Patricia H. Hawley

Patricia H. Hawley received her Ph.D. in psychology in 1994 from the University of California at Riverside, with emphases in animal behavior and quantitative methods. Upon completion, she held a post-doctoral research position at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany. She returned to the United States to a research position at Yale University, and took a faculty position at the University of Kansas in 2002. In 1999 she wrote her own theoretical perspective on power in human social groups (resource control theory) and has published many papers using this framework to explain and explore children’s aggression, peer relationships, moral functioning, and adults’ sexual fantasy and interpersonal relationships. While at the University of Kansas, she has been formally recognized for her teaching, advising, and novel research program. Dr. Hawley spear-headed two volumes: Aggression and adaptation: The bright side of bad behavior (Erlbaum), and The evolution of personality and individual differences (Oxford). She occasionally writes for Psychology Today.