Peter Harms Department of Psychology University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 603 E. Daniel Street Champaign, IL 61820 Email: pdharms@s.psych.uiuc.edu Phone: (217)-244-4175 Office: Psychology 267B For a look at my incomplete CV My research website: Planet Personality My Personality Course Lectures

Research Interests:
    My early work at the University of British Columbia involved research into the phenomena of the over-claiming of knowledge and it’s relationship to intelligence and narcissism. This resulted in the development of an assessment tool, the Over-claiming Questionnaire (OCQ), which allows researchers to control for self-enhancement biases found in most self-ratings of intelligence. During this period I was also involved with a project evaluating lay perceptions of intelligence and their relation to the various theories of multiple intelligences proposed by psychological researchers.

    My current work at the University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign focuses primarily on the assessment of leadership characteristics, with special attention to individual differences that predict ascention to high status positions. Of particular interest is the assessment of the two primary power motives (Winter, 1973): the Need for Power and the Fear of Power. To this end, I have developed self-report inventories of these motives that I am in the process of validating. Of particular note in this line of research is the creation of the Illinois Leadership Development Survey; an investigation into the lives of members of Greek organizations here at the University of Illinois.

    A related stream of research focuses on the individual differences that indicate a propensity to engage in anti-social behavior. In my own research, I have focused on the Dark Triad of personality; a cluster of subclinical traits thought to be most indicative of deviant characteristics in otherwise normal people. These traits are: Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, and Narcissism. Specifically, our current research involves the prediction of counterproductive work behaviors using personality characteristics.