The Society for Interpersonal Theory and Research has honoured McGill psychology Professor Emerita Debbie Moskowitz with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Founded in 1997, SITAR is an international and multidisciplinary scientific organization that encourages systematic theory and empirical research to “identify the universe of interpersonal constructs, articulate the dynamic processes and mechanisms underlying interpersonal behavior, and illuminate interconnections between the self and interpersonal relations.” This is only the second time the organization has given a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Prof. Moskowitz studies stability and cross-situational generality of affect and interpersonal behaviors—such as dominance, submissiveness, agreeableness and quarrelsomeness—and examines the influence of gender, social role, and setting characteristics on interpersonal behavior and affect at home and at work.
“Debbie has made foundational contributions to the fields of personality, assessment, person-by-situation interactions, psychopathology, and quantitative methodology, among others,” said SITAR president Aidan G. C. Wright in a statement. He praised Prof. Moskowitz’s research for not only its excellent quality, but its prescience: She was doing work in the 1990s that anticipated today’s focus on understanding personality traits and disorders as contextualized dynamic processes. “She has been a trailblazer whose work has reverberated across the field,” said Wright. “We owe much of the way we conceptualize, measure, and model psychological and behavioral processes to her efforts and vision.”
The award was announced during the 21st annual meeting of SITAR, which was held in Montreal, June 22-23, 2018.