James M. Jones, UD professor of psychology and director of UD's Black American Studies Program, will give the first College of Arts and Sciences Dean's Distinguished Lecture at 4 p.m., Tuesday, April 29, in 100 Wolf Hall.
Titled “The TRIOS Factor: A Psycho-cultural Theory of Coping, Surviving and Thriving in the African Diaspora,” Jones' talk will focus on his work on TRIOS, a psychological worldview that combines the African-inspired processes of (and is an acronym for) time, rhythm, improvisation, orality and spirituality. Jones proposes that these five factors, as a combined construct of individual differences, predict overall positive psychological states and effective coping with challenging circumstances in individuals of African descent.
Jones has been professor of psychology at UD since 1982 and director of the Black American Studies Program since 2005. A graduate of Oberlin College, he earned his master's degree at Temple University in 1967 and his doctoral degree from Yale University in 1970. Before joining the University, he was an assistant professor and an associate professor at Harvard University and a visiting professor at Howard University.
He is the author of Prejudice and Racism, published originally in 1972 and reissued in a second edition in 1997, and the coeditor of A Compelling Interest: Weighing the Evidence on Racial Dynamics in Higher Education. Additionally, Jones has contributed several chapters to edited books and written several articles in leading journals in psychology and sociology.
His research has been funded in a total amount of more than $23 million, and Jones has served as principal investigator and director on grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Education, the National Institute of Aging, the Rehabilitation Services Administration, the United States Office of Education, the United States Department of Transportation and WGBH-TV in Boston.
He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, the Society of Personality and Social Psychology, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues. He is a member of the Association of Black Psychologists, the American Sociological Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Black Psychology and the North American Journal of Psychology. His awards and honors include a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association, a Kurt Lewin Memorial Award from the American Psychological Association, the Distinguished Psychologist Award from the Association of Black Psychologists and induction into the Sports Hall of Fame in Elyria, Ohio.
The free lecture is open to the public. For more information on this event, call (302) 831-2793.