BioSketch

Who is Paul E. Spector? A Brief Bio

I was born in New York City in 1949, and moved with my family to Sarasota, Florida in 1958. I attended the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa from 1968 to 1975, receiving a BA in psychology and a MA and Ph.D. in industrial/organizational (IO) psychology. After spending seven years in several academic and nonacademic positions, I returned to the USF Psychology Department in 1982 where today I am a Distinguished University Professor and director of our interdisciplinary occupational health psychology (OHP) program. The OHP program bridges the Psychology Department with the NIOSH-funded USF Sunshine Education and Training Center (ERC), housed in our College of Public Health. I also have a courtesy appointment in the Information Systems and Decision Sciences Department in the Muma College of Business at USF, where I teach in the executive Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) program. From 2000 until summer 2015 I was director of the USF IO Psychology Doctoral Program.

My research interests include both the content and methodology of the field. Content areas concern the health, safety, and well-being of employees which falls under the category of occupaitonal health psychology, My research is on accidents/injury, mistreatment/violence, stress, and counterproductive work behavior. Methodological areas are complex statistics and psychological measurement. I've published in many journals of the field, including Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Personnel Psychology, Psychological Bulletin, and Work & Stress. I've written books on both methodology (research design and SAS programming) and content, including an IO psychology textbook (Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Research and Practice). A complete list of my publications is in my curriculum vita. At present I am the Associate Editor for Point/Counterpoint for Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Associate Editor for Work & Stress. My most active interests right now are workplace safety and violence exposure, and the nature of scientific inference.