Tim Bogg

Tim Bogg

“The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not.” – Mark Twain

Research interest(s)/area of expertise

Twain’s advice rings true, but it also assumes everyone is like him—struggling, or failing, to make healthier or safer choices. Of course, not everyone struggles with doing what they shouldn’t. My lab takes a multidisciplinary approach to examining how people differ in their engagement in health-promoting and health-degrading behaviors and their experience of health-related outcomes via two broad aims: 1) investigating the compelling story of personality differences, including political beliefs, in the expression of health-related behaviors and outcomes (e.g., preventive pandemic behaviors, excessive alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, poor diet, distracted mobile phone use); and 2) developing and testing models of health-related behavioral interventions that are informed by personality frameworks.

Research

• Using national data sets to examine individual-level psychosocial factors associated with confidence in a range of public institutions.
• Using experimental designs to test for effects of varying message frames and sources, as well as financial incentives, on preventive pandemic behaviors.
• Conducting longitudinal research examining psychosocial predictors and correlates of preventive behaviors, symptoms, diagnoses, vaccination, as well as changes in personality and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Using data from national studies to investigate relationships and pathways between personality traits and various markers of health-related quality of life.
• Conducted a randomized trial of a personality-informed psycho-educational training intervention for exercise initiation and maintenance.
• Conducted a randomized trial of a personality-informed motivational interviewing module for alcohol-related harm reduction among at-risk college drinkers.

Education

• Ph.D., Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• B.S., Journalism, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Awards and grants

• Experimental tests of message frames, message sources, and incentives on preventive pandemic behaviors
  Social Sciences Research Support Program
  Wayne State University, Office of the Vice President for Research: 9/7/22-9/26/23; Total costs: $10,000
  Role: PI

• Coronavirus coping, beliefs, and behavior study
  Betty J. Neitzel Psychology Faculty Research Grant
  Wayne State University, Department of Psychology: 12/1/20-7/31/23; Total costs: $12,000
  Role: PI

• PIPELine (Personality-Informed Prehabilitation in End-Stage LIver Disease)
  Northwestern University Medical School: Funded 8/1/18-7/31/19; Total costs: $25,000
  Role: Co-Investigator

• Detroit Area Young Adult Development Studies (DAYADS)
  Wayne State University
  NIH/NIAAA R00: Funded 8/1/2011-7/31/2014, Total costs: $700,698
  Role: PI

News mentions

2023

• WalletHub: 2023's Happiest States in America
• Psychology Today: The Conscientious Path: Exploring How One Personality Trait Influences Multiple Facets of Life
• WalletHub: 2023's Best & Worst Cities for Keeping New Year's Resolutions

2021

• Detroit Is It: Happy populous. Happy City? What do Happiness and Politics Have to do with One Another?
• Psychology Today: One Personality Trait Predicts Longevity More Than Others—But Why?

2020

• Psychology Today: Conscientious People Are Dealing Better with the Pandemic
• Academic Times: Adherence to COVID-19 Precautions Linked to Conscientiousness

2017

• Washington Post: Brain Training Games Don't Really Train Brains, a New Study Suggests

Selected publications

* denotes current/former graduate student.

COVID-19 pandemic

• Godfrey*, O., Bogg, T., & Milad*, E. (2024). A psychosocial model of COVID-19 vaccination: Antecedent and concurrent effects of demographics, traits, political beliefs, vaccine intention, information sources, mandates, and flu vaccine history. Annals of Behavioral Medicine
• Bogg, T., Milad*, E., & Godfrey*, O. (2023). COVID-19 vaccine intention: Prospective and concurrent tests of a disposition-belief-motivation framework. Health Psychology
• Milad*, E., & Bogg, T. (2021). Spring 2020 COVID-19 surge: Prospective relations between demographic factors, personality traits, social cognitions and guideline adherence, mask wearing, and symptoms in a U.S. sample. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 55, 665-676
• Bogg, T., & Milad*, E. (2020). Demographic, personality, and social cognition correlates of coronavirus guideline adherence in a U.S. sample. Health Psychology, 12, 1026-1036

Personality and health and well-being

• Milad*, E., & Bogg, T. (2020). Personality traits, coping, health-related behaviors, and cumulative physiological health in a national sample: 10 Year Prospective effects of conscientiousness via perceptions of activity on allostatic load. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 54, 880-892
• Crane, N. T., Hayes*, J. M., Viviano*, R. P., Bogg, T., & Damoiseaux, J. S. (2020). Resting-state functional brain connectivity in older adults: Exploring links among personality traits, cognitive performance, and the default mode network. Personality Neuroscience, e3
• Bogg, T., & Slatcher, R. B. (2015). Activity mediates conscientiousness' relationship to diurnal cortisol slope in a national sample. Health Psychology, 34, 1195-1199
• Bogg, T., & Roberts, B. W. (2013). The case for conscientiousness: Evidence and implications for a personality trait marker of health and longevity. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 45, 278-288
• Bogg, T., & Roberts, B. W. (2004). Conscientiousness and health-related behaviors: A meta-analysis of the leading behavioral contributors to mortality. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 887-919

Personality-informed interventions

• Matz, S. C., Beck, E. D., Atherton, O. E., White, M., Rauthmann, J. F., Mroczek, D. K., Kim, M., & Bogg, T. (2023). Personality science in the digital age: The promises and challenges of psychological targeting for personalized behavior change at scale. Perspectives on Psychological Science
• Bogg, T., & Vo*, P. T. (2022). Realistic effort action plans (REAP) for exercise among underactive and inactive university students: A randomized trial. Journal of American College Health
• Bogg, T., Marshbanks, M., Doherty*, H., & Vo*, P. T. (2019). Testing a brief motivational-interviewing educational commitment module for at-risk college drinkers: A randomized trial. Addictive Behaviors, 90, 151-157

Personality and diet and exercise

• Bogg, T. (2016). Self-control, dietary quality, and new frontiers in the study of traits and wellness: A commentary on Keller, Hartmann, and Siegrist. Psychology & Health, 31, 1328-1331
• Vo*, P. T., & Bogg, T. (2015). Testing Theory of Planned Behavior and Neo-Socioanalytic Theory models of trait activity, industriousness, exercise social cognitions, exercise intentions, and physical activity in a representative U.S. sample. Frontiers in Psychology, 6: 1114
• Bogg, T. (2008). Conscientiousness, the Transtheoretical Model of Change, and exercise: A Neo-Socioanalytic integration of trait and social cognitive frameworks in the prediction of behavior. Journal of Personality, 76, 775-801
• Bogg, T., Voss, M., Wood, D., & Roberts, B. W. (2008). A hierarchical investigation of personality and behavior: Examining Neo-Socioanalytic models of health-related outcomes. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 183-2007

Trait self-control, subjective social investment, decisions to drink and alcohol consumption

• Finn, P. R., Gerst, K., Lake, A., & Bogg, T. (2017). Decisions to attend and drink at party events: The effects of incentives and disincentives and lifetime alcohol and antisocial problems. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 41, 1622-1629
• Bogg, T., Lasecki*, L., & Vo*, P. T. (2016). School investment, drinking motives, and high-risk high-reward partying decisions mediate the relationship between trait self-control and alcohol consumption among college drinkers. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 77, 133-142
• Bogg, T., Finn, P. R., & Monsey, K. E. (2012). A year in the college life: Evidence for the social investment hypothesis via trait self-control and alcohol consumption. Journal of Research in Personality, 46, 694-699
• Bogg, T. (2011). Investigating drinking via the social investment hypothesis: Committed relationship status moderates the association between educational investment and excessive alcohol consumption among college students. Personality and Individual Differences, 50, 1104-1109
• Bogg, T., & Finn, P. R. (2009). An ecologically-based model of alcohol consumption decision-making: Evidence for the discriminative and predictive role of contextual reward and punishment information. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 70, 446-457

Personality and electronically-mediated information-seeking and social behaviors

• Briskin*, J. L., Bogg, T., & Haddad, J. (2018). Lower trait stability, stronger normative beliefs, habitual phone use, and unimpeded phone access predict distracted college student messaging in social, academic, and driving contexts. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 2633
• Bogg, T. (2017). Social media membership, browsing, and profile updating in a representative U.S. sample: Independent and interdependent effects of Big Five traits and aging and social factors. Frontiers in Psychology; 8, 1122
• Bogg, T., & Vo*, P. T. (2014). Openness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and family health and aging concerns interact in the prediction of health-related Internet searches in a representative U.S. sample. Frontiers in Psychology, 5: 370

Behavioral disinhibition, externalizing psychopathology, cognitive control and cognitive capacity

• Bogg, T., & Lasecki*, L. (2015). Reliable gains? Evidence for substantially underpowered designs in studies of working memory training transfer to fluid intelligence. Frontiers in Psychology, 5: 1589
• Bogg, T., & Roberts, B. W. (2013). Duel or diversion? Conscientiousness and executive functioning in the prediction of health and longevity. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 45, 400-401
• Bogg, T., Fukunaga, R., Finn, P. R., & Brown, J. W. (2012). Cognitive control links alcohol use, trait disinhibition, and reduced cognitive capacity: Evidence for medial prefrontal cortex dysregulation during reward-seeking behavior. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 122, 112-118
• Endres, M. J., Rickert, M. E., Bogg, T., Lucas, J., & Finn, P. R. (2011). Externalizing psychopathology and behavioral disinhibition: Working memory mediates signal discriminability and reinforcement moderates response bias in approach-avoidance learning. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 120, 336-351
• Bogg, T., & Finn, P. R. (2010). A self-regulatory model of behavioral disinhibition in late adolescence: Integrating personality traits, externalizing psychopathology, and cognitive capacity. Journal of Personality, 78, 441-470

Citation index

• Google Scholar

Courses taught by Tim Bogg

Winter Term 2025 (future)

• PSY7250 - Theory of Personality

Fall Term 2024 (current)

• PSY2410 - Health Psychology

Winter Term 2024

• PSY2410 - Health Psychology

Fall Term 2023

• PSY2410 - Health Psychology

Winter Term 2023

• PSY7250 - Theory of Personality

Fall Term 2022

• PSY2410 - Health Psychology

Winter Term 2022

• PSY2020 - Research Methods In Psychology
• PSY2410 - Health Psychology