Eranda Jayawickreme
Special guest
Eranda Jayawickreme is an assistant professor of psychology at Wake Forest University. He received his Ph.D. in positive and social/personality psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010. He is currently the Project Co-Leader of the Pathways to Character Project, a $3.4 million initiative funded by the John Templeton Foundation examining the possibilities for the strengthening of character following adversity, challenge or failure. His research focuses on post-traumatic growth as positive personality change, moral personality, wisdom, well-being and integrative theories of personality. He has worked with populations in Rwanda, Sri Lanka and various populations in the USA. His awards include the 2015 Rising Star award from the Association for Psychological Science (which recognizes outstanding psychological scientists in the earliest stages of their research career post-PhD whose innovative work has already advanced the field), a Mellon Refugee Initiative Fund Fellowship, and grants from the John Templeton Foundation, the Templeton Religion Trust, and the Asia Foundation/ USAID.
Eranda Jayawickreme has been a guest on 1 episode.
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Episode 5: The Foolish Sage (with Eranda Jayawickreme)
June 24th, 2018 | 52 mins 50 secs
actor-observer bias, aristotle, culture, person-situation, personality, philosophy, psychology, skinner, social psychology, stanford prison experiment, the big 5, virtues, whole trait theory, wisdom, zimbardo
Do 'wise people' even exist? Do we have 'wise characters' or is our behaviour more influenced by 'wise situations'? And if so, what kinds of situations best support wise behaviour? Eranda Jayawickreme joins Igor and Charles to discuss the classic battle royale of the person-situation debate, whole trait theory and the ever-controversial Stanford Prison experiment. Igor outlines the actor-observer bias and suggests that westerners should be more sympathetic to grumpy waitstaff, Eranda considers the motivations behind blaming bad apples vs bad barrels and the implications for the justice system, and Charles learns that overestimating the robustness of his own virtue can lead to all manner of perilous situations. Welcome to Episode 5.