Subject
PBS
Department name
Department of Psychology
College Lecturer (PBS)
Director of Studies (PBS)
Personality, culture, music, geography
BA,PhD
Jason bounced around the United States, from Louisiana to Texas to New York to Massachusetts, and somehow landed in England, where he is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College. His research concerns person-environment interactions and focuses on the ways in which personality is expressed in everything from people's preferences for music to the places in which they live. His work on these topics has appeared in several of the most prestigious journals in psychology-including American Psychologist, Journal of Personality, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Perspectives on Psychological Science, and Psychological Science. He is committed to sharing psychological research with the public and does so by giving open lectures and designing online interactive psychology surveys, most recently the BBC's Big Personality Test.
Teaching
Jason teaches introduction to social psychology (Part 1), current topics in social psychology (Part 2), and research methods (MPhil).
Research interests
Personality, culture, music, geography
Selected recent publications
Rentfrow, P. J. (in press). The open city. In A. E. Andersson, D. Andersson, and C. Mellander (Eds.). Handbook of Cities and Creativity. London: Elgar.
Rentfrow, P. J. (2010). Statewide differences in personality: Toward a psychological geography of the United States. American Psychologist, 65, 548-558.
Rentfrow, P. J., Goldberg, L. R., & Levitin, D.J. (in press). The Structure of Musical Preferences: A Five-Factor Model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Rentfrow, P. J., Goldberg, L. R., & Zilca, R. (2011). Listening, watching, and reading: The structure and correlates of entertainment preferences. Journal of Personality, 79, 223-257.
Rentfrow, P. J., Gosling, S. D. & Potter, J. (2008). A Theory of the emergence, persistence, and expression of regional variation in basic traits. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3, 339-369.
Related news
As almost 3 billion people around the world live under, or are starting to emerge from, a form of lockdown due to the coronavirus crisis.
Fitzwilliam College students, staff and Fellows are once again running in the Chariots of Fire race, which this year takes place on 17 September.
Experiencing traumatic events such as WW2 bombings may be associated with greater mental resilience rather than causing widespread angst, suggests study published by Fellow Jason Rentfrow and colleagues.
Two teams composed of staff and Fellows from Fitzwilliam College ran in the Chariots of Fire race for the third time on 18 September.