The mission of persoc is to promote research on the interplay between personality and social relationships. This interplay is as fascinating as it is complex: On the one hand, real-life social phenomena can usually not be understood without taking the personality of the involved individuals into account. The quality of social relationships is theoretically determined by the personality of both interaction partners as well as their interaction history. On the other hand, many personality traits can only be expressed and developed in social interactions.

Persoc pursues this mission in four ways.

First, we are working on an integrative conceptual Framework that accounts for the complexities of personality, social phenomena and their interplay. This framework combines componential and process approaches and provides a common language and conceptual guidelines for research on personality and social relationships.

Second, we put this framework into action by creating several extensive studies with a strong focus on observing real-life phenomena. The resulting papers offer new insights into diverse social phenomena such as accuracy of personality judgments, first encounters, group formation, friendship development, speed dating, relationship satisfaction and maintenance, and family dynamics.

Third, persoc provides you with a multitude of tools (see Toolbox) that might be useful for your research or teaching on personality and social relationships. This includes basic design considerations, statistical software solutions, and teaching materials.

Fourth, we aim at connecting researchers of different areas of expertise. Personality psychology and social psychology are certainly the core disciplines of persoc but other disciplines like developmental psychology, psychological assessment, clinical and organizational psychology, evolutionary psychology, ethology, sociology and communication science offer important insights for persoc as well. To keep it simple: Everyone who is scientifically interested in the interplay between personality and social relationships is invited to join our Community. Help us to make persoc a flourishing platform for research on personality and social relationships.