Dan McAdams

Dan P. McAdams is the Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Psychology and Professor of Human Development and Social Policy. Currently, he also serves as the Chair of the Psychology Department. Professor McAdams received his B.S. degree from Christ College, Valparaiso University in 1976, and his Ph.D. in Psychology and Social Relations from Harvard University in 1979. Professor McAdams teaches courses in Personality Psychology, Adult Development and Aging, Theories of Personality and Development, and the Psychology of Life Stories.

Author of over 200 scientific articles and chapters, numerous edited volumes, and 6 books, Professor McAdams works in the areas of personality and life-span developmental psychology. His theoretical and empirical writings focus on concepts of self and identity in contemporary American society and on themes of power, intimacy, redemption, and generativity across the adult life course. Professor McAdams is most well-known for formulating a life-story theory of human identity, which argues that modern adults provide their lives with a sense of unity and purpose by constructing and internalizing self-defining life stories or “personal myths.” Professor McAdams is a leader in the recent emergence within the social sciences of narrative approaches to studying human lives – approaches that place stories and storytelling at the center of human personality. He has been funded by major grants from The Spencer Foundation and the Templeton Foundation. Beginning in 1997, he continues to be funded by the Foley Family Foundation to direct the Foley Center for the Study of Lives at Northwestern University. Professor McAdams is also the author of a leading college textbook in personality psychology, The Person (Wiley).

Professor McAdams is the author of The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By (Oxford University Press, 2006). Integrating research he and his students have conducted over the past 15 years, The Redemptive Self charts a new psychology of American identity as expressed in cultural and historical American texts and images and in the life stories of caring and productive American adults in their midlife years. The book won the 2006 William James Award from the American Psychological Association for best general-interest book in psychology, across all subfields, and the 2007 Association of American Publishers Award for excellence in professional and scholarly publishing. His latest book is entitled George W. Bush and the Redemptive Dream: A Psychological Portrait (Oxford University Press, 2011).

Professor McAdams is also the 1989 winner of the Henry A. Murray Award from the American Psychological Association for research on personality and the study of lives, the 2006 Theodore Sarbin Award for contributions to theoretical and philosophical psychology, and the 2012 Jack Block Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology for career contributions to personality psychology. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (Division 8) and the American Psychological Society, has served on the Executive Committee of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and is a founding member of the Association for Research in Personality. His work has been featured in many national publications and media outlets including the New York Times, the New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Newsweek, Psychology Today, Self magazine, and Good Morning America. He lives in Wilmette, IL, with his wife, the Hon. Rebecca R. Pallmeyer.