AHC Guest Lecturers
Fred Bryant	Barbara Fredrickson	Karen Reivich
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi	Shelly Gable	Barry Schwartz
Gregg Easterbrook	Christopher Peterson	George Vaillant

Fred B. Bryant

Fred B. Bryant is Professor of Social Psychology at Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois, where he has taught and conducted research since 1982. He received his Ph.D. in social psychology from Northwestern University in 1980, and also received a three-year (1979-82) National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Mental Health for postdoctoral training in survey research at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. Dr. Bryant regularly teaches college courses on social psychology, personality, statistics, and research methods, and he has won awards for excellence in both undergraduate and graduate teaching.

Dr. Bryant has also been highly active in research in social and personality psychology over the past two decades. He currently has over 100 professional publications in psychology, including 81 published articles, 11 invited book chapters, and 5 books. Dr. Bryant has also presented 90 papers at professional conferences around the world. Reflecting his interdisciplinary interests, over the years he has published articles not only in social psychology and personality, but also in clinical psychology, developmental psychology, chemistry, and political science journals, as well. Dr. Bryant has also presented numerous invited addresses and workshops at many prominent universities and professional meetings over the years. These include invited addresses at Yale, Harvard, Northwestern, University of Michigan, Texas Christian University, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), and DePaul; invited workshops at the United States Air Force Academy and UIC; and several invited addresses at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association and the Positive Psychology Summit.

Dr. Bryant is perhaps best known for his work on savoring, or thoughts and behaviors aimed at influencing the frequency, intensity, and duration of positive experience. Dr. Bryant’s research interests in savoring originated during his post-doctoral fellowship, when he used nationally-representative survey data to study the criteria that men and women use to evaluate the subjective quality of their lives. This research revealed a gap in available psychological theory and measurement such that there was no understanding of people’s perceptions of their capacity to derive satisfaction, fulfillment, and meaning in life. Dr. Bryant’s earliest work on savoring (Bryant, 1989) distinguished savoring as a separate process from coping and from subjective well-being; and his later work demonstrated the utility of savoring as a predictor of subjective well-being and distress in grade school children, adolescents, college students, and the elderly. More recently, Dr. Bryant has developed and validated a self-report instrument for assessing individuals’ beliefs about their capacity to enjoy positive experiences beforehand via anticipation, savor positive experiences while they are happening, and savor positive memories through reminiscence. Dr. Bryant is currently collecting data in Japan, Canada, Australia, and the United States in a cross-cultural investigation of savoring styles in Eastern and Western cultures. He is also working on a book about savoring as a process in positive psychology, which will be published in 2006.

In recognition for the impact of his applied research on reducing HIV/AIDS risks in adolescents, Dr. Bryant recently received the 42nd Annual Research Award from CYCLE/Whiz Kids Foundation (Chicago, IL) for “fostering equity and justice for children through research.” This prestigious award recognizes the contributions that his research has made in improving the quality of children’s lives.

Further reflecting his national visibility as a scholar, Dr. Bryant has served as a methodological consultant for the United States Government Accounting Office (GAO), as a statistical consultant for numerous top-ranked medical centers (including Loyola, Northwestern, Children’s Memorial Hospital, UIC, and Chicago Medical School) as well as internationally prominent marketing firms, and as an expert social science witness in several prominent Federal Court cases.

back to top