Phillip Ackerman

Professor of Psychology

Education

Ph.D. (1984) Quantitative/Measurement Psychology University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Research Interests

Human intelligence, abilities, testing, skill acquisition and retention, cognitive aging, linkages among cognitve, affective, and conative traits, educational and occupational selection

About

My research spans several related research areas of differential, educational, cognitive, applied experimental, and industrial and organizational psychology. Theory and empirical research I have conducted relates to the nature of adult learning, skill acquisition, student and employee selection, training, abilities, personality, and motivation. In collaboration with Professor Kanfer and our students, recent empirical research and theoretical contributions address the ability, motivation, personality, interest, and self-concept determinants of skilled performance and training success, and on the development and expression of intellectual competence in adulthood. Current research projects focus on age differences and gender differences in the breadth and depth of adult knowledge, on the taxonomic nature of perceptual speed abilities and their role in the development of skilled performance, and on physiological correlates of cognitive effort and fatigue. 

Selected Publications

• Ackerman, P. L.  (2011). 100 Years without Resting.  Chapter in P. L. Ackerman (Ed.) Cognitive fatigue: Multidisciplinary perspectives on current research and future applications. (pp. 11-37).  Washington, DC:  American Psychological Association.
• Ackerman, P. L.  (2014).  Nonsense, common sense, and science of expert performance:  Talent and individual differences.  Intelligence, 45, 6-17.
• Ackerman, P. L., Kanfer, R., & Beier, M. E.  (2013).  Trait complex, cognitive ability, and domain knowledge predictors of baccalaureate success, STEM persistence, and gender differences.  Journal of Educational Psychology, 105, 911-927.
• Ackerman, P. L. (in press). Adult intelligence:  The construct and the criterion problem. To appear in Perspectives on Psychological Science.
• von Stumm, S., & Ackerman, P. L.  (2013).  Investment and intelligence: A review and meta-analysis.  Psychological Bulletin, 139, 841-869.