood temperament and adulthood personality differentially predict life outcomes. Scientific Reports, 12(1), 1-9.

Peer-reviewed publication

Wright, A. J., Weston, S. J., Norton, S., Voss, M., Bogdan, R., Oltmanns, T. F., & Jackson, J. J. (2022). Prospective self- and informant personality associations with inflammation, health behaviors, and health indicators. Health Psychology, 41(2), 121–133.

Peer-reviewed publication

^ = indicates shared first-authorship

* = indicates student author

Manuscripts Under Review

Wright, A. J., Haehner, P., Krämer, M. D., Tan, N. P., Hopwood, C. J., & Bleidorn, W. (2026). My Personality—Wrapped: Protocol for a Measurement-Burst Design Study to Investigate the Development and Dynamics of Individual Differences Across Time. Under initial review.

Olaru, G., Haehner, P., Wright, A. J., Andrae, R., Hopwood, C. J., & Bleidorn, W. (2026). Gradual Progress or Breakthrough Moments? Antecedents and Consequences of Sudden Gains in a Digital Neuroticism Intervention. Under initial review.

Bleidorn, W., Andrae, R., Haehner, P., Hopwood, C. J., Hungerbuehler, L., Tobias, R., & Wright, A. J. (2026). Protocol of the CHILL 2.0 Study: Optimizing, Explaining, and Sustaining Neuroticism Change. Under initial review.

Haehner, P., Wright, A. J., Andrae, R., Hopwood, C. J., & Bleidorn, W. (2026). Effects of a Neuroticism Intervention Over One Year. Under initial review.

Bleidorn, W., Haehner, P., Krämer, M. D., Wright, A. J., Hopwood, C. J. (2026). The ABCs of Personality Trait Change. Under initial review.

Haehner, P., Wright, A. J., Schellenberg, L., Andrae, R., Lubczyk, T., Hopwood, C. J., & Bleidorn, W. (2026). Effects of a Neuroticism Intervention on Stress. In revision.

Haehner, P., Wright, A. J., Krämer, M. D., & Bleidorn, W. (2024). Individual Differences in Event-Related Personality Changes: A Systematic Review and Coordinated Data Analysis. In revision.

Awards & Honors

Best Paper Award, For the year 2025 in the European Journal of Personality (2026)

Rising Star Award, Association for Psychological Science (2026)

Emerging Scholar Award, Association for Research in Personality (2025)

Top 10 Most-Cited Article, Among work published in 2023 in the Journal of Personality (2025)

Tanaka Dissertation Award Finalist, Association for Research in Personality (2024)

Conference Poster Award, Association for Research in Personality (2023)

Top 100 Article Across All Disciplines / Across Psychology, For the year 2022 in Scientific Reports (2023)

Student Travel Award, Society for Personality and Social Psychology (2022)

Most Outstanding Student Researcher for Psychology, Baylor University (2019)

Department Service Award for Psychology, Baylor University (2019)

Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society (2019)

Psi Chi Psychology Honor Society (2019)

Invited Talks

Rice University, October 2026

Brown Bag for the Industrial-Organizational (I-O) Area in the Department of Psychological Sciences
Title: [coming soon]

European Conference on Personality, July 2026

Symposium titled "Innovation in personality intervention research" during ECP.
Title: "Intervention-induced neuroticism change across multiple timescales"

University of Zürich, March 2026

Guest lecture on personality interventions for the graduate seminar, "Personality Processes."

Association for Research in Personality, June 2025

Emerging Scholars Award Symposium during the biennial conference for ARP.
Title: "Personality traits are less stable than people think"

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie (German Psychological Society) Conference, September 2024

Symposium titled "Integrating Idiographics and Nomothetics in Psychology" during the DGPs Conference.
Title: "Identifying person-level change processes to create a general personality change framework"

Baylor University, September 2024

Guest lecture on personality stability and change for the undergraduate course, "Theories of Personality."

European Conference on Personality, August 2024

Symposium titled "Promises and challenges of personality interventions" during ECP.
Title: "An individual difference approach to personality interventions"

Workshop on Methods for Studying the Consequences of Life Events, Cologne, Germany, June 2024

Presentation for the 2nd annual methods workshop in this series
Title: "Between- and within-person associations for personality and life events: The incremental utility of longitudinal within-person variability"

University of California, Davis, February 2023

Brown Bag for Quantitative Psychology Area in the Department of Psychology
Title: "Do changes in personality predict life outcomes?"

Personality Science Preconference, SPSP, February 2023

Symposium for featured articles in a special issue of Journal of Personality
Title: "The associations between life events and person-centered personality consistency"

Conference Symposia & Presentations

Schaefer, B., Haehner, P., Wright, A. J., Krämer, M. D., Bleidorn, W., Hopwood, C. J., Luhmann, M. (September 2026). Frequency, predictors, and consequences of drastic changes in subjective well-being and personality traits. Symposium presentation at DGPs. Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg.
Haehner, P., Schellenberg, L., Krämer, M. D., Wright, A. J., Bleidorn, W., & Hopwood, C. J. (September 2026). Interpersonal Stress Generation Across Hours, Days, and Weeks. Symposium presentation at DGPs. Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg.
Olaru, G., Haehner, P., Wright, A. J., Andrae, R., Hopwood, C. J., & Bleidorn, W. (September 2026). The Role of Sudden Gains as Catalysts of Volitional Neuroticism Change. Symposium presentation at DGPs. Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg.
Schaefer, B., Haehner, P., Wright, A. J., Krämer, M. D., Bleidorn, W., Hopwood, C. J., Luhmann, M. (July 2026). Frequency, predictors, and consequences of drastic changes in subjective well-being and personality traits. Symposium presentation at ECP. Edinburgh, Scotland.
Andrae, R., Haehner, P., Wright, A. J., Hopwood, C. J., & Bleidorn, W. (July 2026). Do digital interventions that lower neuroticism actually improve people’s lives? Invited symposium presentation at ECP. Edinburgh, Scotland.
Olaru, G., Haehner, P., Wright, A. J., Andrae, R., Hopwood, C. J., & Bleidorn, W. (July 2026). The Role of Sudden Gains as Catalysts of Volitional Neuroticism Change. Invited symposium presentation at ECP. Edinburgh, Scotland.
Wright, A, J., Haehner, P., Hopwood, C. J., & Bleidorn, W. (July 2026). Intervention-Induced Neuroticism Change Across Multiple Timescales. Invited symposium presentation at ECP. Edinburgh, Scotland.
Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (November 2025). Childhood temperament and adulthood personality differentially predict life outcomes. Oral presentation during a symposium for the Occasional Temperament Conference (OTC). College Station, TX. (https://osf.io/xvbfg)
Wright, A. J., Haehner, P., Andrae, R., Lubczyk, T., Hopwood, C. J., Bleidorn, W. (June 2025). Effects of a Smartphone Intervention to Decrease Neuroticism the General Public: The Changing How I Live Life (CHILL) Study. Oral presentation during a symposium for DPPD. Kassel, Germany. (https://osf.io/c5w9a)
Wright, A. J., Haehner, P., Andrae, R., Lubczyk, T., Hopwood, C. J., Bleidorn, W. (June 2025). Effects of a Smartphone Intervention to Decrease Neuroticism the General Public: The Changing How I Live Life (CHILL) Study. Oral presentation during a symposium for ARP. Evanston, IL. (https://osf.io/wbfdv)
Haehner, P., Wright, A. J., Asselmann, E., Buecker, S., Andrae, R., Lubczyk, T., Hopwood, C. J., Bleidorn, W. (June 2025). The Effects of Timing and Situational Context in Personality Interventions. Oral presentation during a symposium for ARP. Evanston, IL.
Wright, A. J. & Bleidorn, W. (September 2024). Identifying person-level change processes to create a general personality change framework. Symposium presentation for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie (German Psychological Society; DGPs). Vienna, Austria. (https://osf.io/vkn7h)
Haehner, P., Wright, A. J., Krämer, M. D., & Bleidorn, W. (September 2024). Moderators of Individual Differences in Event-Related Personality Changes: A Systematic Review, Mega-Analysis, and Meta-Analyses. Symposium presentation for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychologie (German Psychological Society). Vienna, Austria.
Wright, A. J., Haehner, P., Lubczyk, T., Andrae, R., Hopwood, C. J., & Bleidorn, W. (August 2024). An individual difference approach to personality interventions. Oral presentation during a symposium titled, “Promises and Challenges of Personality Interventions” for ECP. Berlin, Germany. (https://osf.io/5364p)
Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (February 2024). Modeling variability in personality development: Quantifying, explaining, and examining the predictive utility of person-specific variance around personality trajectories. Oral presentation for SPSP. San Diego, CA. (https://osf.io/sr6za)
Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (September 2023). Do changes in personality predict life outcomes? Oral presentation for Differentielle Psychologie, Persönlichkeitspsychologie, und Psychologische Diagnostik (DPPD). Salzburg, Austria. (https://osf.io/dr7ys)
Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (July 2023). The paths to Pareto: Examining links between early risk factors, intermediary pathways, and future life outcomes. Poster for Association for Research in Personality (ARP). Evanston, IL (https://osf.io/s5rzd)
Whalen, D., Wright, A. J., Puricelli, A., Boone, K. (March 2023). Associations between 24-hour Movement Compositions and Daily Affect in Preschool Children. Oral presentation at the Society for Research in Child Development. Salt Lake City, UT.
Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (February 2023). The associations between life events and person-centered personality consistency. Oral presentation during a symposium titled, “Narrow and Broad Conceptualizations of Environmental Influences on Personality” during the Personality Science preconference for Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). Atlanta, GA (https://osf.io/d6vz9)
Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (July 2022). The impact of life events on ipsative trajectories of person-centered personality consistency. Oral presentation for European Conference of Personality (ECP), Madrid, Spain (https://osf.io/gybp2)
Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (July 2022). Initiation of drug and alcohol use and personality development during adolescence. Poster presentation for ECP. Madrid, Spain (https://osf.io/erj97)
Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (February 2022). Does personality change matter? A mega-analysis of personality change predicting future life outcomes. Poster for SPSP. San Francisco, CA (https://osf.io/ap7w6)
Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (July 2021). Longitudinal patterns of person-centered personality consistency: An investigation using individual profile correlations. Data blitz presentation for ARP. Virtual (https://osf.io/ptjfc)
Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (July 2021). Are adult-based personality predictions improved by temperament measures from childhood? Poster for ARP. Virtual (https://osf.io/xym8v)
Wright, A. J. (February 2021). Prospective self- and informant-personality associations with inflammation, health behaviors, and health indicators. Oral presentation during a symposium titled, “The Nuanced Relationship Between Individual Differences and Health” for SPSP. Virtual (https://osf.io/cp2md)
Wright, A. J. & Jackson, J. J. (February 2020). Utilizing self- and other-reports of personality to better predict health biomarkers. Poster presentation for SPSP. New Orleans, LA (https://osf.io/ukyzw)

Teaching

Washington University in St. Louis, Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences

Teaching Assistant (TA) / Assistant in Instruction (AI)

Introductory Psychological Statistics, Fall 2022
Quantitative Methods II (graduate course), Spring 2022
Health Psychology, Fall 2021
Hierarchical Linear Models (graduate course), Spring 2021
Experimental Psychology, Fall 2020

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