Suzanne Ouellette

Social Personality Psychology

office: rm 6304.21, Psychology
phone: 212.817.8708
email: souellette@gc.cuny.edu

Suzanne C. Ouellette is Professor in the Social/Personality and Developmental Psychology programs, and Coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Concentration in Health and Society. Her training includes Master's level work in religion, history, and philosophy at the Yale Divinity School, and Doctoral work in personality processes and psychopathology at The University of Chicago. And her training continues. Supporting her commitment to a psychology that is informed by the humanities as well as other social sciences, she is currently a painting student at the National Academy of Design in New York. Suzanne has taught at the Graduate Center for twenty years, before that she was on the faculty of The University of Chicago.

My research interests continue to focus on personality, i.e., personality understood to consist not of static, genetically set traits; but rather stances toward self and world that are constantly changing as individuals live their lives in complex social, political, and cultural settings. In my work, personality questions are raised within health and illness settings, such as community based HIV/AIDS organizations, and other real life contexts like public and private gardens . I want to practice what Henry Murray called a "bent of empathy and curiosity toward all profound experiences of individual men and women."
Current research projects include biographical and historical work on the study of lives in psychology (with a current focus on the life and work of Robert White), a collaboration with a landscape architect in the study of a large art and garden project in Central Park(part of a larger project on the psychology of gardens, gardening, and gardeners); and a study of self and identity processes and their relevance for the health of gay men and lesbian women, with researchers at Columbia's School of Public Health. Student projects with which I am involved include a qualitative and critical analysis of individual experiences of and social policy around HIV status disclosure; the critique and development of means to assess attitudes towards gay men and lesbian women; the place and function of religion and spirituality in gay and lesbian lives; the experience of stuttering and stigma; psychobiographical study of Asian-American men; and the use of the internet by caregivers of persons with serious illness; . Students have brought me into research on immigration, ethnic and racial identity, a psychology of stuttering, liberation psychology, spirituality and gay identity, and a critical psychology of attitudes. Across this work, there is a reliance on existential/phenomenological and interpretive theories, the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods, and the link between research and values and ethics that requires constant examination.
Courses she teaches include the required two semester Seminar in Social/Personality Psychology for first year students, Self and Identity in Health and Illness, Personality and Social Systems, and The Study of Lives.

For a look at her basic orientation to Social and Personality Psychology, see:
Ouellette, S.C. (2003). Painting lessons. In R. Josselson, A. Lieblich, D. McAdams (Eds.) Up close and personal: The teaching and learning of narrative research. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

Ouellette, S.C. & DiPlacido, J. (2001). Personality's role in the protection and enhancement of health: Where the research has been, where it is stuck, how it might move. In A. Baum, T.A. Revenson, & J. Singer (Eds.), Handbook of health psychology. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Ouellette, S.C. (1998). The relationship between personality and health: What self and identity have to do with it. In Contrada, R. & Ashmore, R. Self, social identity, and physical health. Oxford University Press.